Iceland getaway
When the weather isn't so pleasing in Finland and you know that there is a chance to go and adventure Iceland with you friends, the choice is pretty easy! Iceland it is! I have visited Iceland five years ago and it was time to visit it again. Winter can be a pretty brutal time to go to Iceland, but now it was looking great and we were going for it! Iceland awaits.
My friends Joel and Philip were flying from Oslo few after I landed to Iceland, so I went to pick up our car for the trip. Of course we were going for a Land Rover Defender... the only way to go in Iceland.
I got the car and picked up the guys from the airport, so the trip was ready to start! The weather for the first day wasn't looking as good as the rest days were looking, so we decided to stop by at the Blue Lagoon (hot springs) right away to get the proper Icelandic welcome! For the first night we head to Reykjavik as the next day Joel had booked us a flying tour which was epic. This was basically the coolest thing ever, even if our fingers were freezing and most of the cool things were only for your own eyes, as shooting from the plane can be pretty tricky.
For the rest of the trip our plan was to basically drive to Stokksnes and back. We always booked our Airbnb's on the way as we didn't really have a 100% tight schedule. This is such a good way to do it if you're not going at the most busy time of the year. We had a really successful trip and got to see some of the coolest things around and it wasn't too busy at all this time of the year. Such a good adventure. See the photos below!
Best,
Daniel
From dusk till dawn in Trentino
In Spring 2017 we were invited to go and explore Trentino, Italy together with Samuel and Hildengunn for a nice ski and adventure trip. None of us had ever been in that area, so it was really nice to go and have this opportunity.
Our first destination was Cavalese. My arrival there was a few hours earlier, so I was able to go and do some sightseeing around in this gorgeous village. Almost every town around here are surrounded by mountains, which makes it very very nice. Later that evening when Samuel arrived, we were taken to a nice pizzeria in the centre. Italian food and the eating culture is just marvelous. We got to enjoy that since day one. Although we actually knew that already! On our first dinner I even got to try an amazing Michelin restaurant dish due to my allergies as they brought my food from the next door Michelin restaurant.
As we were in the alps and it was still winter time, so what would an evening be without a spa. Luckily all the hotels we were at had their own spas. Going to a spa became our daily routine. No wonder since it felt amazing after our long days of adventuring and we were here to enjoy the full experience anyways.
We didn’t come here just to enjoy the amazing food and other nice city activities. There are mountains and ski hills everywhere, so we needed get some action on the slopes for sure. Our first full day we went to a ski hill called Bellamonte, where we enjoyed the slopes and to make it even a better experience we had a local lunch up on the hill. Funny thing is that it was a buffet and me and Samuel ate way too much as the food was amazing, so our snowboarding was over for the day. As we were returning our rental equipment we saw that there was an amazing looking luge run. They also had luges for rent, so we needed to go and give it a try! I think we’ve never laughed so much that we were laughing while riding.
Hildengunn finally joined us for the rest of the trip and we got to go for a nice hike in Val Di Fassa, where we moved from Cavalese. We took a lift up to the ski hill and made our way to a nice mountain hut by walking. The weather was amazing and it was a perfect time to enjoy a nice cup of coffee. We were really slow as we were taking photos on the way once in a while. We tried to be fast as we wanted to take a gondola to an amazing lookout place before it closed for the day. We made it just in time and got some nice photos from the amazing mountain top.
We had few days of nice guided snowshoe/mountain adventures. The first hike was to visit Malga Canvere where on the way our guide showed us all these interesting things about the local nature and surroundings. The area there is just amazing and the weather was incredible that day! Our other hike in San Martino wasn’t as lucky as we experienced a huge snowstorm. Despite the weather we still had fun and made the most out of it! Later in San Martino we took a cable car to Altopiano delle Pale di San Martino which would’ve offered an amazing view over the valley. This time we were not that lucky, but I guess we need to come back for that!
Our week went by so fast. We definitely got to see a lot, but there’s so many places I really want to see and experience again.
We highly recommend making your way there and experience the Italian side of the Alps.
Our trip was made together with:
https://trentinolife.visittrentino.info/en/winter-l1
Destinations:
http://www.visitfiemme.it/en/winter
The active side of Slovenia
Our awesome travel crew got a chance to go and visit Slovenia and especially the Triglav National Park area not far from Ljubljana. We wanted to go and explore the more active side of Slovenia as our preferred accommodation was mountain cabins rather than comfortable spa hotels in these beautiful towns in the middle of the mountains.
For sure we were going to visit the towns also with their well known sights. But our main goal for the trip, was to do two longer overnight hikes.
Our first hike was to make it to the Seven Lakes of Triglav and staying in the Koca pri Triglavskih jezerih mountain hut for the night. The hike was a beautiful 8km one way path with 900m of elevation climb. We took it pretty slow to enjoy the views and shoot some photos while hiking. The cabin is located by a lake between high rising mountains, which makes it a breathtaking place. Next morning we took a little different route back to our car with also very incredible views!
Our main goal was to hike to the Triglav Lodge on Kredarica, next to the highest peak in Slovenia which summit stands at 2864m. The hike was going to be very nice, but the weather wasn't looking too promising for us. We still wanted to go as there are some mountain huts on the way, where we could find shelter if the weather turned bad.
The hike is around 12km long, but the 1500m ascent makes it pretty exhausting with all the camera gear. We started the hike at noon and the weather was really nice. You could feel that the storm was coming as the weather started to feel very oppressive. We made it for late lunch in the midway hut, when the first small storm hit us. We waited it out and continued with fairly nice weather towards our destination Kredarica Hut. The last bit of the hike is also super nice and another storm hit like 5 minutes before reaching the hut, so we made it just in time and were able to get our stuff to dry out in the hut.
When we were in the hut us boys were really up for summiting the Triglav the next morning. It is a pretty mentally demanding and scary climb, but definitely doable if you have any experience and good gear. Around half of the people who go up wear Via Ferrata equipment. We had a chat with the lodge host, who said we'd be fine with helmets there as it's also very much faster to do it. We wanted to reach the summit before the sunrise, so saving time was important. We'd have a long hike ahead of us the same day too.
We started the climb at 4 am and it was nice to see in the total darkness how there were others going up too from the small headlamps on the wall. It was really exhausting and demanding climb. We reached the summit just in time for the sunrise and it was totally worth it! One amazing experience for the books!
We got to see other things too on our days in the valley and Lake Bohinj, Lake Bled and Soca Valley were definitely my favorites! I highly recommend going to Slovenia for a trip. It's still fairly untouristy and people are super friendly!
-Daniel
