Four enchanted places you should visit right now

1) Chefchaouen

Believe me when I say that I love Morocco, but I must recognize that in big cities like Fez or Marrakesh you can easily feel overwhelmed. The strong smells and the chaos of the medina, the touts, or simply the amount of people walking down the street can make you feel like you've already had enough of this country. In that case a good idea is to spend a few days in Chefchaouen, a small quiet town nestled in the hills of northern Morocco.

A quiet street in the medina

There I just walked around, taking ridiculously gorgeous pictures, and shopping for Moroccan slippers or scarfs without feeling the pressure of the vendors in bigger towns. The walls of the medina are painted a deep blue and even the doors, the stone stairs and the furniture are often blue. 

Men wear the traditional djellaba and look like mysterious wizards, as if they were the last of a disappearing population of magical beings. In Chefchaouen I found people to be extremely welcoming and I appreciated the fact that children could play happily on the quiet streets and small squares. 

Add that to the fact that there are great hiking possibilities all around and you have your perfect Moroccan getaway from the bustling city life of Moroccan cities.

Read more about Chefchaouen in this post from April 2015.


2) Bled

Did you ever wonder what the place where Snow White and Prince Charming come from might look like? I think it must look like Bled.

Lake Bled

If you've never heard of this lake, maybe it's because it is found in a tiny and relatively unknown European country called Slovenia. Other than being the birthplace of Melania Trump, this Alpine country is little known. In a novel by Paulo Coelho a librarian from the capital Ljubljiana decides to commit suicide after reading an article in a magazine about her country, making people believe that she did it because people don't even know where Slovenia is.

Lake Bled seen from the castle

I have a plan to visit Bled in every season: in winter with snow, in autumn with yellow leaves and in spring with flowers in bloom. I have already been in the summer and it is gorgeous: I cannot think of a better country than Slovenia to breathe some fresh air and rest your eyes with a palette of colours unlike that of any other country.

Read more about Bled and Slovenia in this post, which is actually the first one I wrote on this blog.

3) Sintra

In "Journey to Portugal" Saramago described this small town a few kilometers from Lisbon: as an "English folly, paid for by the cloth trade ...  a monument to an age that had every taste imaginable, but never really defined any of them ....  eclectic to the point of eccentricity .... As empires dominated the world economically, they amused themselves with alien cultures". 

Palacio da Pena

Sintra resembles the dream of a king that went slightly mad  at the end of his life.  Several royal palaces dot the hilly landscape, each one slightly crazier than the other. Some elements are Gothic, others call back to traditional Muslim architecture, or to the Portuguese Manueline style. As if this wasn't enough, mysterious gargoyles look at you from weird angles.



Palacio da Pena

The most charming palace according to me is Quinta da Regaleira, especially the Gothic-style gardens. I spent a couple of hours exploring the grottoes, the statues and the ponds, wondering what the upside-down staircase might mean and feeling that every pinnacle and gargoyle has a secret to reveal.

The gardens of Quinta da Regaleira

If palaces are not your thing in the small town the charming yellow-trimmed houses are a pleasure for the eyes, and the streets bear the names of the writers and artists who tread and wrote about this place, including Lord Byron. 

Read more about my trip to Sintra in December 2015 here.


4) Ait-Benhaddou

I know, I'm listing Morocco twice in this list, but it's merely because that country of djinns is literally bewitching. Moreover Ait-Benhaddou is one of the most incredible places I have been to.

Ait Benhaddou

You may have seen it as the location for countless movies and TV shows, including as Yunkai in Game of Thrones. It is usually portrayed as a city made of sand that appears like a mirage in the middle of the desert. And that is actually what it is: a particularly good-looking ksar that is not completely abandoned and that is at the edge of the desert. The Touareg guides in blue turbans lead the way into a magic world, where you may find anything from Ali Baba's lamp to an ancient amulet.

A berber guide in Ait Benhaddou

This was one of the highlights of my trip to Morocco. It is a perfect stop on the way to the Sahara desert and it is a good opportunity to learn about the ancient trade routes that pass through this part of the world.

Souvenirs in Ait Benhaddou

Read about my trip to the Sahara desert here.

Slovenia - a fairytale country

I have just returned from a short trip to Slovenia, a country I have been dreaming about visiting for years. In spite of being so close to northeastern Italy where I come from, Slovenia is relatively unknown to most Italian tourists, who have already discovered the coasts of Croatia and regularly go to learn English and sunbathe in Malta, but apparently know nothing about this small Alpine country so close to home.

 

There were Italian tourists in Slovenia of course, but not an awful lot. Most people I talked to before my trip were bewildered by my choice. "Why on earth would you want to go to Slovenia?", "Didn't you mean Croatia?", "What's  there to see or do?".

 

I'll answer with a picture.

 



View of Lake Bled

Slovenia has lakes with pristine waters and landscapes  that seem to come straight out of a fairytale, amazing waterfalls and gorges, plenty of possibilities to do water sports and hiking, picturesque villages, caves, historic towns and more.

 

For my short trip I chose the lakes on the northwestern tip of Slovenia, close to the Italian and Austrian borders. Lake Bled is one of the major tourist attractions of the country, but the less-developed and quiet Lake Bohinj is  also worth visiting. The latter is part of Triglav National Park, whose peak also appears on the Slovenian national flag.

 

As for Slovenia itself, I found a country full of welcoming people, and very well organized to receive tourists willing to see the natural beauty that it offers. It's a Slavic country with a central European feel to it, but in spite of not being a huge fan of central Europe I fell for it!  

Bled

Bled is absolutely backpackers' central to Slovenia. There were plenty of Australian, British and American backpackers, to the point that I felt a bit weird, being one of the few non-native speakers of English in the hostel. The lake is stunning and ridiculously photogenic: incredibly azure waters, a 1000--year-old castle perched on a rock, and a lovely little island, actually the only island in all of Slovenia. It is exactly how I picture a fairytale country, where I would encounter Prince Charming and perhaps even the Evil Queen. In spite of the tourists, the scenery remains unspoilt because only one side of the lake has major buildings and tourist infrastructures, whereas in the rest only the occasional rowing centre or historical villa dots the landscape.

View of the island from the castle, Bled

 

You can reach the island via a boat trip that takes you all around the lake, then to the island and back (12 €), hire your own rowboat, or even swim to the island from the narrowest point (in that case you'll be walking around the island barefooted and bare-chested, which is a bit weird). I chose the first: it was a very relaxing trip and I took plenty of pictures. On the island you can visit the small museum, the church where you can pull the cord to ring the bell for good luck, and the clock tower (6€).

Rowing boat on Lake Bled

 

 

Back on the mainland, you can reach the lovely castle perched on the rock, either by car or on foot via a staircase. From the castle you have breath-taking views, as well as a museum on the history of the region, a restaurant, a forge, and a wine cellar where you can spill your own wine. The castle is open until late in the evening, but if you go there late-ish as I did some of the attractions will be closed, in spite of the fact that you'll still have to pay the 8€ admission price. The castle itself isn't mind-blowing, but I'm happy I took those pictures of the lake. If you are up to it, you can follow a path around the rock without paying the entrance fee, and you'll have one or two viewpoints, but mind that they are not as good as the ones in the courtyard of the castle.

Bled Castle (Blejski Grad in Slovenian)

Overall I found the attractions in Bled a bit overpriced. The food was as expensive as in Italy. Coffee and cappuccino as good as in Italy. The famous Bled cream cake (kremna rezina, apparently known with a thousand different names) is what in Italy we would call a "millesfoglie", layers of pastry with custard and whipped-cream filling, plus powdered sugar on top. The Smon patisserie on Grajska Cesta, close to the bus station, is said to be the best place to have it.

Wait for my next post on Lake Bohinj, Savica Waterfall and Vintgar Gorge! Feel free to leave a comment...