So here I was. I had made it to the last leg of my European jaunt; Switzerland. The night I arrived in Bilbao four-and-a-half months earlier, seems like a lifetime ago. Switzerland boasts some of the most beautiful countryside in the world. That was my main observation as my train went from Austria, through Liechtenstein and then into the green pastures, cobalt lakes and snow-capped mountains of the Swiss countryside. Travelling on the Swiss trains is so easy as well. On-board screens automatically keep you updated with the next stops, the train's speed and the ETA at each stop. As we pull into Zurich's hauptbahnhof, it even tells you which platform to catch your connecting train from. However, this beauty, ease and efficiency comes at a price. I managed to get my train to Lucerne from ... read more

I didn't want a thirty minute walk to the hostel after yet another unexpected hike at Neuschwanstein but that is exactly what I got. My hostel in Innsbruck wasn't the most conveniently located and it is on long, tiring walks like this at night, when you're tired, hungry, dirty and cold, that you really wish you were home. Archaic Sunday trading laws have to change too; there was no place still open and selling food at 8pm - hardly past anyone's bedtime. Luckily I still had a massive loaf of sweet raisin bread that I had bought in Fussen. To top things off, I had managed to pick up a cold too; I would normally have jumped at the free breakfast included in the price of my stay but I was just too tired to get ... read more

It's been awhile since I have had to take a shuttle between destinations - I believe that the last time I did it was all the way back in Guatemala. Cesky Krumlov to Salzburg is quite a popular route for tourists to take so I was surprised that there was no direct bus service - or even a direct train. The gap has therefore been filled by about three or four companies operating shared mini-vans for fairly extortionate prices. And since the majority of tourism in these parts is made up mainly of wealthier Asian tourists, they are prepared to pay these prices. In my case, I didn't have a choice. I did enjoy the three-hour service however. The van was nice, new and comfortable and the driver even let me put on my tunes on ... read more

Warsaw. It sounds pretty grim doesn't it? That tends to happen when you put the words "war" and "saw" together. Then you add the city's history and its association with the Eastern bloc and you have a connotation for the word "bleak". Yet it is exactly this which also gives the city intrigue - and all that stuff was a long time ago now so it was time to see how Warsaw has changed. I think I've been pretty fortunate with border crossings on this trip. I've not had any dramas like this or any ridiculously long, nightmare ones. Well, on what was to be my final proper border crossing from Ukraine back into the EU and Poland, it appears my luck has finally run out. Getting past Ukrainian border control was fine - that only ... read more

In my younger days, the only things I associated with Kiev were the eponymous chicken dish and its football team; Dynamo Kyiv. The time had now come for me to see if there was indeed, anything dynamic about Ukraine's capital. Now I've caught buses from some strange places on this journey, but the university building to which I was directed to catch my bus to Kiev definitely didn't look like a place where you caught buses. Inside, there was one lady who spoke reasonably good English and she was so kind as to walk me to the correct place a hundred metres down the road, while scolding me off for arriving to catch my bus so late. Well, I had arrived half-an hour before the bus was due to leave and I needed that half an ... read more