Red Corner: Lviv Revisited

by Neil Woodburn on

The accolades keep rolling in. We posted a few months back about the Ukrainian city of Lviv (or Lvov which is the Russian spelling if you prefer that). Since then, the charming town has kept popping up on my radar. Most recently, The LA Times devoted a few pages extolling its fine attributes.

Journalist Barry Zwick kicks off the article with an alluring description that sums up the universality of Lviv: “Baroque pastel Polish-style town houses, gingerbread-trimmed Austrian university halls, heroic Russian statues and distinctively Ukrainian parks.” And then it gets better.

Zwick raves about the excellent food (a rarity in Eastern Europe), the “44 Baroque and Rococo landmarks,” the numerous churches and synagogues, and the city’s status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Most of all, however, he revels in the $10 front-and-center seats he purchased for a Myroslav Skoryk performance at Ivan Franko Opera House–an amazingly beautiful, Viennese neo-Renaissance building in the center of town.

Damn! This all sounds phenomenal. I need to get myself to Lviv!

Red Corner: Lithuanian Beer Corpse Blows 7.27

by Neil Woodburn on

It is well known that Europeans love their alcohol. Eastern Europeans, at least according to my experience, love it even more. In fact, it’s no surprise that the Czech Republic leads the world in beer consumption.

Spare a moment, however, for the Lithuanians, who, thanks to one overzealous countryman doing his part to increase the country’s per capita alcohol intake, deserve at least an honorable mention in the Alcoholics Hall of Shame.

The man in question is Vidmantas Sungaila. Recently pulled over by police 60 miles from Vilnius, Sungaila registered “7.27 grams per liter of alcohol in his blood.” The legal limit is only 0.4 grams. As a point of comparison, 3.4 grams is actually considered lethal, unless of course your name happens to be Vidmantas Sungaila.

While I’m sure Sungaila doesn’t represent the average Lithuanian, it still makes me feel fortunate to have survived the country’s roadways when I rented a car there three years ago.

Red Corner: Un-Touristy Montenegro

by Neil Woodburn on

I’ve been running across a number of these articles recently in which some wooed-over travel writer predicts he’s discovered “the next Croatia.”

Croatia, as you might know, has moved from civil war battlefield to Europe’s hottest summer destination over the course of just a few years. This hip status will soon peak, however, and some other great locale will take over. Many believe this will be Montenegro.

Lying just south of Croatia, Montenegro shares the same weather and scenic coastline as its more popular neighbor to the north. But, as David Farley of The Washington Post reports, it has a whole lot more to offer than just a cheap substitute for Croatia.

Currently, one of the most attractive elements is that hardly anyone is there right now. Farley ran into very few tourists and, as a result, the country’s reasonably priced accommodations reflect a supply and demand philosophy when it comes to pricing.

Farley also appeared overjoyed with the medieval town of Kotor, located on Europe’s southernmost fjord and whose city walls boast longer ramparts than more popular Dubrovnik a few hours north. Budva, a town known affectionately as the “St. Tropez of the Adriatic,” also impressed Farley. Reading his description makes me think of, you guessed it, Croatia.

I don’t know about you, but I think there might just be something to the whole Montenegro-as-the-next-hot-spot rumor after all.

Red Corner: The Gems of Slovenia

by Neil Woodburn on

Many people confuse Slovenia with Slovakia. The only thing they have in common, however, is that both were once part of a much larger country under communism. Slovakia was the less sexy half of Czechoslovakia while Slovenia was part of Yugoslavia.

Today, both countries remain in the shadows, hardly known outside Central Europe. This is, of course, a real shame.

While Slovakia certainly has its charms, Slovenia is starting to pull ahead as a true tourist destination. When you consider the fact that it shares borders with such amazingly beautiful countries as Austria, Hungary, Italy, and Croatia, you’ll understand why.

A great article in The Belfast Telegraph sums up the highlights this “little gem of a republic” has to offer. Adventurous travelers can engage in skiing, hiking, rafting, kayaking, mountain biking, and spelunking. Cultural travelers can explore castles, monasteries, music festivals and culinary tours. And, nature lovers can relax in the region’s lakes, mountains, and coastal areas.

For a country roughly the size of Wales, Slovenia has a tremendous amount to offer. The Belfast Telegraph article is a very good starter for those interested in such multi-faceted vacation opportunities. To help point you in the right direction, accommodations, airlines, and tour operators are all listed in the article.

One of the more interesting operators mentioned, Just Slovenia, arranges food and wine tours in the countryside with stays in local farmhouses. I’ve stolen the above photo from their website. Those amazing mountains and bright green meadow should be motivation enough to book yourself on the next flight to Slovenia.

Red Corner: Why Cuba needs a Food Revolution

by Neil Woodburn on

One of my favorite places to eat in Los Angeles is a Cuban restaurant called Versailles. Their garlic chicken and plantains are simply phenomenal.

So why is the actual island of Cuba consistently rated as having some of the very worst food on this planet?

Paul Mansfield of The Observer decides to find out for himself. He recently traveled to Cuba where he learned that the state-owned restaurants (and they are all state owned) were mostly horrible. The government realizes this, however, and has allowed private citizens to open up paladares–small “restaurants” within people’s homes. The market is tightly controlled by the government, however (max 12 diners, for example), and Cubans have told me that the moment a paladar becomes too popular and takes business away from state-owned restaurants, it gets shut down.

As you might suspect, the paladares are where Mansfield finds the Island’s best food–although best is a subjective term here. When compared to the other horrific food on the island, anything simply palatable falls into the best category by default. Case in point, after a week of traveling and eating, Mansfield came up with only two recommendations that sound worthy of trying. All the others seemed hardly palatable.