TravelDani

I quite enjoyed the long train journey from Barcelona even though I was battling with my Ipod earphones the whole time as one decided to break and the other was on its last legs. Some rather nice scenery. It was nice and easy finding my hostel. It was a proper hostel - cheap, ultra laid back and really friendly. I only had one thing on my mind after check-in - food. I went to find the place the hostel manager recommended to me which had sandwiches and beer for a euro each on La Rambla. There I ordered a gourmet beef and something sandwich, a cone of chips and a beer. To my amusement the cone of chips was actually a cone of crisps (chips to Americans and Aussies). I was expecting a cone of chips ... read more

It was like ready set GO in Paris. I arrived early and locked my luggage away in Gare l'Austerlitz and proceeded to get the ticket that I had reserved to Portbou in Spain leaving that evening. I then walked rapidly along the river past the Jardin des Plantes which is the main botanical garden in France and the Notre Dame cathedral on the other side of the river to Place St. Michel where the free walking tour was meeting. Our tour guide was hilarious - constantly cracking jokes - mainly politically incorrect ones. We started the tour by crossing the Sant-Michel bridge checking out the Notre Dame cathedral to our right the the bullet holes in the wall of one of the law courts in front of us caused I think by WWII. We then went ... read more

I was very tired on arrival in Berlin's uber modern Hauptbahnhof. I jumped on the S-Bahn to where was hostel was situated by the TV tower. I had received a really good service at the train station when reserving my onward ticket to Paris but I was to wish I had never asked a waitress setting tables outside of a restaurant which direction the street was that I needed to get to. Just a simple arm gesture in a particular direction would have sufficed but no. She said "I'm busy I have no time for this" to which I replied "Oooooh I won't be coming to eat here then...bitch..." I was very tired so felt this was an acceptable response. It turns out after asking a few people and getting sent in the wrong direction by ... read more

I arrived in Krakow from Vienna after a relatively comfortable night in an overnight sleeper. I was pleasantly surprised at how clean the compartment was, and was glad that out of 6 beds, only the 2 were occupied. I love sleeping with the movement of the train. I was in for a bit of a shock on stepping outside – it was pretty darn cold and I was without winter clothes. After finding my hostel I spent a few hours on its free internet before going to join the free walking tour outside St Mary’s Basilica. We walked first to the Barbican which is one of the few remaining relics of the complex network of fortifications and defensive barriers that once encircled the royal city. Built around 1498, it is one of only three such fortified ... read more

It was yet another hot day in Central Europe. I had had a fairly good sleep on the train from Brasov despite the horrors that unfolded on the journey i.e. the utter wanker of a ticket inspector who defaced my interrail pass. I’m not sure I have ever been so angry in all my life. I had filled in the travel calendar entirely correctly, yet the inspector clearly did not understand the rules of interrailing so he decided to fill in another day with yesterdays’ date. I thereafter had disturbing visions as to what I wanted to do with his pen. This proved to put a dampener on my whole stay in Budapest for the following reason: if the inspector on the next journey decided to take issue with the fact I had to write over ... read more