TravelswithCharie

According to legend, Lake Bled was created by fairies. Bled Island was the setting for their joyous dancing on starry nights. No wonder this place is magical.  Bled Island I walked along the south shore of the lake from the pletna boat station near the Grand Hotel following the trail that’s parallel to the Cesta Svobode road. I passed some beautiful mansions, an abandoned house and a tunnel on the way and stopped at a lookout point where I had a good view of Bled Island. Forgetting to bring a hat was a huge faux pas as the sun was so unforgiving. It was an easier walk back to the center of Bled with the sun behind me. I did bring bottled water and that was clearly a bright idea. Pletna Boats These colorful boats take passengers to Bled Island for 12 euros. There is a scheduled hourly departure. It doesn’t include the entry fee to the Church of the Mother of God and the Clock Tower. Bled Castle and the neo Gothic Church of St. Martin Notice the turquoise blue waters of the lake and ho

Pismo Beach Pier, California Traveling during the pandemic was  quite different from my previous last minute trips with no hotel reservations and lots of taken for granted expectations. There are health disclosures to fill, vaccination cards to show immigration, covid tests to take, and in some cases, travel insurance and confirmed paid hotel reservations to show the border police. Thankfully the airports were quiet at the beginning of my European trip in June but by the time I got home in July from Paris, travelers were back in droves that it took me close to three hours to get to my gate. The same was true in December when I returned from Costa Rica. LAX was full of Christmas travelers, it was hard to find any seat at the gates let alone, breathing space. Enough whining! After all, I visited 7 countries in 2021 plus the Arctic Circle, Interior Alaska and Las Vegas and had reunions with my close friends in Michigan, Amsterdam and Vienna. It was an amazing year of travel! April. After

Iceland After decades of solo travels around the world, these are the countries where I felt the safest. I’ve visited these places on the list several times except for Finland (which I had the pleasure of visiting once) and didn’t encounter any threatening incidences in any of them. I found instead the people were positively responsive when I approached them for directions or help with the language barrier. I especially remember my experiences in Ireland where I needed to find a plug adapter and a saleslady took time from her work to show me the store that carried it, in Japan where the non-English speaking train ticket agent painstakingly helped me with a smile despite the long line behind me or the restaurant chef who showed me how to order my meal using a strange machine, or in Finland where I met friendly people in church and whose friendship I’ve kept to this day as I have with my friends in the Netherlands and Romania. There are so many beautiful stories from my solo trips which

Dr. Reysa Alenzuela at Loket Castle in Czechia   Where and when was your first trip outside your home country? It was in 2004, I went to Hongkong and nearby provinces of southeast China i.e. Guandong, Guangzhou and Schenzhen. During that time, Filipinos didn’t travel as much as we did a decade later. I was relying on the travel agency and joining the bus tour. But since I was a first timer, that was the most I could get for an experience. As expected, the bus tour brought us to those jade museums where we ended up buying unnecessary things. I remember we were also brought to a factory of leather products. That was my first vicarious experience of a different culture - the tour guide told us about legends of the five goats in Guangzhou, how people love tea in China. It was the first time I bargained by only using a calculator. That was pretty much a superficial experience but my love for travel grew from there. I became curious about different cultures. What is it about traveling tha