Turist Vs. Backpacker

A turist is a person, picked up at the airport by a special bus, which will take him directly to the doors of a uniformed hotel, where he will spend the next seven days on the beach. He will spend the first day lying on an air mattress on the beach, watching shapely girls and imagining all he could do with them if he were 20 years younger. He will spend the remaining six days lying in the hotel room recovering from the terrible sunburn and watching well-shaped girls at night in the bar, discussing with his friends all he could do with them if his nagging wife was not around.

    A turist is a person who is taken from one turist sight to another following a boring turist guide with a flag in his hand telling the same joke in seven different languages. Wearing strapy pants, a jamaican shirt, a shieldhat and sandals, he is taking photos of the same things as everybody else with his snapshot camera, and wonders what country they are in. Since it's Friday, they must probably be somewhere in Spain…

to be continued  
text & photo: Janin Klemenčič

Backpackers’ Handbook

Read some paragraphs from my traveller's advice collection which will be, if all goes well, published some day in English as well. Write some remarks and comments and send them to me!

1.    From the Introduction:

    …In general, the word "traveller" denotes every travelling person, or at least a person travelling out of genuine pleasure, with a wish for exploring. More specifically, the real traveller is one who travels either alone, with a partner, or in an unorganized group. Such a person wants to travel as far as possible, spending as little as possible. That means that he will hitchhike, travel with a bike, a motorcycle or a van. He will sleep in a sleeping bag under the sky, in a vehicle, or in the cheapest hotel; he will get around by lowest-class train or bus and carry all his posessions around in a backpack.

Orthodox backpackers strictly distinct themselves from turists.

to be continued

text & photo: Janin Klemenčič

Eremitaž, Petrograd

 

 

Hermitage, Saint Petersburg 

Foto: Janin

Scandinavia 20 Rosenborg Castle

   In the afternoon it began to rain lightly. We stopped for a beer and a rest, and then continued through the King’s Gardens to the Rosenborg Castle. This was built in the early 1600s, and so it is much newer than the castles we saw in Norway and Sweden, which were started around 1100 or so. It used to be a residence, but now is just a repository for royal heirlooms. It was impressive, though, with different rooms decorated in various styles—Renaissance, Empire, rococo, etc. Most all had paintings on the ceilings as well as the walls, and period furniture, too. Some contained objects from the period of a specific king.
By the time we left Rosenberg, we were tired, and it was raining somewhat harder. Fortunately, a Hop-On, Hop-Off bus was approaching the pickup point at the same time we were. On these buses we were given a set of earbuds to plug in and we could select the language we wanted and hear a recorded message about the area we were driving through or past. Not very personal but we could hear it and understand it.
(to be continued)