JamesDrayton

Rather than being the stereotypical backpacker and just spending a few nights in Amsterdam before leaving the Netherlands altogether, I decided I wanted to explore the country a little bit more, to experience the nation outside of the hustle and bustle of Amsterdam. Naturally, flying in from Prague, I did start the Dutch leg of my trip with Amsterdam: this is one of a half dozen or so cities that is visited by pretty much every single person who does a European backpacking trip, and it would've been a shame to miss out. I spent three nights in Amsterdam, and spent most of my time simply wandering the streets, soaking up the ambiance. My hostel was located right in the central area, on a busy shopping street, just a 10-minute walk from the Central Train Station: ... read more

I arrived in Prague a little later than I'd hoped, as such essentially writing off Monday in terms of sightseeing. However, this wasn't really too much of a problem as I was in need of a bit of relaxation after three weeks of hard work plus a whole afternoon of trains/buses! On Tuesday I made up for lost time by taking the free walking tour of the city, which was several hours long and packed with interesting information. The tour started out with what is apparently Prague's most famous sight (although I'd never heard of it before), a 600-year-old astronomical clock; although this is the world's oldest working astronomical clock and is undoubtedly incredibly complex - a technological feat of its time - it was in fact voted the world's third-most disappointing tourist sight! The cluttered ... read more

On the first of this month I came to a small organic farm called Al Ma'awa, located in a small village called Eitental, near to the town Melk, in Lower Austria. The farm is a family-run affair with the aim of leaving the household as self-sufficient as possible. Other than the couple who own and run the farm (Leila and Hartwig), their two children (Hannah and Yannic) and Hartwig's mother, the farm is also currently home to four other helpers: one Austrian, one Luxembourger and two Americans. In addition to the human inhabitants there are also two dogs (one of which is an absolutely adorable but enormous komondor), a lot of chickens (one of which lives in the house and thinks it's a human), several cats (including four kittens), three goats, one sheep, two pigs, four ... read more

The bus journey from Bratislava to Vienna took less than an hour and a half, despite several stops; these are the two capital cities that are closest to each other in Europe (if one ignores the fact that the Vatican City is within Rome). The first thing I saw after getting off the bus at Südtiroler Platz in central Vienna was a Würstelstand - a small fastfood stand selling various different sausages - and I was immediately reminded of Berlin and knew that this was a city in which I would feel at home. Once I reached the district in which I was staying I was again reminded of Berlin: the area's very multicultural, with a wide range of international restaurants and shops, plus a lively Turkish street market. On the only full day that I ... read more

I came to Bratislava with uncharacteristically low expectations: normally I am excited at the prospect of visiting any new city, but it was hard to retain any enthusiasm for the Slovakian capital. Every single person I'd met who had been here told me that it was not worth visiting, especially not for longer than a day; many a traveller has a tale of how they regret wasting a weekend in this city. Nonetheless I felt it unjustifiable to go straight from Budapest to Vienna when a whole country lay between. I decided to give Slovakia's capital one night to prove her naysayers wrong. The bus journey from Budapest to Bratislava was only three hours long, and it was not long at all after crossing the border that we reached the outskirts of the city. It was ... read more

The past ten days that I've spent in Budapest are best described as a holiday within my trip: a lot more time was spent playing card games in the hostel's courtyard than was spent actually doing anything noteworthy. Nonetheless, I'll try my best to sum my stay up into an interesting blog entry. Hungary made no great first impression upon me as I crossed the border from Croatia: its landscape is unremarkable and flat - not dissimilar from that of northern Croatia - and the train passed only through small, bleak-looking villages. Eventually we reached Lake Balaton, which is the largest lake in Central Europe. The lake is sausage shaped, long and thin, and the railway runs parallel to it, so from the train one could see that it was not far to the other side, ... read more

I've been getting quite behind on the blogging front over the past week, so I'm just going to give an overview of everything I've been up to since my last entry. On Monday and Tuesday nights I stayed at a hostel in Supetar, which is the principle town Brač, the closest island to Split. Supetar is a pretty little seaside town with a population of just 3,000 and not a great deal to offer aside from beaches, cafés, bars and restaurants. The hostel I was staying at had only recently moved to its current location, and partially as a result I was the only guest in the whole place. It wasn't as lonely as it sounds though, as there were seven members of staff: one Croat, two Americans, three Australians and a Swede. Every summer the ... read more

On Tuesday I took the bus from Budva to Dubrovnik, where I stayed for one night. Once again I stayed in a hostel located within the walls of the Old Town, which was really convenient for making the most of my short stay. Dubrovnik's Old Town is a lot bigger than those in Kotor or Budva: while both those Old Towns are so small that a visitor quickly becomes familiar with the whole layout, Dubrovnik's is just big enough that one can wander through charming, unfrequented back alleys. However, Dubrovnik is visibly a lot more commercialized and touristic than either of the Montenegrin towns I visited: its main boulevards are perpetually packed with tourists from all over the world (British, American, German, Canadian, Japanese, Korean, French, Russian...) and the streets are lined with classy restaurants and ... read more

When planning my trip I hadn't given a great deal of consideration to Montenegro; I'd read that it was possible to go there on daytrips from Dubrovnik, but I hadn't envisaged myself dedicating any more time to it than that. However, a lot of people I met in Istanbul and Sarajevo really highly recommended me the tiny mountain nation, many rating it more highly than Croatia. So I decided to sacrifice a few of the days I'd originally alotted to Croatia in order to properly visit Montenegro. Thus at 7am on Friday morning I boarded the bus from Mostar to Kotor. The first half of the journey took me through Bosnian and Croatian countryside, which was of course very attractive - there was a 20-minute stop in Neum, Bosnia's only coastal town, which had some great ... read more