I had some wonderful delusions for this trip. I was sick of flying and obsessed with the idea of slow traveling. While I still prefer to go across land rather then by air if I can help it, I don’t think I would willingly do a trip exactly like this again. Going by bus is a very cheap, and very slow, and very uncomfortable way to travel. I left London on a night bus to Brussels, which was about 10 hours long. You leave from Victoria bus station and get dropped of in central Brussels. I took a few train stops to the hostel that I was staying at. I am really glad that I made my way to Belgium, however I wouldn’t recommend travelling there on your own, or perhaps if your going on your own there would be an event on that you were interested in. Traveling alone is a bit of an art form, personally I have found that you are going to have an awesome time if you have some kind of activity to do, for example hiking, snorkeling or diving. While I had a nice time in Brussels, I didn’t have an amazing experience. I found it difficult to meet people despite staying at a hostel. I arrived on a Monday and left on the Friday, and I thought afterwards it would be good to come for an event or perhaps even on a weekend when there is some more night life. I also found that just 2 full days would be enough. I spent 2 days just wandering around the city, eating chocolate and waffles and drinking beer. It’s a beautiful city and I made my way through the streets to view the architecture, and found my self in a music museum. I would recommend a walking tour to get the full history. I went to Bruges for a day on the train. This was a magical city, nice to walk and wander and get lost in the streets. It’s not a huge town, half a day here would be plenty. As I was leaving I decided to go back to Brussels via Ostend, which was the train stop after Bruges. I stayed for the sunset by the water before heading back. For my last day I brought some food and headed by train to Boitsfort to have a walk around the walking trails in the forest, which I really enjoyed.
From Brussels, I got on a bus to Amsterdam. I was meeting up with my friends Caris and Dan and a few other girls here to go and see Taylor Swift, a love of Caris’. Isaac, my partner, was meant to meet us in Amsterdam, but we had a lot of trouble getting him out of Perth on staff travel. He ended up going via Sydney and London, making it 4 connecting flights before arriving in Amsterdam on the day that we were leaving. We only had the weekend here, and we didn’t do much other then eat, drink and shop. And see T-Swift, which was awesome. Isaac arrived in the morning of my last day extremely travel worn, and we spent the day walking around before our bus that night to Berlin.
The Bus was about 9 hours long. We planned to spend 4 days in Berlin and this was a perfect amount of time here. It was pouring rain when we arrived, but when the sun was out it was the best atmosphere. We were staying at Generator hostel, which was a really friendly place to be. There were lots of art galleries around everywhere and we loved the relaxed vibe to the city. We made our way through monuments, parks, beer gardens and along the Berlin wall. We caught up with my cousin Gemma and her partner Matia, along with some friends of theirs who were living in Germany at the time. They were able to take us to a few nice places to enjoy the weather and recommend some great food and beers to have while there.
We then made our way to Munich, again by bus. It was around a 6 hour ride. It was here that we first tried an airbnb, we booked our self a private place quite central. It was a great experience and saved us a lot of money. The weather was great in Munich, and we spent our days walking around the parks along the river, and watching surfers take turns along the waves that the river made. It was a great atmosphere, and all we wanted to do was spend our time outside. We also made our way to Dachau concentration camp. It was packed with information, and was a very interesting and ominous place to be. It felt very normal, just an average place to go in the country, and for me that was the strangest thing about it, to know that so much horror had gone on here and yet there we were strolling around on a summer’s day.
jemstravel 