City Number 5 was Vienna.  I checked into Meringer Hotel.  This was a weird place, trying to be a hotel and trying to be a hostel and not achieving either.  I didn’t really care for it but never mind, I would only be there for two nights.  I headed into town and got dinner at Swing Kitchen.  A tasty vegan burger and swing music, what else could I need?

I spent a lot of time wander around the city admiring the architecture of the various palaces and museums.  They certainly like the statues in Vienna, certainly the ones depicting scenes of violence:P

Vienna was another vegan dreamland.  I visited the Nasch Market which was huuuuge and had loads of different stalls with food, clothes jewellery and cafe’s. I managed to find another great falafel wrap this time at a stall called Dr Falafel.  I also found myself at I love Veggie Burge where, guess what, I had another really tasty burger.

The art history museum was really interesting which had lots of artefacts from the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the interior of the building was beautiful!!

Bratislava, city 6 of 7, was only an hour on the train from Vienna.  I checked into Brickyard Hostel which was just a 5 minute walk from the train station and a 20 minute walk from the town centre.  The hostel was really nice, clean had a good atmosphere and I nearly always count en-suites in a hostel as a bonus! I was sharing my room with a friendly Greek called Irene.  We headed into the old town for a wander around to see the sights.  It was Friday night and I have to say the place was jumping and bars spilled out onto the pedestrian streets.  We also took a walk up to the Castle where the grounds were open and beautifully lit.  Afterwards, we enjoyed some Very reasonably priced beer.

The next day, me and Irene wandered around the old town again before she left for Zvolen in central Slovakia.  Like Prague, I loved all of the small twisty streets surrounded by old impressive buildings.  The UFO Bridge was pretty cool even if it was a bit dated.  If Aliens had indeed landed their flying saucer there they had been there a while and probably spaceship design has moved on a bit:P In the town we were also treated to some Slovak dancing, see the video section of my blog!

The 7^th and final stop was Budaaaapessst! I checked into the Hive Party Hostel.  It was nice and had a massive bar but in hindsight this was not the best choice I made….let’s just say I felt pretty old!:P  On the first night I went to Napfenyes Etterum and had a fantastic vegan pizza for a very reasonable price.

I then wandered around and visited touristy hot spots like Heroes Square, the Chain Bridge and the parliament buildings which were beautifully lit at night.  There were also boards up around the town that described what Budapest was like after WWII under Soviet Control.  Again, like other things I have learned on this trip, this was still going on in my life time not so far from home which I found pretty mental!

The next day I visited various landmarks on in Buda (west of the river) The Citadel offered amazing views of the city.  It was also interesting to learn about the various occupiers of the Citadel stretching from medieval times to the Soviets.  Next I visited the Royal Palace but not before getting an amazing sweet potato burger from Vegan Love.  The Palace was really pretty and also offered amazing views of the city.  The history museum was really interesting to learn about the various skirmishes between Buda and Pest and with various other countries.  Basically it seemed as though that until recently there was never more than a few years between wars involving at least one of the two cities.  Last but not least, Matthias Church was absolutely stunning and the area that it was located in looked like somewhere out of Lord of the Rings.

Overall I had a great time during my 3 weeks in Europe.  I seen some incredible things, met some really nice people and enjoyed some really tasty food.  I wouldn’t hesitate to coming back to any of these cities to try and see more at a future date.

After Amsterdam, Berlin would be city number 2 of 7 that I would be visiting on this trip.  I caught the train from Amsterdam and was in Berlin in a “swift” 7 hours: P When I got in I checked into the Backpax Mitte Hostel which was really nice and had a good atmosphere.  In this evening I took a walk into town and went along the Spree near to the Bode Museum.  There were loads of people in the park just chilling with live music playing; it was such a nice relaxing atmosphere.  The architecture of the buildings around here was absolutely stunning.

Alexanderplatz was a nice contrast to the older buildings with lots of newer architecture including the Fernsehturm.

Fernsehturm

For the next couple of days I basically just walked around admiring all of the amazing architecture.  It was roasting the whole time which didn’t make the walking easy but I really shouldn’t complain when I come from Scotland.  The night time views of the city from the roof of the Reichstag and the Reichstag dome were particularly beautiful.

The Berlin wall memorial was really interesting.  It is crazy to think that this wall was still up in my lifetime! What is even crazier is that you have idiots like Donald Trump who are still talking about building walls.

The memorial to the murdered Jews was  really informing but also really sad.Now this may have not happened in my lifetime but it still wasn’t that long ago which I find hard to get my head around!

Food-wise, Berlin was a fecking dream for a Vegan; there were so many good places to eat.  Places that I ate at included the Falafel Dream Food Truck where I had an awesome falafel wrap and Vegetarisches where a fantastic Thai green curry with crispy noodles was devoured

At the hostel I chatted to a couple of lovely German lassies, Lea and Cheyenne, from southern Germany who told me stories of the not so cosmopolitan and less tolerant of English ways of the deep south!:P  Nevertheless they still recommend exploring that part of the country.

 

City number 3 was Prague.  I checked into Hostel Lipa which was quite small and basic but really nice.  It wasn’t in the best area but for about 10 Euros a night I really couldn’t complain.  On the first night I went to the Loving Hut for dinner which was a vegan buffet.  It was amazing and great value.  Needless to say, I went back there for dinner on my second night as well.

The architecture was amazing in Prague as well.  Some of the highlights included The Old Town Square, King Charles Bridge and St Vitus Cathedral.  The cathedral was a stunning gothic masterpiece and I couldn’t help but be amazed at the amount of detail on it.

I loved all of the tiny twisting and turning streets.  They did make for a bit of a navigation nightmare at times, even with GPS, but I think that is more of a reflection on my navigation skills than the complexity of the terrain: P

 

City number 4…. Salzbuuuuurg, which was not as much of a vegan dream  but it wasn’t that surprising being a smaller city.  I did manage to find the (probably) only vegan restaurant in the city called The Heart of Joy where I had a pretty decent faux ham sandwich. 

I checked into the Yoho International Hostel which was a pretty big hostel with a good atmosphere and a decent bar.  I was sharing my room with an American couple, Caroline and Eric, and we made use of the bar to play some card drinking games which was pretty fun!

As far as I was concerned Salzburg has a bit of everything, an awesome castle, a cool coloured river, stunning architecture and to top it off is situated on the edge of the Austrian Alps.  The audio tour in the castle was pretty cool too which explained how the castle originated as a chapel with some walls around it and was gradually developed and strengthened over 800 years.  In this time it was never taken by force and only captured once by Napoleon…not a bad track record! Exploring the castle was really fun too because I felt like I was in a proper medieval castle.  It also boasted pretty amazing views of the city below and the surrounding mountains. When I crossed the Makartsteg footbridge I may have been the only one on it not with a significant other!:P

Makartsteg Footbridge

Now the next place I visited was not one of the 7 cities but from Salzburg I took a day trip to the village of Hallstatt.  The drive itself was beautiful as mountains and lakes passed by.  Hallstatt is situated in an incredibly beautiful setting on the edge of a gorgeous lake surrounded by mountains.  It is a proper little tourist town but still worth a visit.  The houses built into the hillside were pretty awesome.  I took a ride up the funicular and the views from the top were pretty spectacular.

Now it was time to say goodbye to the mountains and make my way to the east end of the country.

So, Amsterdam what a beautiful city! Me and my friends, Cathal and Thomas would be spending a week in this glorious place.  I could not get used to how many bikes there were, it was crazy…actually more bikes than cars and every single railing had a bike attached to it.  I liked it a lot as it’s such a nice way to get around a really flat city.  I must admit though, I was a bit afraid to actually try and cycle here on account of the large number of cyclists and not being particularly confident on the rules.  I mean, I nearly got run over by bikes on more than one occasion just walking around!  The other thing I couldn’t get used to was the number of canals but again I loved it as it gave the city centre such a unique feeling

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There are so many great things to do in Amsterdam.  We all got a 4 day Iamsterdam card for 96 Euros which gave us free travel on buses and trams in the city and free or discounted entry into loads of different attractions so I would highly recommend getting one of these if you visit.  We also got at 24 hour ‘Amsterdam and Region’ ticket which gave us free travel on busses outside of Amsterdam.  To make use of this we visited Bubble Beach which was really nice but pretty busy as it was a roasting hot day.

Bubble Beach

On the way back we visited the very small and cute town of Harlem.

The next day we visited the windmills at Zaandam and it was really interesting to learn about the different industries that they used to serve.

I loved just wandering around Amsterdam as there were so many colourful narrow buildings with their hoisting beams at the top, canals weaving through the city crossed with tiny bridges whose railings had a permanent supply of bikes attached to them.  Walking through the red light district was pretty odd to just see woman in the windows.  The ‘coffee’ shop experience was pretty good.  I never smoke at home but it was really nice to experience such a relaxed culture around it.

Amsterdam City Centre

 

Amsterdam City Centre

Some of my favourite attractions included taking a canal boat cruise as it was nice to see the city from a different perspective.  The Amsterdam Museum was great to learn about the history of the city. Vondel Park was great to visit on a nice sunny day.  It was actually a series of different parks  and it’s great to have such a nice green space in the middle of the city.  The De Oude Kirk was really beautiful but it felt strange to be walking on the graves on the floor.  Last but not least, the Ann Frank House was really worth a visit.  It was obviously really sad but really interesting to learn more about the event that took place in the house and to try and picture what it must have been like.  I ended up buying the book as I was going to have lots of time to read on my inter-rail trip.  On the whole I loved Amsterdam and would quite happily visit again.  I had a really good time with Thomas and Cathal as it was the most time we had spent together since we were flatmates during university 9 years ago! But now it was on-wards, on the train to Berlin!

The De Oude Kirk