Where to go in spring: 7 places to go on a weekend
Spring gives weekends and holidays like a real gambler - first weekend on March 8 appears with aces from the sleeve, then - a scattering of May holidays. And then there are plenty of sunny weekends, when you so desperately want to jerk from your hometown for the smell of distant countries. We have collected seven cities for rapid spring travel, which will help replenish the treasury of impressions and not spend a monthly salary for the weekend.
TEXT: Evgenia Pisman
Minsk
Belarus
HOW TO GET THERE: night by train or an hour and twenty by plane from Moscow, round-trip ticket from 6 thousand rubles. You do not need a visa, you can travel on a Russian passport
The frightened reserve of Soviet architecture - here the cinematographers are shooting "old Moscow", and foreigners are studying the Stalin Empire style and constructivism. The power and spaciousness of Minsk is perfectly combined with the study of the Belarusian cuisine: pancakes, machanka, sorcerers and the mysterious heraldry wait along with therapeutic prices. After broad avenues and monumental buildings, the Dudutki ethnographic museum is excellently located within an hour's drive from the capital - here you can find old izba, zoo, felting workshops with weaving and tasting of fat with moonshine in the Shynok bar. To give Belarusian travel volume and saturation, you can go to the Mir and Nesvizh castles for history and picturesque angles.
Hamburg
Germany
HOW TO GET: a flight from Moscow costs from 12 thousand rubles one way. I need a Schengen visa
The embodiment of European romance with bridges, cries of seagulls and the smell of the sea at the mouth of the Elbe. There are more than two thousand bridges (hello, Venice) and the legendary fish market (hello, Bergen). The market is open only on Sundays, from five to nine in the morning, so you have to start the day with it: buy smoked eel, eat a sandwich with the finest herring and drink light beer, like market regulars. Hamburg is decorated with a luxurious town hall and old churches, and the ideal background for instagram pictures can be found in the futuristic area of Speicherstadt’s warehouses, where red brick buildings grow right out of the water.
Kazan
Russia
HOW TO GET: a night on a high-speed train from Moscow or an hour and twenty on an airplane. A plane ticket to both sides costs about 4 thousand rubles, a coupe outside the tourist season will cost about the same
Volga, echpochmaki and mosques. Kazan beats to defeat right in the center of the city - the domes with the stars of the Annunciation Cathedral echo the minarets of the Kul-Sharif Mosque. From the Kremlin begins the street Bauman - a favorite of tourists street with lanterns, historic mansions and charming city sculptures. In the same place, the Tatar Cooking House is an ideal place to learn how to distinguish between chak-chak and echpochman and try unusual-sounding kystyby.
Authentic Kazan meets in the Old Tatar Settlement, where Ivan the Terrible resettled the locals - with mosques, the cries of muezzins and the squat houses of merchants with carved platbands. Here you can sign up for a master class on cooking chak-chak in the museum of the same name, and in the painted houses on Kayum Nasyri Street you can see the Turkic tradition of decorating houses. There are more modern entertainment: the center of modern culture "Change" and Lake Kaban. A trip to Kazan in terms of saturation is similar to a trip abroad - only without visas, passports and other hassles.
Bologna
Italy
HOW TO GET THERE: Flights from Moscow start at 18 thousand rubles. I need a Schengen visa
It was here that they invented the delightful pasta bolognese, sausage mortadella, nourishing lasagna - this is how the city acquired the status of the culinary capital of Emilia-Romagna. It is also customary to say about Bologna that it is "scientist" and "red." "Red" - because around the red and orange roofs, terracotta houses and kilometers of arched galleries. From ninety seven meters of the tower Azinelli Bologna looks like a pizza with a crispy crust of red roofs, which was cut into quarters. "Scientist" - because here is located the oldest continuously existing university in Europe, where Petrarch, Dürer and Copernicus studied.
This is the perfect city away from the tourist trails to experience the spirit of Italy: in the divine tortellini, which, according to legend, the local chef blinded the navel of his beloved lady, in the Basilica of San Petronio, which was supposed to surpass the Roman Cathedral of St. Peter, but Pope recalled in time and stopped the scope of the Bologna architects. And Bologna is a convenient base for exploring the surrounding area: within an hour and a half by train - Venice, Florence, Ravenna, Parma and other destinations for an extended weekend.
Larnaca
Cyprus
HOW TO GET THERE: flights of different airlines from Moscow outside the hot season will cost you in the amount of 12 thousand rubles in both directions. Need a Cypriot electronic provision or open multiple Schengen
For a lazy warm weekend, where the sights do not cry at every corner "Look at me" - only the sea, seagulls and fresh strawberries. Well, well, another church of St. Lazarus in the city center: according to legend, here Christ resurrected Lazarus, and he preached in Cyprus for another thirty years. Paradise, so that Lazarus can be understood. In Larnaca, two beautiful embankments, and the life of the city is spent on them: they run around here, do yoga, admire yachts, alternate coffee and wine and explore local cafes for the most proper roasted chalumi. Join us - if you can't live by the sea, then you should at least periodically look at it.
Thessaloniki
Greece
HOW TO GET THERE: flights from Moscow - from 16 thousand rubles in both directions. I need a Schengen visa
The city is noisy and stormy, it takes travelers by the hand from the threshold and leads to the thick of the centuries. Here antiquity, Byzantium and Turkish sovereignty are so intertwined that it is impossible to understand without a cup of coffee. By the way, it was in Thessaloniki that they invented frappe: instant coffee, sugar, water and ice, whipped in a shaker. Thessaloniki is the same structure: the ruins of the Roman Forum, the Turkish defensive White Tower, the Byzantine Basilica of St. Demetrius.
Go to the “upper city” of Ano Poli - here are the most photogenic perspectives of Thessaloniki with steep street-stairs, powerful fortress walls, Macedonian architecture and panoramic view. Food in Thessaloniki - a separate entertainment. Locals swear on "Legends and Myths of Ancient Greece" that throughout Greece you will not find such musaka, souvlaki or grilled octopus. It is not without reason that street food festivals are held in Thessaloniki - in 2019 Thessaloniki Street Food Festival will be held from May 17 to 19. There is also a sea in Thessaloniki, and this in itself is a reason for a trip.
Ljubljana
Slovenia
HOW TO GET THERE: flight from Moscow from 20 thousand rubles in both directions. I need a Schengen visa
One of the most undervalued European capitals, Ljubljana pleases with a toy size. It is commensurate with a short trip and leaves no painful feeling “oh, I didn't have time”. Ljubljana can be bypassed in one day without the help of public transport. Climb to the castle of Ljubljana Castle to admire the city from above. Go down to the Triple Bridge, which runs like a fan along the banks of the Ljubljanica river. Peek at the covered market for cheese and fruit. View the decoration of churches. Butcher's Bridge, Dragon Bridge - Ljubljana knows a lot about bridges and their names, and a boat trip on a boat will allow you to view them from unusual angles. Another cool perspective will be presented by a local skyscraper - the only one in Ljubljana, with the sweet name Nebotychnik. At the top there is a small cafe to enjoy Ljubljana was even more convenient - to feel how time flows through your fingers, and rejoice that you can not hurry.
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