Winding down in the beautiful, quaint, Czech village of Cesky Krumlov is exactly what we have needed after visiting 5 capital cities in less than 4 weeks. It has allowed us to stop and have a good think about where we are at both physically and emotionally and where to next….the plan was Vienna in Austria, but our enthusiasm for discovering another city has faded. Sure, each city we have visited has had its own character and interesting features, but the pace is pretty much all the same. Not only do the cities tend to be extremely crowded, especially in peak season, but they tend to crowd your mind as well and leave little space for rest. We are ready to slow down a bit, to visit places that are not so demanding on the senses and provide more space for relaxation and reflection. Places where we can appreciate our natural surroundings rather than just the beauty of buildings or manmade monuments. It is easy to fall into the trap of visiting the ‘popular’ places, the ones that pop up first on a Google search, but you really have to ask yourself ‘Why do I want to visit this place?’ and ‘What is it about here that I am actually interested in seeing/experiencing?’ We now completely understand why some people say that while touring through Europe, they grew weary of Churches, Museums & monuments. We haven’t seen that many and we already are! Of course we are not going to rule out cities completely and we do plan to visit Munich in the next week or so, but it is definitely time to turn down the pace a few notches.
In the last few days, we have decided to include Croatia in this road trip after hearing from a fellow traveler about how easy it is to get around by car and being reminded how much more you can see with access to four wheels. Hopefully, we will be there by the middle-end September….but for now, we are looking forward to spending a few days in the Austrian and Swiss Alps where we will be lapping up the view.
2 comments:
:-) So true. In Australia we wanted to see a lot of different stuff, one of them was rain forrest. When we saw third we had enough and just skip the others on the way. Well, you know, it is just a forrest after all.
I can't get enough of all kinds of nature....because I find uniqueness in every living thing even if it is similar...it's manmade things and buildings I find repetitive. But everyone is different and it is tough when you're travelling because you want to see as much as possible and with limited time some sights have to be sacrificed:-)
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