It all started when I was browsing over a coffee table book, while at a friend's house, as I was looking for interesting places to go to while in Europe. One of the countries that were featured in that book was Norway, where I came across a page showing the majestic Aurora Borealis in the Norwegian night sky.
WHAT IS THE AURORA BOREALIS
THIS is the Aurora Borealis. Source: Google Images
The Aurora is a natural-occurring phenomenon which happens whenever particles of the solar wind coming from the Sun come in contact with the Earth's atmosphere. There's a more technical explanation, but this is as layman as I can get. Borealis is because this phenomenon happens in the northern hemisphere, usually above the Arctic Circle. If the Aurora occurs in the southern hemisphere, it is called Aurora Australis.
Why the North?
Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, are more commonly witnessed because there are more inhabited islands in the north than in the south. Countries that usually experience this phenomenon include Alaska, Canada, and the Scandinavian countries of Finland, Sweden and Norway. Moreover, since the earth tilts at an angle on its axis, there are certain countries that experience the lights more often than the rest.
Of all the countries in Europe that I was able to visit, my ultimate favorite would have to be Italy. If there's one word that could best describe the country, it would be BEAUTIFUL. Everything in Italy is utterly beautiful: the places, the people, the food, the language, the culture, the history... even in the most gruesome tale behind an Italian landmark, you will be able to see a glimpse of beauty. I had a blast getting lost in this country. Twice.
FROM FRANCE TO ITALY
For last year's November 1 long weekend, I planned a trip to go backpacking across two of the most famous countries in Europe: France and Italy. My first country to visit from Warsaw was France, where I was able to go to the various landmarks in Paris. My transportation of choice from France to Italy was the train; when in Europe, you always take the train.
Trenitalia: the national railway transport of Italy.
From the Paris Bercy Station, I took the overnight train to Italy. Overnight trains differ from regular trains by the seating arrangements. AFAIK, overnight trains have cabins where seats get converted to beds (couchettes for the second-class passengers and sleepers for first-class passengers). This makes the long journey more comfortable, as you will be able to actually lie down to sleep as opposed to sitting down or reclining your seat.
The journey from Paris to Italy took around 11 hours for me, as there were stops along the way. My point of entry was in Florence, where I took a local train ride of a couple more hours to the first city in my itinerary, Pisa.
Having a Schengen Visa is quite pointless if you are only going to stay in one country for the entire duration of your trip. This was not my intention, and so as soon as I got hold of my visa, I started listing down the countries that I wanted to visit. Downside is that I was only limited to three months; needless to say that I was expected to WORK during those months. Luckily for me, there were two long weekends that coincided with some of Poland's public holidays, so I was able to squeeze in some countries during those days.
PLANNING THE TRIP
Europe is a rather expensive place to go around. While there are some countries that still use their own currency (Poland being one of them), most of the countries already adopted the Euro currency. This means that the commodities being sold follow a standard pricing. And if you ask me, these prices are absurdly high compared to the prices in the Philippines. For example, a bottle of iced tea in the Philippines costs around 25 PhP. In Paris (where they use the Euro), it costs around 3 EU. As of writing, 1 EU is equivalent to 56.7382727 PhP. Now you do the math.
For this reason, I wanted to make my trips as cheap as possible. I started by narrowing down the countries that I wanted to go to, based on which country is the most sulit to visit since I only have an average of four days per trip. I absolutely cannot sacrifice Paris, so my next step was to check if there are other countries that I can squeeze in with it. My first itinerary was Paris-Spain-Italy, but when I realized that there are a LOT of places to go to in Italy, I scratched off Spain and concentrated on Paris-Italy instead.
Next step is to decide how to get there. See, Poland is at the eastern part of the continent, while France and Italy is at the western part. The map below may look small, but you have to remember that the itty bitty purple blob that is Russia is actually the largest country in the world.
Voila! C'est le Europe (I have no idea what I just said).
