I've been meaning to write something for a couple of weeks now, and I've just been putting it off. I don't know why. I have a bunch of music to share, but just never get around to it. And I guess I've had trouble thinking of things to write. I did have a great weekend last weekend, though, which got me thinking that I could just write about what I'm actually doing at the moment and try to include pictures, so maybe I'll talk about last weekend.
I came back to Germany last week for work. I'm pretty sure that I've mentioned before that when I come here I live in a tiny little town that's about an hour north of Munich. It's cute and all, but super boring. There's nothing to do here, and I know nobody. In fact I'm pretty sure there's nobody living in this town between the ages of 15 and 50. Maybe 40. Which means evenings are extremely boring and all I have to do is catch up on TV shows. I made it through True Detective this week, and now I finally will start House of Cards Season 2. I know I'm a month late, I don't want to talk about it. I'm not happy about this. I need to watch it.
Anyway, one of the benefits of being in this teensy tiny town is that I'm basically forced to leave and travel every weekend. I'd die of boredom if I stayed here. So normally I get a company car or get a ride down to Munich and hop on a plane and go anywhere. Last weekend, my first weekend back, I decided to head down to Slovenia, adding another country to the list. Overall Slovenia is nothing special. It's a nice country with a charming, little capital city, but nothing amazing scenery-wise. Some of the attractions in Slovenia were great, though, and quite unique.
One of my favourite things was this castle I went to that's built into the mouth of a huge cave, on top of a massive cave system. It's been continuously expanded since it was first built back in the 13th century, and it's most famous inhabitant was besieged for a year there, and managed to live comfortably because he would use the cave system to sneak out to nearby towns and get whatever he needed. Eventually he was killed when a servant betrayed him and signaled the people who were holding the siege that he had gone to the bathroom, at which point they shot a massive boulder from their catapult and crushed the bathroom with him in it. Shitty way to go (see what I did there? Couldn't help myself). It was pretty awesome.
Slovenia is also really tiny, so I managed to see about half the country in 48 hours. After the castle I headed south to the Adriatic Coast to see Piran, a really nice little town on a peninsula. It used to be part of the Venetian empire and is about 20 minutes from the Italian border, so it seems pretty Italian. In fact it's so close that I considered just popping into Italy for dinner on the way back, but I didn't want to have to pay highway tolls again. It's really different from the rest of the Slovenian towns and cities I saw, but I assume everything on the coast is. I spent a few hours exploring and actually could have been very happy just chilling there for the entire weekend eating Italian food.
On my way back to Germany on Sunday I made a stop in this town called Bled. I was told about it by a friend in Singapore last week, and then another friend mentioned it to me just before my trip, and I am very glad I went. The place was ridiculously beautiful. It's another small town, which is nothing special, I just drove through that part without even stopping, but it's the lake that the town sits on that's amazing. It's this lake up in the Alps with a tiny island in the middle that has an old church on it. Across the lake from the actual town are cliffs with a castle on top, so when you're on the far side of the lake looking back you have these ridiculous views of the snow covered Alps and the castle and the church, and it's all reflected in the lake, and it's amazing. I was there for like 30 minutes, just to walk around the lake a bit and take in the view, but it was still possibly the best thing I did in Slovenia.
The drive was also pretty amazing. To get from Germany down to Ljubljana I had to drive through Austria, and it took me straight through the Alps. Despite the sun and warm(ish) weather, that country is still covered in snow. Like, a lot of it. So I was just driving through these incredible snow covered peaks. It makes it hard to concentrate on the road.
All in all it was a great weekend. Despite Slovenia itself being underwhelming and reminding me a lot of the Czech Republic, I had a great time. I'm not sure I'd go again, if I did it would just be for a weekend on the coast or in Bled, chilling, but I'm glad I went.
And now on to the music. There were actually a few bands I was considering talking about today, but it was kind of hard to choose. I haven't had any songs or artists who just jump out at me and really impress me lately, so nothing that I've felt I really need to come write a blog about to share with everyone. Which is why it's taken me two weeks. But there have been a few bands who put out new releases that I've been really impressed with overall. I had it narrowed down to 4 choices, those being Bear's Den, NO, Milagres and St. Paul & The Broken Bones. After chatting with a friend, I'm going with St. Paul & The Broken Bones. Which is actually a good thing, because while I've thought about writing about all 4 of these bands, St. Paul & The Broken Bones were the first one I thought of writing about since their newest release was the earliest.
St. Paul & The Broken Bones fit into that genre of white guys making throwback soul music. Think Mayer Hawthorne. Or even Amy Winehouse, now that I think of it. But I think they do it a lot better than most other people trying to do it (Amy Winehouse excluded). And there's a lot more rock to theirs, which I love. The Alabama band just put out their first album, Half the City, produced by one of the guys from Alabama Shakes, which should already be a good sign to you, and you can definitely hear it in the album. I heard Call Me, which I think is their first single, a couple months back. I tried to find more at the time, but sadly came up empty handed.
Since writing up to this point I finished my work day and came home, and have been listening to this album. And while they stick in my head as a throwback soul band, listening to it now I'm getting a lot more blues rock than I remember. Which is making me like the album even more. I did buy it as soon as it came out, so I've got their music to myself now, but surprisingly it is still hard to find their stuff online, hence the Spotify link, which I never really use. And It's actually really difficult to pick what song to share with you, cause the album is full of great tracks. So here's the one I'm listening to now, which is great, Broken Bones & Pocket Change.
I came back to Germany last week for work. I'm pretty sure that I've mentioned before that when I come here I live in a tiny little town that's about an hour north of Munich. It's cute and all, but super boring. There's nothing to do here, and I know nobody. In fact I'm pretty sure there's nobody living in this town between the ages of 15 and 50. Maybe 40. Which means evenings are extremely boring and all I have to do is catch up on TV shows. I made it through True Detective this week, and now I finally will start House of Cards Season 2. I know I'm a month late, I don't want to talk about it. I'm not happy about this. I need to watch it.
Anyway, one of the benefits of being in this teensy tiny town is that I'm basically forced to leave and travel every weekend. I'd die of boredom if I stayed here. So normally I get a company car or get a ride down to Munich and hop on a plane and go anywhere. Last weekend, my first weekend back, I decided to head down to Slovenia, adding another country to the list. Overall Slovenia is nothing special. It's a nice country with a charming, little capital city, but nothing amazing scenery-wise. Some of the attractions in Slovenia were great, though, and quite unique.
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| Predjama Castle |
One of my favourite things was this castle I went to that's built into the mouth of a huge cave, on top of a massive cave system. It's been continuously expanded since it was first built back in the 13th century, and it's most famous inhabitant was besieged for a year there, and managed to live comfortably because he would use the cave system to sneak out to nearby towns and get whatever he needed. Eventually he was killed when a servant betrayed him and signaled the people who were holding the siege that he had gone to the bathroom, at which point they shot a massive boulder from their catapult and crushed the bathroom with him in it. Shitty way to go (see what I did there? Couldn't help myself). It was pretty awesome.
Slovenia is also really tiny, so I managed to see about half the country in 48 hours. After the castle I headed south to the Adriatic Coast to see Piran, a really nice little town on a peninsula. It used to be part of the Venetian empire and is about 20 minutes from the Italian border, so it seems pretty Italian. In fact it's so close that I considered just popping into Italy for dinner on the way back, but I didn't want to have to pay highway tolls again. It's really different from the rest of the Slovenian towns and cities I saw, but I assume everything on the coast is. I spent a few hours exploring and actually could have been very happy just chilling there for the entire weekend eating Italian food.
On my way back to Germany on Sunday I made a stop in this town called Bled. I was told about it by a friend in Singapore last week, and then another friend mentioned it to me just before my trip, and I am very glad I went. The place was ridiculously beautiful. It's another small town, which is nothing special, I just drove through that part without even stopping, but it's the lake that the town sits on that's amazing. It's this lake up in the Alps with a tiny island in the middle that has an old church on it. Across the lake from the actual town are cliffs with a castle on top, so when you're on the far side of the lake looking back you have these ridiculous views of the snow covered Alps and the castle and the church, and it's all reflected in the lake, and it's amazing. I was there for like 30 minutes, just to walk around the lake a bit and take in the view, but it was still possibly the best thing I did in Slovenia.
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| Bled. Ridiculous. One of the most beautiful places I've probably ever been. |
The drive was also pretty amazing. To get from Germany down to Ljubljana I had to drive through Austria, and it took me straight through the Alps. Despite the sun and warm(ish) weather, that country is still covered in snow. Like, a lot of it. So I was just driving through these incredible snow covered peaks. It makes it hard to concentrate on the road.
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| Seriously, I do not understand how I did not die on during this drive. |
All in all it was a great weekend. Despite Slovenia itself being underwhelming and reminding me a lot of the Czech Republic, I had a great time. I'm not sure I'd go again, if I did it would just be for a weekend on the coast or in Bled, chilling, but I'm glad I went.
And now on to the music. There were actually a few bands I was considering talking about today, but it was kind of hard to choose. I haven't had any songs or artists who just jump out at me and really impress me lately, so nothing that I've felt I really need to come write a blog about to share with everyone. Which is why it's taken me two weeks. But there have been a few bands who put out new releases that I've been really impressed with overall. I had it narrowed down to 4 choices, those being Bear's Den, NO, Milagres and St. Paul & The Broken Bones. After chatting with a friend, I'm going with St. Paul & The Broken Bones. Which is actually a good thing, because while I've thought about writing about all 4 of these bands, St. Paul & The Broken Bones were the first one I thought of writing about since their newest release was the earliest.
St. Paul & The Broken Bones fit into that genre of white guys making throwback soul music. Think Mayer Hawthorne. Or even Amy Winehouse, now that I think of it. But I think they do it a lot better than most other people trying to do it (Amy Winehouse excluded). And there's a lot more rock to theirs, which I love. The Alabama band just put out their first album, Half the City, produced by one of the guys from Alabama Shakes, which should already be a good sign to you, and you can definitely hear it in the album. I heard Call Me, which I think is their first single, a couple months back. I tried to find more at the time, but sadly came up empty handed.
Since writing up to this point I finished my work day and came home, and have been listening to this album. And while they stick in my head as a throwback soul band, listening to it now I'm getting a lot more blues rock than I remember. Which is making me like the album even more. I did buy it as soon as it came out, so I've got their music to myself now, but surprisingly it is still hard to find their stuff online, hence the Spotify link, which I never really use. And It's actually really difficult to pick what song to share with you, cause the album is full of great tracks. So here's the one I'm listening to now, which is great, Broken Bones & Pocket Change.
You should still go listen to the other bands I mentioned before. They are all very good. Especially Milagres, cause I'm loving their new album. I won't say too much, though, cause they may be my next blog post. But think Wild Beasts. And for NO, think The National. And for Bear's Den, I guess think Mumford & Sons, except not. Much better.
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