ejc23

I’m on the road again!... errr, actually, I’m on a plane, and not again. Nor do I want to be on a plane again, not for the flying, but because airports are cages of human doom, which induce a nervous breakdown in the most stable of the species. I just want to go to Greece, and drink copious amounts of cocktails next to shimmering blue water....but airports don’t seem to understand this! First they want to me have a full on sweaty tear-filled meltdown over the amount of toothpaste I can fit in a 20x20cm clear bag. And not just ANY clear bag, it must be THEIR clear bag! And it must be sealed, for god knows what bastarding swineair (Ryanair) demonic hell will unleash itself from the underworld if my toothpaste accidentally touches the side ... read more

I arrived in Nice that evening and checked into my hostel. The man on the reception desk was typically French, in the sense that he was about as friendly as a snake. I know this doesn’t apply to all French people, but a large majority of them seem to live up to their stereotype of being bloody grumpy! I went into my dorm room, and met Sonia from Montreal, Canada…. now she speaks French and was very nice! I also met Mocca & Ryan, two girls from China who were travelling around Europe together. I went out that evening to have a wander around Nice before it got too dark, went to the promenade, and strangely enough, it reminded me a little of Las Vegas. A little, not a lot! The promenade has large hotels on ... read more

After my less than adequate sleep on the roof terrace, I woke up pretty early and managed to catch an earlier than planned train Bologna, and then on to Florence. Some countries require you to reserve your seat in addition to having a train ticket, and Italy is one of these (as was Poland!). The train reservations cost about another 7 euros, but guarantee you a seat on the train – which was handy as the train to Florence was packed! I arrived at the station, walked with TP to my hostel and decided to just have a little chill time as a huge storm broke out. Thank Christ it did! It cooled down the country by about 10 degrees! I went for a walk around the city after this and saw the Duomo cathedral, which ... read more

About a day before I leave wherever I am, I’ve started booking my hostel for the next place. At the start of this trip I was looking for clean rooms, social areas, close to the town, etc etc, but my booking criteria has changed completely. It is now this: Air Conditioning! It doesn’t really matter what else is at the hostel after that. Hostelworld reviews say - “There were rats in the kitchen!!”……. My thoughts… “Did someone say free breakfast?!” So I booked by hostel (with air conditioned room) at my next destination, which is Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. I took the 7 ½ hour train journey from Budapest, which had little air conditioning and no drinking water – even to buy - and arrived at my hostel a sweaty yet dehydrated mess. Incidentally, this ... read more

I woke up early to get various metro links to ‘Schwedenplatz', where the boat leaves to Bratislava. I got on the boat and we started cruising down the (actually quite murky brown) Danube. As we got a bit further out of Vienna and the clouds started to clear, the river surface did start to reflect the blue skies……so I suppose I can let Strauss off! It only took about an hour and a half to get to Bratislava as the catamaran boat was pretty speedy…..and we were going DOWNSTREAM! (Well remembered all my avid readers! ? ) I walked to my hostel (named Hostel Blues, hopefully for the music not the emotions) and left TP there while they were preparing the room to allow check in. I hate myself a little bit for this – but ... read more