Slovenia voted top 8 travel destination

At the end of every year Lonely Planet's top destinations for the coming year are published. A few weeks ago they announced their top picks for 2012. This year Reykjavik was voted the most popular city and Iceland the most popular country in the world. Since those two places got by far the most votes, it might be the right time to tweak my travel list a bit.

I was surprised (and pleased at the same time) to also find Slovenia in the Readers’ Choice: Top 10 countries category. With 6% of all votes my home country took 8th place. Both USA and Mexico were behind.

I think this is a great result and hope it will help promoting this great country. In my opinion it has been off the average traveller's radar for too long.


If you want to read the whole article, it is available on the Lonely Planet website.

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Wordless Wednesday: Bell Tower of Agios Markos

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How to find a typical old village on Corfu?

No matter where I go, I always enjoy visiting typical local villages. That is easily achieved in some countries and can be quite a challenge in others. Since Greece is a country where you can literary stumble upon history on every step you take, I was expecting to find numerous nicely preserved, traditional old villages also on the island of Corfu.

I was surprised to find every coastal town and village turned into a place suitable only for mass tourism. Unfortunately this means those places were robbed of any charm long time ago. This new architecture has little or no regard for the old beauty and historical value of the area. It seems like the only two aims were to build fast and to build cheap.

The only exception among coastal town I saw, was the protected centre of Corfu city (Kerkyra).


Even though I didn't like this fact one bit, I didn't give up. Soon I figured out all I needed to do was stop concentrating on coastal towns and look inland instead.
I didn't need to look far, since the nearest such town was just a short ride from the town of Ipsos into the hills. This old town is called Agios Markos. Actually it is a small mountain village of some 30 buildings - one of them being a small church with a separate bell tower.


However charming the village might look, quite a few of the buildings have been deserted a while ago and are already falling apart.


So if you are looking for an old picturesque village on the island of Corfu - take a random mountain road and your chances for finding one are quite good.
I guess roads ending in the middle of nowhere, near a small mountain village are the best choice.

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