Bath is an english gem, definitely worth a visit. It's located in Somerset, south-west England, about 3 hour coach drive from London. Judging by the amount of tourists it is one of top UK destination, and I can totally understand why.
I visited Milton Keynes thanks to an invitation from my cousin who lived there. It's funny that we had a higher chance of meeting in the UK than in Poland because we live over 400km away. If not for that, I probably woulnt't have visited Milton Keynes. But I am glad I did, it was the most peculiar place in the UK i have visited because it is utterly different - it is relatively modern.
Canterbury (Kent, South East from London) is a relatively small academic city known mostly for its massive gothic cathedral. It was yet another day-trip destination of mine and it was suggested by my mum. Thanks mum!
Brighton is a charming city on the south coast of England that I instantly fell in love with. I wanted to visit it for quite a while and was really looking forward to that trip, but honestly didn't know that much what to expect. I reached my destination after merely half an hour by train taking off from Clapham Junction (south-west London).
Oxford was an excursion that I have actually planned a long time before going. Thanks to this I managed to buy train tickets on route London Marylebone - Oxford for merely 10 quid (return). The journey was less than an hour with no stops ibetween. Sitting in the train and staring out of the window was my first true contact with english countryside that was not a part of the great London metropolis. I felt so content.
Budapest has been on my list for a few years now, this summer I finally got a chance to fulfill my wish. One of my best friends wanted to go somewhere abroad with me and after a short discussion we came up with Budapest and instantly agreed to go there.
Right after I returned home from my Erasmus adventures I had four days to unpack my suitcase and pack it up again because I was about to leave for my architectural internship in Gdynia. I have spent four weeks in there, living in Gdańsk and commuting to Gdynia every day.
And so does the semester come to an end. 5 months in Denmark. 5 months living in a small, peaceful Danish town with an absolutely crazy university campus. Magnificent international friends, challenging group projects, insane parties, adventures, bonfires, bbqs, walks, roadtrips & travels. I have been to each end of this small country, seen all the biggest cities and some uncanny natural landscapes.
The last weekend od may was crazy. Again, we rented a car with a bunch of happy people and did a few roadtrips. Vejle, Aalborg, Frederikshavn and Skagen.
To be honest, i'm visiting places and roaming around so cheerfully and carefree, i don't really have a need to look back so often. But when I received scans of some traditional film shots I did during my visit home this easter - i can't say that I didn't feel happy and a bit sentimental.
I shot things a bit randomly, I was testing my first black and white film.
Glasgow was days 2 and 3 of my Scottish trip. It was a brilliant decision to see Edinburgh and Glasgow one after another and see how utterly different characters they have. The capital, Edinburgh was monumental and full of historic charm where on the other hand industrial Glasgow has a much more modern and vibrant vibe. The Glaswegian accent was a challenge though, even if scottish accent is generally not unknown for me I sometimes struggled to understand what were people saying at all. Less tourists makes it seem to be a fantastic place to live - what was approved by my lovely hosts who stayed there for one semester of their Erasmus.
I always keep saying, that I don't need much encouragement to visit the UK. Scotland was on the top of my destination list for a tremendously long time, but I somehow never got to go because either I couldn't find any company for visiting the land of Nessie, or when I found company and made plans they were not finalised in the end. This semester, though, two of my university friends went to Glasgow for their Erasmus semester abroad. This is the wonderful thing about Erasmus, people travel and invite other people over to the place where stay. So I went!
Malmö was just a stop on our way back from Stockholm. After five hours of traveling by train, we have reached the city on an exceptionally beautiful sunny day.
12th of may is a national holiday in Denmark and it happened to be on friday which resulted in a long weekend. My friends and I wanted to take advantage of this and go somewhere at that time, we have checked tickets to Valencia, Milan, Budapest, but booked nothing as the prices for long weekend jumped high. Then... an idea came up to go to Stockholm by train. After all, from Copenhagen it was only 5-6 hours by a high speed train, so we thought why not?
Møn island was a high priority on our "to see in Denmark" list. It is located about 270 km from Horsens and there weren't any chances we could reach it by public transport so in a group of five people we rented a car for the weekend and drove there.
VIA University College has organised a three day study trip to Hamburg. A bunch of students from my semester participated in in, as well as a few teachers. We were having both guided tours in the morning, and lots of free time in the afternoon and evening to explore on our own. Overally, Hamburg has made a good impression on me, I probably enjoyed it even more than Berlin (as it is the only German city I know and could compare it to).
My traditional film adventure has begun just a few days before I went to Denmark. I have always wanted to try this out, some of my friends have done "the analogues" before and praised the technique, so eventually I asked one close friend for advice about the equipment and within 15 minutes made a decision, bought an old camera and a few film rolls online.
I have seen quite a lot of east coast of Denmark, right? It was about time to visit the west coast then! After some research of good-for-a-day-trip west coast destinations I have chosen to visit the city of Esbjerg which is the fifth biggest city in Denmark. It is located on the southern part of Jutland peninsula, near a small island called Fanø. We went there in a largest yet group of seven people.
The second time I was in Aarhus, it was with three of my classmates. The trip was a form of celebration since a day earlier we (as a group) have won the project competition within our class. We had an idea of a nice picnic and agreed on visiting certain attractions. I haven't been to any of them before, so it was a good exploration trip in good company.
After returning from London I said to myself "Okay Ada, no more trips for a while. Chill.". But then two days later my flatmate said to me "hey, we are going to Aalborg for a concert on thursday after class, d'you want to come?". How could I resist the temptation?
I don't ever need much convincing to visit the UK. Even though by being in Denmark I was on one adventure already, when I got an invitation from a friend I spontaneously booked a flight and flew from Aarhus to London. I was promising myself that I would go someplace else than the capital the next time I come around, but oh well, no complains from me! I topped up my oyster and went with the flow.
The idea of visiting Copenhagen arouse quite spontaneously among my friends. With all my curiosity of Danish capital i wasn't really hasty with planing my trip as I knew that sooner or later I will visit it at least three times during my Erasmus. I preffered to wait until the weather improved... but eventually I was talked into it!
Now about Horsens... This is a very long slideshow of my exploration of Horsens through the couple of weeks I have been here so far. I walk a lot and I shoot a lot, the city, the campus, the seaside, the lakes, everything that comes along!
Horsens is a charming seaside town. Actually, its localisation is even better because it's between the Horsens Bay (eastern coast of Jutland peninsula) and lake Norrestrand which is a nature reserve. VIA University College campus is located on the outskirts of town, just by the lake.
Four our second trip we went to Odense, just two days after visiting Aarhus. Odense is located on the Fionia island, south-east from Horsens in the direction of Copenhagen. This time we were joined by my new flatmate from Estonia, so we got an international feel of the trip already.
And so I arrived in Denmark on 1st february. The next 5 months I was about to spend in the city of Horsens located by the western coast of Jutland by the Baltic sea. I went there with a friend from my home university and considering that we started classes at february 6th we had a few days to accomodate to the city and to do a bit of travelling. The following day the first thing in the morning we hopped on a train and rode to Aarhus. It is second biggest city in Denmark that is just about 30km away from Horsens.
Here I wanted to share a batch or miscellaneous photographs I have taken during the winter period and I am exceptionally fond of them for some reason. All urban shots were taken in Warsaw as I walked around between classes and projects, while all the nature shots are at my hometown Ciechanów. Wherever the dog is - that's definitely hometown.
The end of November and beginning of December were very busy months for me - I had lots of work for uni, coordinated a photography contest in a students' association, assembled all the formalities for my Erasmus, went on two trips... One of them was to Berlin, with my mum.
In September I went for the weekend to Wrocław with my highschool friend, Anna. The decision was quite spontaneous and ridiculously cheap prices of Ryanair plane tickets convinced us to fly there from Warsaw Modlin airport. I hadn't ever been to Wrocław before that and I heard so much about it that I was very excited to go.
Summer always brings adventures, bigger or smaller. Either it is a trip to the seaside with friends, or walking the dog.
Here are a few shots I took during my holidays. I have purchaced a used 35mm 2.0 canon lens and most shots were taken with it. I also began my 100 days challenge on tookapic, which I am doing up to this day.
We arrived to Vienna at 4:40 AM after a night in the coach. It was so surreal, my friend and I got out of the vechicle, sat on the platform... and giggled from the tiredness. We had to wait until the metro was working, then headed straight to our hostel to drop our luggage. We could not check in until 2 PM so... despite being really tired we went to the city centre to sightsee. We were in the heart of Vienna around 8 AM, the streets were empty, barely any tourists on sight. Thanks to that we had an opportunity of seeing the Cathedral and vicinity of the Hofburg (palace) in the most peaceful scenery imaginable.
Ah, Florence! The last stop on our Tuscan tour. We couldn't miss it, as it is an unquestionable must-see for every architecture student out there. Homeship of the renaissance, Bruneleschi, right?
However our stay at Florence was very short, it lasted only approximately 5 hours, as we were on our way back after Volterra workshops had ended and had a bus to Vienna from Florence in the afternoon. I have visited Florence before with my parents when I was 16 years old and had no idea what should I appreciate most. It was good to refresh some old experiences and add some more knowledge to them. Now, let me show you how much of Florence have we seen in less than 5 hours.
During the workshops we got a sunday off, so we decided to go to the seaside. Our tutor who knows Tuscany very well gave us a hint to visit the small town of Populonia. It is located on the western coast of Italy, on a very high hill that gives a breathtaking view on the coastline.
We rented a car and in a group of 5 people drove through charming tuscan landscapes up to Populonia. I was taking pictures from the window of the car, the shots are random but yet satysfying.
After three days of intensive sightseeing we finally departured from Pisa and headed on to Volterra, where we were about to have the most important part of our Italian experience - international design workshops with american architecture students.
The third day of our Italian tour we went to Lucca. It was merely 30 minutes by train, and for architecture student it was a gem. Most importantly - it was heavily fortificated in the middle ages and the fortifications are brilliantly preserved. When you hop off the train at the station you approach the old town in a couple of minutes and you have to climp through it's solid high walls.
The second day in Italy was a day I was really looking forward to - we visited one ofthe most stunning places I have visited so far - Cinque Terre. It is a complex of five small and insanely pretty towns located on high clifs by the sea. We managed to visit only four of them, but it still was a great adventure. Be prepared for a colourful set of photos!
On July 2016 a few of my university friends and I participated in International Volterra Design Workshop. It lasted for nearly two weeks, however If we were about to spend so much time in Italy, if would be a sin not to sightsee some nearby towns, right? Right!
We started our Tuscan journey in Pisa. I booked a hotel room for us there, so that we would sleep in Pisa and travel to other towns during the day. We were lucky enough to find a hotel right next to Pisa Central station so it was just perfect.
May is a month cramped with Juwenalia - student festivals hosted by universities. They are basically just giant parties with gigs, parades, competitions or any other activities that are simply for fun. Probably the biggest and most popular event of this kind takes place in the city of Olsztyn and I was invited there because a very good friend of mine at Olsztyn's university. It was an incredibly positive trip filled with music, party vibes, laughter and aesthetic pictures.
I have visited Prague for two reasons - to sightsee and to party. Indepentent Student's Association organised a weekend trip there, and took care that we did a lot of both.
After a night of travelling by bus, we arrived to Prague early in the morning. We were dropped off the bus at a hill from where we had a magnificent overview of the entire city in the morning fog. That moment all tiredness from the journey went away and I was ready to sightsee.
After returning from Barcelona, I still had a week or two of winter break from Uni, so I decided to visit my friend who lived in Kraków.
Well, besides that, me not-ever-being-in-Kraków was a desgrace as an architectre student, so I had to make that right as soon as possible! I could draw plans of a few of its churches from memory, but haven't really seen them live, oh come on. Shame.
The third semester of studies was very exhausting and I needed an instant recovery after handing in all projects and passing the exam session. So my friend from uni and I made quite a spontaneous purchase, we bough plane tickets to Barcelona. It was in Feburary and we wanted to visit some place with much softer and warmer climate than freezing Warsaw. Barcelona it was.
On my 2nd year of architecture studies we were designing small recreation buildings located away from urban environment in a small village near Warsaw called Wieliszew. Located by the banks of Vistula river the landscape is really appealing, with swamps, large meadows and grasfields and forests.
I have visited Brussels on the Amsterdam-Brussels trip with my parents (more from Amsterdam here). We hadn't flown to Brussels directly, but to Charleroi. It's a post-industrial city with an incredibly strong character, and even thouh we were there for about two hours I decided to publish some pictures as well. I am very curious about the rest of the city, I have seen many abandoned buildings and fabrics on our way to the train station that I would definitely explored if I had more time. There were pretty but shightly neglected historic buildings next to decaying fabrics, an interesting combination.
Summer 2015 has taken me to two capital cities of western Europe - Amsterdam and Brussels. My parents and I arrived at Charleroi airport near Brussels, and from there we traveled by Thalys train straight to Amsterdam where we spent nearly 3 days.
Now this is a general mix of things, with a splash of colour, for a change.
Some were taken at my hometown, some in Białystok and in Toruń where I visited my dear friends. This is dedicated to the adventureous and carefree summer. To the good times.
In Poland we have a national holiday on the 1st and 3rd may, people don't to to work, kids dont't go to school, students... travel! "The long weekend" is always an irresistible opportunity to go on an adventure, right? This time I decided to go on a trip to Berlin, which was organised by Independend Students Society of Warsaw Univeristy Of Technology.
24 / architecture student / illustrator and cartoon artist / amateur photographer / piano enthusiast / dog lover / fuelled by coffee / short and blonde / vagabond.
