Jevgeni Fenko: A Trip With Unknown Destination
TalTech’s IT Systems Development student Jevgeni Fenko told us about his spontaneous road trip together with his beautiful family this summer. Enjoy stunning landscapes and read the adventurous story.
“Beside the IT I like to travel, especially when I am the commander and the driver. At least once per year we travel somewhere together with my family. Usually the route is well planned by my wife, but this year COVID broke the rules and traditions.
So this summer, first the plan was to take a car and travel around the Baltic States without any particular destinations on mind. Then, we decided to change the direction to South West and travel to Poland or Chech Republic if they will be opened. And here is how it went.”
DAY 1
Tallinn, Estonia — Warsaw, Poland
1009 km
The current situation in the world creates a lot of disadvantages, but also provides us with some benefits, and so when my wife, my two adorable daughters and myself passed the Estonia-Latvia border, I told them: “Look, the route to Italy is going to be open this week. It is our opportunity to visit famous places in Italy with no crowds around. Maybe we’ll never have such a chance again!”
Two young pasta and pizza lovers agreed without any doubt, while our fear to be stuck in Italy in case of a new COVID-wave was still strong. Nevertheless, we took a risk and decided to head to Venice and started thinking about the next point of our trip. So the unplanned Italian journey began and I was on my way to make my dream come true.
Our first stop was in Warsaw, a bit more than 1000 km from home. We have never been to the Polish capital before, so we planned to take some time for breakfast and a nice stroll in the city.
We were very lucky with weather, as the rain has followed us on our way, but we moved fast and were one step ahead of it.
DAY 2
Breakfast in Warsaw
Warsaw, Poland — Graz, Austria
870 km
It was a sunny Sunday morning. The Stare Miasto (Old Town) was peaceful, silent and so beautiful. The decision to look around the city was right. By the way, the parking in the Old Center of Warsaw is free on Sundays, so don’t be afraid to park there. The day was spent on the road and the next stop was already in Austria. Natasha (my wife) found some beautiful panorama pictures online, so we decided to look for those beautiful views next morning.
DAY 3
Castle Schlossberg in Graz
Graz, Austria — Venice, Italy
436 km
Evening in Venice
Spoiler: we didn’t find the point with the beautiful view from the web, but instead found a castle Schlossberg, located on the mountain in the center of Graz. You can reach it on foot or taking the Schlossbergbahn: small wagons, which will rise you up to the mountain on a railway.
Honestly, the castle itself has nothing special, but a beautiful view over the city opening from the Schlossberg clock tower.
The clock tower itself has an elevator down to the cave beneath the castle and a slide leading back to the city for the laziest ones (like myself:). I highly recommend you to chose the slide, it was fun, crazy and scary at the same time.
Once we left Graz, the shower started, but we didn’t care about it as we were full of expectations about our next stop in Venice.
And finally Venice… The first thing you see upon arrival to the old part of the city by train is…
It leaves you speechless and you can’t say anything more except for “Wow!” and run to the nearest bridge to look at the channels and take lots of pictures … The only thing that prevented us from walking every street and channel straight away was hunger. And so we postponed it till the next morning.
DAY 4
Venice and Peschiera del Garda
Yep! We were running and collecting all stuff as we decided to stay one day in Venice only and head to the place where we can get some rest from roads and do some fun stuff with our children also. They like to walk, but the beautiful things for grown ups, like architecture or history, still not as attractive as swimming pool for them. By the way… there is a good place for breakfast in the right corner of the picture. It will cost you about 3 EUR per person and they make good sandwiches with local products.
Also, the weather is very hot in the beginning of July, so take a lot of water and wear hats if you intend to walk whole the day in Venice… just like we did.
Also, I recommend you to take a full day ticket to the boats, it is much easier to travel around Venice this way.
I think that it will be boring if I’ll write a lot about Venice here, so I’ll place photos of empty Piazza San Marco which you never seen before and some more from our day…
This was the day full of emotions from boat trips and walk around old and beautiful streets, which ended at silent and beautiful place near Peschiera Del Garda, the Bertoletta Village Apartments.
DAY 5
Long rides banned. Kids time
The 5th day was the day of leisure and fun with kids.
First we went to Parco Natura Viva, one of the biggest Zoos in Italy, which also has the Safari Zone, where you can see giraffes and rhinos and others animals right beside your car.Then we visited the Garda with its beautiful shore lane and relaxed in the pool.
DAY 6
The city I wanted to visit so much
Finally it was the day to visit the city I dreamed of since my school time. Or more precisely from the time when we learned about Machiavelli, Medici and Republic of Florence. The 6th day led us to Florence and of course we couldn’t pass by the Cathedral Di Santa Maria Del Fiore. It is so huge… When I stand next to the buildings with so much history I feel like a little boy. I wanted not only to walk around it but to also enter it. Unfortunately, it was closed for visitors. So instead we headed to the Piazza De la Signoria, where the Replica of David is located.
Have you ever heard of lampredotto? Well… This is a common street-food in Florence, just like a hot-dog at a Circle K in Estonia. It is usually served in a form of a sandwich with a tripe (beef belly), which I didn’t think I was going to try. However, despite a not so appetizing nature of this dish it is very tasty. So I definitely recommend to to try it once in Florence!
I also recommend you to visit the 2nd floor of the local market, in order to get the usual local food at a reasonable price.
DAY 7
All roads lead to Rome
On the 7th day we decided to refuse using the toll roads. They are very fast but you loose the chance to see beautiful Italian landscapes. Therefore we turned from the speedy roads and started the trip to Rome stopping at the beach and hot springs. I absolutely recommend you bathing in thermal waters if you haven’t tried it yet. It was so fun that our princesses wanted to stay there till the end of vacation. For instance, Cascate del Mulino is a waterfall with natural “baths” with the water temperature around 37.5 C and the yield of 800 liters per second. It is basically like a natural SPA.
DAY 8–9
Rome & Vaticano
Even during COVID, this city full of tourists, even local ones.
As all cities with ancient history it is difficult to show it’s whole beauty in words nor pictures. You just must visit it! Nothing can be compared with the supremacy of the ancient architecture, views and feel of this ancient city surrounding you.
On the 2nd day of our stay in Rome we also visited the Vatican city. I thought that Citta Del Vaticano has it’s own borders and you must pass some kind of control and so I’ll have a corresponding stamp in my pass, but nope. It is open and free to Access without any control The only restricted area is Giardini Vaticani.
I was very curious about the Dome of Basilica. I expected to find more information about the building itself, but what I’ve got was a good upstairs run with different types of steps. Overall the dome counts with 551 steps and a beautiful view as reward.
On the road from Vatican little princesses asked to visit Cascate Del Mulino once again, and after doing that we headed to Pisa.
DAY 10 Pisa.
What’s next?
We chose Pisa for an overnight stay with no further plans. So after having breakfast and visiting Piazza del Duomo we all had the same question: What’s next?
According to our preliminary plan we should have headed to Milan in order to visit the Museo Alfa Romeo Storico, but soon enough we learned it was closed under the week.
After some considerations we have finally we decided to take a 2-day-rest in Bertoletta Village before returning to Estonia.
DAY 11–12
Peschiera Del Garda
“We’ll just stay there next to the pool and relax”, we decided, and failed. We have managed to be passive for one day only. So on our last day instead of sunbathing we took our girls to an Aqua Park.
DAY 13–14
Peschiera del Garda — Volandia — Road Home
We have divided the way back among two days with a stop in Volandia.
Volandia is the one of the biggest flight museums in Europe. It is located on the territory of Caproni factory and among other things demonstrated the first European airplane (at least they say so).
As for me, the real jewel of Volandia is Bertone Collection.
Gruppo Bertone was the one of the most amous cars designers, who designed cars for such famous brands as Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Porsche, BMW, Lancia, Lamborghini and so on. After bankruptcy of the Bertone, the whole collection was bought by ASI club and placed for exhibition here. I tried to sort best of them, but they are all sooooo beautiful that it is difficult to choose.
That was the last stop in the country, which we now plan to visit again and again. Ahead of us — 2 days-route home via Switzerland, Germany and our Baltic States.
While this trip has ended, the summer still goes on, and who knows what surprises it will bring us in August… Maybe another crazy trip!
