Skip to main content

Euro rail adventure!!! August/September 2016

Image
By

Hello lovely people who decided to read our blog!! 
Some of you may have followed the other travel blog that I do with my little sister Catriona...this one will be relatively the same but the writing will be shared with one of my best friends in the world, the lovely Claire (@Claireabella7 on Instagram if your interested).

(Photo of us here)

As we both graduated this July we decided to spend the remaining money that fourth year left us with (and some hard earned poker money form various jobs) on a special celebratory trip!! We had been talking about doing an interail trip for some time now ...but as usual either time, money or energy have been working against us... So since we finally had some time we thought "Hey! When else are we going to have anonymity chance to travel for a month without any disruptions or work commitments to rush back to!!" So here we are!! 

Doing a big circular loop around Europe, starting in Amsterdam and finishing in Brussels, attempting to see as many cities as we can in between...here we go...15 days train travel within a 30 day period, leaving us with approximately a couple of days in each place 🎉. 
We flew out from Edinburgh VERY early on Monday the 22nd August and we were in Amsterdam by 2pm (a wee stopover in Manchester to change planes).  If you know Claire and I at all you'll know we don't do mornings too well but we managed, we were however pretty pooped by the time we finally reached the Luck Lake Hostel shortly after four and eight just decided to stay in and plan, eat and chill on our first evening. 


First of all, WOW! This hostel is gorgeous, comfortable, quirky and has an awesome community vibe to it! Situated in an idyllic location on the outskirts of Amsterdam town, about a five minute walk from lake Vinkeveense Plassen . The hostel is made up of a series of renovated caravans, cabins and a few dormitories, a 'smoking' socialising cabin 🙃🤘🏻, a much smaller non smoking social caravan, some space for cooking and eating, and a breakfast bus. (Images to follow).


 



Anyway, the rest of the evening was spent planning some things for the next day, drinking beer in the sun and chilling in the hammocks. Awe also started making some lovey friends whom gave us some cool tips . Altogether a very slow but great first day!!

 
 


 

Comments

  1. frankrennie24 August 2016 at 13:51

    You look very relaxed! ��

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hemhebartist24 August 2016 at 15:19

    Great blog and photos. Hope the rest of the trip goes well too

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hemhebartist24 August 2016 at 15:20

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hemhebartist24 August 2016 at 15:24

    Well there's nothing like saying it twice.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hemhebartist24 August 2016 at 15:29

    As you may have gathered commenting a bit tricky

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hemhebartist24 August 2016 at 15:33

    Why couldn't they just remove comment without saying so. Makes you look mega stupid.Hope to get hang of this by end of your trip.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 2 : A day in Amsterdam

By
Hello! We have lots to tell you about our day in Amsterdam, we tried the food, visited many places and learned a lot about the history of this liberal city.  Where we stayed: It had been suggested that we tried the lucky lake hostel, and it was certainly worth the pennies (perhaps one of the more expensive hostels we'll be staying in during this trip). The cheerful decor and helpful staff really made us feel at home, we're already dreaming of coming back some day. Our highlight was sitting in the hammocks holding a nice cold Amsterdam beer.  (Pictures to follow ) Places we explored: We managed to cover so much of Amsterdam in one day! The beauty of this place is that it's so easy to get around on foot (just watch for the cyclists, they will not  stop for you). As it was such a nice day we spent a lot of time visiting the outside attractions. We were lucky enough to stumble across a free walking tour, lead by a lovely guide called Karen.  (Pictures to follow ) Food we...
1 comment
Read more

Vienna day 2

By
The rain is here to stay, making today another good day to visit a gallery. We left our big heavy bags at the hostel after checking out and made our way to the Belvedere gallery which is one of Vienna's many great places to absorb some culture. We bought tickets to see the Gustav Klimt exhibition which was just amazing. The paintings are huge in real life. 'The kiss' was the centre piece, taking up an entire wall top to bottom. A lot of the works on display were unfinished as he died before he could complete them, but there was something nice about seeing his work from a more deconstructed perspective.    Along with that we got to see some of Egon Sheile's stuff too, which is an artist our life drawing teacher always used to rave about. He's a big deal when it comes to drawing naked bodies and even some not so naked bodies. A lot of the work we saw was (relatively clothed) family portraits and embracing couples which were similar in subject matter yet very different...
Post a Comment
Read more

Zagreb and the not so orient express.

By
Not going to lie, this was not the most productive day we've had so far. We had the majority of the day to spend in Zagreb before we needed to board our first night train of the trip. However, we couldn't do anything with our big heavy rucksacks so we had to lug them about wherever we went. To be fair we did do a lot of walking the previous day, so we felt quite content with exploring the areas closer to the train station.  So, first of all we walked up to the grand hotel that used to serve as a rest stop for travellers of the great Orient Express. We considered having a wee coffee just to experience a small slice of what it might have been like to live such an affluent life (the hotel has been visited by the likes of Queen Elizabeth...). I would love to say that we did... But we gazed at the fancy waiters in their fancy suits and then took a look at ourselves and settled upon having our pack lunch in the gardens with a view of the hotel instead. We we haven't had a great e...
1 comment
Read more