Liechtenstein? Where in the world is Liechtenstein? This is what I imagine you are asking yourself as you click on this blog and I can’t blame you. Saying this, I have actually wanted to go to Liechtenstein for ages! Just like when I went to Andorra last year, there’s something about the fact that I know nothing about it and that it’s this tiny little country sandwiched between other countries that fascinates me. This has been near the top of my list of destinations for a while because it’s closer to Mulhouse than you might think! (You do have to cross pretty much the whole of Switzerland but it’s not that big a country.) I have nothing against taking a trip by myself, I’ll never let lack of company stop me from going anywhere, but I thought it would be fun to have a partner in crime for this one so I invited Aine from Une Bouchée A Day, a treasured friend and colleague. Turns out we are also great travel companions! (You can read Aine’s account of our weekend in English or in French!)

Liechtenstein is bordered by Switzerland to the west and Austria to the east and is a semi-constitutional monarchy headed by the prince of Liechtenstein. The official language is German (I tried my best but I was pleased to have Aine’s slightly more advanced level of German with me!). It covers an area of just 160km and has a population of just over 38,000. Before we continue, here’s a few fun facts so that you can ace the Liechtenstein round on your next pub quiz:

• Liechtenstein is the fourth smallest state in Europe (after the Vatican City, Monaco and San Marino) and the six smallest in the world (add in Nauru and Tuvalu at third and fourth respectively).
• It is the richest country in the world in terms of GDP per capita income.
• It is one of only two double-landlocked countries in the world, meaning that it doesn’t border an ocean and neither do any of the other countries that it does border. The other double-landlocked country is Uzbekistan.
• Liechtenstein is the world’s largest producer of false teeth.
• Switzerland once invaded Liechtenstein by accident! In 2007, its army got lost in the mountains and Liechtenstein only realised when they got a letter of apology.

From Mulhouse we basically had to cross Switzerland to reach Liechtenstein. We were only staying for one night so we had an early start! Trains in Switzerland can be expensive so to minimise this we took a Flixbus at 5am(!!!) to Zurich. This was about two hours and then from there it was a train to Sargans, the closest town in Switzerland to the border with Liechtenstein. Liechtenstein is not in the European Union but it is part of the Schengen Zone, meaning you can move freely across its borders, and part of the European Economic Zone. From Sargans, it only takes 30 mins on the bus to get to Liechtenstein’s capital, Vaduz.

With a bit of forward planning and research we had found out that Liechtenstein has something called the Adventure Pass (AP). This gets you admission to 30 different attractions in Liechtenstein as well as some other bonuses. You can get a one day pass for 25 Swiss Francs (CHF), about £22.50, a two day pass for 29 CHF (£26) or a three day pass for 35 CHF (£31.50). Wanting to make the most of the little time that we had, we bought the two day pass and I think it was very worthwhile! Liechtenstein is generally expensive (imagine prices comparable with Switzerland) so we were also hoping it would save us some money! But don’t take my word for it, I’ll let you know whenever something we did was covered by the Adventure Pass and I’ll show how the costs work out and how much we saved at the end.

Our first stop on arrival was the tourist centre to check how the passes work. We also got a novelty passport stamp in the tourism office which was included in the Adventure Pass. It’s not strictly necessary because, as I said, Liechtenstein is in the Schengen Zone but it was still cute! You’ll find the tourism office on one end of the main street in Vaduz, Städtle. It is pedestrianised and is where you’ll find most of the museums. The castle also sits on the hill above the street and can be accessed from the far end of the street. After our early morning, we really wanted a coffee so we found a bakery and got a snack and a coffee each. My German is almost non-existent but I tried really hard to order in German and everyone was really patient!

The weather was not supposed to be the best for most of the weekend but it was looking a little brighter when we came out of our coffee so we decided that would be the best time to head up to the castle. And when I say up, I really mean UP! The castle is situated on the hill right behind Städtle so it’s really not far but most of the distance you have to cover is vertical. Even if you take it slow and steady with plenty of stops to enjoy the view and take pictures, it will only take you half an hour to get up there. I would absolutely recommend it because the views are incredible, even if there’s actually not that much to see when you get to the top. As we were climbing, we kept seeing a lot of the same tourists that had either been on the bus with us or in the tourist centre which was funny. Liechtenstein is (literally!) a small world. The castle was under construction when we were there but even if it wasn’t, you still can’t go into the castle because it is the official residence of the prince of Liechtenstein. The only exception is on the National Day of Liechtenstein on 15th August when all residents are invited into the castle for drinks and fireworks! If you want to learn a little more about the castle, the alte kino (old cinema) has daily showings of a film about the castle. We didn’t go because the timings didn’t work out but the Adventure Pass gets you in for free. 

We had a quick (but not cheap) lunch at a restaurant called Engel’s where the menu was 50% traditional, 50% Chinese dishes. In general we had noticed that a lot of places, mostly restaurants and shops, weren’t open even though it was a Saturday. We later learnt that this is because most places are there for the workers so are open during the week but not at the weekend because there’s also not that much tourism. I’m still a bit confused about whether tourism is a major industry in Liechtenstein or not. I’ve read in some places that it is but judging by the amount of other tourists we saw (not many) and after speaking to some locals, it seems like maybe not.

Vaduz is home to a number of museums so after lunch we wanted to tick off the first one – the Kunstmuseum. It’s a modern and contemporary art gallery which isn’t really my speed (a lot of it goes over my head) but there were a few things I liked! My favourites were actually the doodles on the wall leading down to the temporary exhibition, including my favourite poem ever ‘Ma back ache / Ma bra too tight / My booty shake / from left to right’, and a statue outside the museum, ‘Reclining Woman’ by Colombian artist Fernando Botero. After we finished in the museum we went right across the road to a souvenir shop called Hoi (that seems to be a word like hi) where our AP got us a free magnet and a tasting of a wine.

After that, we walked over to the Hofkellerei, the Prince’s wine cellars, where the AP would get us two tastings of wine. Liechtenstein is the world’s smallest wine producing nation but the tradition of viniculture goes back two thousand years. We walked through the vineyards which were gorgeous with the mountains in the background. When we got there, we discovered that it was actually a wine tasting event going on and we could go around and try as many wines as we wanted! Different rooms had wines from different regions although the majority of wines we tried were from Liechtenstein. My favourite was a sparkling Riesling from Liechtenstein. Riesling is common in Alsace as well but it’s not my favourite although adding bubbles changed everything! Towards the end we got talking to a Dominican woman who has been living in Liechtenstein for 15 years. I ended up speaking Spanish with her and Aine would try to understand then respond in French which Severina would then do her best to understand. It was a fun little bilingual experience. She also gave us some great recommendations, a few of which we actually did the next day.

After that we decided it was time to head to our accommodation for the night. We were staying in the Jugendherberge, the Youth Hostel International hostel like I stayed at in Innsbruck. It was similar in feel, a bit more modern and stylish but still in the middle of nowhere. It was also the cheapest option we found, although that’s not to say it was cheap. Choosing this youth hostel rather than a hotel, even just for one night, was our attempt to save some money (and also my attempt to convert Aine to being a hostel lover like me!). It was a little outside Vaduz, on the edge of Schaan which is the next town over. It only took 20 minutes to walk from the Princes Cellar’s but another great thing about the Adventure Pass is that it includes free public transport! This even includes the bus from Sargans to Liechtenstein, although we didn’t realise that until after we’d already bought tickets.

After our early start and a lot of walking and exploring, we were both pretty tired so no big night out on the town for us. We wanted to try some traditional Liechtenstein food for dinner so we asked for a recommendation at reception. We ended up going into Schaan to a restaurant called Scanaua. I think something got lost in translation at reception (even though we were speaking English) because it definitely wasn’t traditional, it was actually quite trendy and modern! Neither of us were that hungry so we got a few smaller dishes to share, wee wagyu meatballs, bruschetta with cream cheese and mushrooms and wild garlic pesto ravioli. By this time the early morning and the busy day were catching up with us so we didn’t hang around long. We went back to the hostel and were in bed by 10pm. 

Our second and final day in Liechtenstein started with a great continental breakfast that was included in the price of our beds that filled us up ready for the day. The weather was drizzly, as the forecast had promised, but we didn’t let that rain on our parade (boom boom). We got the bus back into Vaduz (thank you AP) and took a quick detour past the iconic Rotes Haus, the Red House, before heading back to the main street of Städtle to hit a few more museums.

We started with the Treasure Chamber which contains a collection of paintings and objects owned by the prince and other private citizens. These include the apple blossom Fabergé egg (Google it) and lunar rocks from the Apollo 11 and 17 missions! These, and a flag of Liechtenstein that actually travelled to the moon, were presented to the country in recognition of the contribution of Liechtenstein company Balzers AG, specialists in vaccines technology, to NASA. Unfortunately you couldn’t take pictures but it was very impressive! It’s just one room attached to the postal museum and is included in the AP. We did a quick lap of the postal museum afterwards but it’s not something that interests me that much so we didn’t stay long. Again, included in the AP so why not?

The final museum of the day was the Landesmuseum, the national museum. I was really looking forward to this one because I was interested in learning more than just the snippets of Liechtenstein’s history that I’d picked up already. However, I was actually really disappointed because the signs and plaques were entirely in German, with only a few in English, so all I could do was look at things. Obviously German is the official language but for a country that relies on tourism as one of its principal industries (maybe) and considering that the postal museum had all of its signs in German, English AND Chinese, I think the Landesmuseum can do better. Saying that, there was a temporary exhibition on Chinese calligraphy, of all things, which did have English signs. I really enjoyed looking at them and reading some of the poetry (or trying at least). There was also a little station where you could try doing a little calligraphy yourself and it took me back to the calligraphy class I took when I was studying in Dalian.

After a quick coffee, we got on the bus up to another town, higher up in the mountains, called Malbun. We wanted to see another side of Liechtenstein and were still in search of more traditional food to try. Severina from the wine tasting the day before had given us the name of a restaurant in Malbun that we wanted to try. It took half an hour on bus 21 that left from the main road near the tourist centre, winding its way up the mountains to end in Malbun. We had a walk around in the snow, eyeing up the chairlifts that take you to the ski slopes in the area before heading to Hotel Turna, our lunch recommendation. I had been after a Hugo spritz all weekend which I finally got and then Aine and I shared a käsespaetzle (heavy egg pasta with cheese and fried onions) and wienerschnitzel (breaded veal) with chips and a side salad. For dessert, I had to go for the apple strudel!

The hotel was right beside a chairlift that was included in our AP so we decided to take it even though the weather had closed in and it was a bit cold. It was fun but it was pretty high and I remembered that I’m a little scared of heights! There’s something about being on a chairlift without skis on my feet that felt a bit weird. It was a bit of a bizarre activity to do but that kind of fit the theme of the whole weekend. We laughed our way up and back down again in less than ten minutes. And that was pretty much it! We left on the reverse of our journey there, the bus back down to Sargans, train to Zurich and finally the Flixbus back to Mulhouse.

Much of the weekend was structured around what we could do that was included in the Adventure Pass and as promised, here’s a breakdown of the costs and savings –

2 day Adventure Pass – 29 CHF

• Passport stamp – 3 CHF
• Kunstmuseum – 15 CHF
• Glass of wine from Hoi – 6 CHF
• Magnet from Hoi – 6 CHF
• Two wine tastings at the Hofkellerei – 12 CHF
• Landesmuseum – 8 CHF
• Coaster from the postal museum – 6 CHF (admission is free)
• Treasure Chamber – 8 CHF
• Malbun chairlift – 10 CHF
• Free bus travel – 20 CHF (based on our journeys)

According to my calculations (which should be taken with a healthy pinch of salt) all the things we used the Adventure pass for added up to 94 CHF each. Some of the costs are estimations, such as the price of the shorter bus journeys or the free coaster we got. So having paid 29 CHF each for the pass, we saved around 65 CHF. My verdict is that the adventure pass is definitely worth it!

My final thoughts on Liechtenstein are mixed, in all honesty. I had a great time, don’t get me wrong – it’s somewhere that I’ve wanted to visit for a long time, I loved travelling with Aine and having that experience together plus Liechtenstein has a breathtaking quality to the landscapes, especially from Vaduz in the main valley, with vineyards sitting in front of incredible mountains that all look like a postcard. However, I’ve already said that I’ve seen conflicting things about the importance of tourism in Liechtenstein but having been a tourist in Liechtenstein, I don’t think it’s particularly set up for us. There are good things like the Adventure Pass and the ease of public transport but the fact is that accommodation options are limited, or at least restricted to a certain, higher budget. I agree with Une Bouchée A Day’s assessment of the food, that if you’re going to have Swiss prices, you should also have Swiss quality and I don’t think that was always the case. For it being a weekend, there also wasn’t a lot of choice available. I also can’t forgive the lack of accessibility of the Landesmuseum in comparison with the other museums.

If you are interested in visiting Liechtenstein, I think tempering your expectations is important. Unless you want to go hiking through the country’s many trails, two days, one night is more than enough time. If you are particularly interested in wine and viniculture, it’s somewhere you might enjoy, or if like me, you have a slightly strange fascination with visiting places that most people have never even heard of. Aside from those, I think there are other places to visit first. If I compare it to my time in Andorra, I left knowing that I want to and will be back, whereas I feel satisfied having seen Liechtenstein once and only once.

I had such a great time in Madrid and Lisbon but there were some long days and lots of walking involved so I was ready to chill for a little bit. After a few days in Lisbon, I was heading to the north of Portugal and the second largest city, Porto. When I was planning this trip, I decided that I wanted to see more than just one place in Portugal which is why I didn’t spend the whole week in Lisbon. On second thoughts, I regret that decision slightly but only because I loved Lisbon so much, not because I didn’t like Porto. Another exciting part of Porto was that I was meeting a friend there so I had some company! It didn’t end there either. After two nights in Porto with my friend Anna, I headed to Paris to meet my dad and sister for the weekend and round out my trip.

From Lisbon, Porto is only a three hour bus ride away so I arrived about midday. Anna was flying in from France a few hours after me so I scoped out where our AirBnB is and then killed some time in a Starbucks so I could charge my rapidly depleting phone battery (the beginning of the end for my old iPhone 8, she served me well). Once Anna had landed and was on her way into the city, I found a lunch spot for us, Garden Cafe, and we caught up over some delicious burgers. After lunch we still had to wait an hour or so until we could check in so we sat reading in a square in front of Porto town hall until it was time.

Once we could check in and leave our bags, we went straight out to catch the sunset. Of everything we did in Porto, this was my favourite. We headed down to Ponte Luís I, one of the bridges that crosses the Rio Douro. The view of Porto is incredible but made even better by an incredible sunset! On the other side of the bridge is the jardim do Morro, a small park, where I had an incredibly weird (almost) encounter. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a face that I recognised and it took me a second to place it. It turned out to be someone I met in Beijing in the first few days that I moved to China in 2019! I bumped into his friend early in the morning in the hostel and ended up going for a walk with them both as the sun was still coming up (blame jet lag). I couldn’t believe that I had spotted and recognised him three and a half years later. I didn’t go up and say hi because the only contact we’ve had since Beijing is being Facebook friends and I didn’t fancy the awkwardness if he didn’t also recognise me. Still, it was a nice reminder of how small and serendipitous the world is!

We walked back along the bridge and down some stairs to get to water level (glad we were going down instead of up!). We had a look at a few little shops, enjoyed some buskers and then sat down for a drink in the cosy terrace of a bar. One glass of wine and a hot chocolate later, we headed back to the AirBnB via McDonalds for a light dinner. Incidentally, the McDonalds in Porto is considered by many as the most beautiful in the world! It is housed in an Art Deco building that previously was home to the famous Cafe Imperial.

For our full day in Porto, we had a few things on our list. Top of that was Livraria Lello, one of the oldest bookstores in Portugal and often considered one of the best in the world. You can also see a collection of letters from Bob Dylan to his high school girlfriend that are displayed upstairs. I definitely think it’s one, if not the most, beautiful bookstore that I’ve ever seen. The warm wooden interior and the nooks created by the beams make it feel comforting, like any good bookshop should be. However, I think it’s really more of a tourist attraction than a functioning bookshop, which is fine as long as you know to expect that. If you want to visit Livraria Lello, you need to buy a ticket, €6 on the door I think or €5 online. We bought them online while standing outside so it’s easy to do. If you go on to buy a book inside, the price of your ticket is deducted from the price of the book. In theory, I think this is a good system. If you have a bookshop that has become as popular as Lello, then this is a good way to incentivise people to actually buy books rather than just come in and look around. However, there were some flaws in practice. Once we got inside it was absolutely packed, so much so that we could barely move up or down the main stairs. Anna pointed out that if you’re going to have a ticketing system, why let that many people in at once? Once inside, they don’t have a very large selection of books other than a limited selection of their own editions of ‘classic’ novels in a selection of languages. In the end, neither of us bought anything. I think a better example of a famous and popular yet still functioning bookshop would be Shakespeare and Company in Paris. Yes, the lines can be long and it’s still very busy but it’s free, there’s enough room to breathe, a wide selection of books plus you’re not supposed to take photos so that people don’t get clogged up taking Instagram pics.

Moving on, we passed the Torre de Clérigos, a church tower that is one of the symbols of the city, and walked down the Rua das Flores, possibly the most picturesque street in Porto. This took us back down to the waterfront where we found a spot to eat. It was mostly likely a tourist trap, the food was fine but not great, but we wanted somewhere to enjoy the view and the sunshine. I had a francesinha, a sandwich that originated in Porto, with steak, salami, sausage and ham topped with melted cheese, a fried egg covered in a tomato and beer sauce. It is usually served with a side of chips and traditionally eaten alongside a cold beer. Who am I to break with tradition?

After lunch we wandered across to the other side of the river where we passed a stand selling fatura, the Portuguese version of a churro. You could get them with a filling so I had creme de ovos, a bit like the filling of a pastel de nata but less creamy. Just further along was the teleférico, the short cable car that takes up to jardim do Morro. It was €7 which is very expensive for a journey that is less than 5 minutes but it was the only activity we wanted to do that cost anything. We sat in the park reading for a little and headed back in the direction of our AirBnB. We stopped for my daily pastel de nata. I also tried Licor 35 which is a pastel de nata flavoured liqueur – as delicious as it sounds!

That was it for Porto, we had a chilled evening in the apartment as Anna had an online class to teach and we left the next morning. It was nice to have a change of pace after a very busy time in Madrid and Lisbon as well as to have some company! From Porto, it was off to Paris to meet my sister and my dad. Seeing as this was back in February, it was right in the middle of the Six Nations rugby tournament and we were there to watch the Scotland vs. France match! It was an easy journey into the centre of Paris where I met my dad and his friends. This was actually a bit of a lads trip that they do every year, either to Paris or to Rome for the Scotland vs. Italy match, that my sister and I were crashing! We were staying around Gare du Nord where we had a drink in a bar called Ô Béret Basque and, after my sister arrived, dinner at Maison Bleue. The food was great, with nice wine, nice company and nice conversation.

Having arrived on the Friday and the match not being until Sunday, we had all of Saturday to kill in Paris (not a hard thing to do). Amy took the lead as it had been the longest since she had been to Paris. We started with a walk up to Montmartre (emphasis on UP) where we went into Sacré Coeur, a first for me. We wandered around a little more, had a coffee and then headed down past the Wall of Love, a cool mural with ‘I love you’ written 311 times in 250 languages. At Amy’s request, our next stop was Sainte Chappelle, the lesser known neighbour of Notre Dame. I think Sainte Chappelle is absolutely gorgeous but there’s not a lot to see once you’re inside so even though it’s one of my favourite tourist activities in Paris, I think it’s a little overpriced at €11.

We had lunch at a creperie nearby and then headed back to our hotel. We had a pit stop at one of my dad’s favourite bars, Le Sully in the Strasbourg-Saint-Denis neighbourhood. I really liked it because it was cosy, full of an eclectic mix of locals, had friendly bartenders and served Cuvée des Trolls, one of my favourite beers that is served in Gambrinus, the go-to bar in Mulhouse. Le Sully also reminded me of some of the pubs that I went to in Edinburgh as a student. After some chill time in the hotel, it was time for dinner. In a stroke of coincidence, the restaurant that had been chosen was Alsatian! Bofinger is by Place de la Bastille and, to cut a long story short, I wasn’t impressed. The interior was very impressive, as were the prices, but I’ve had better choucroute garnie (sauerkraut topped with potatoes and a selection of pork, an Alsatian classic) in the Christmas markets in Mulhouse. I did get to try French onion soup for the first time, which I liked, and enjoy some pinot blanc, another Alsatian classic.

And finally game day! The match wasn’t until the afternoon so we had a lovely lunch at Terminus Nord, a restaurant across from Gare du Nord. The inside is very cool, in an art deco style with lots of mirrors that give it this feeling of old school glamour. I liked the food here much more than the night before, the standout being my sister’s starter of little ravioli in a creamy cheese sauce. After lunch we headed over to the Stade de France along with 80,000 other people. As usual for a rugby match, the atmosphere was great and it helped that even though it was cold, the sun was out. It was a good game but frustrating because Scotland had three close calls for a try but didn’t quite get there. After 80 minutes, two red cards (one for each team), four tries for France and two for Scotland, the final score was 32-21 to France. Regardless of the result, it was a great experience! I actually left a few minutes early to try and beat the crowds because I didn’t have that long between the end of the match and my train.

And brings this trip to an end! I had an absolutely fantastic time, particularly in Lisbon, but it was nice to end what was a very busy trip with a few chill days in Porto and getting to see my family in Paris. With that trip out of the way, it also brought me into the final stretch of my time as a lectrice. As I’m writing, I’ve actually finished teaching and am enjoying my last few weeks in Mulhouse so there will be some blogs coming to wrap up my time here before some exciting things in the summer!

We’re back for part two! Lisbon was so incredible that it was impossible to fit into one blog post without overwhelming you and that is the opposite of what this is supposed to do! So here we have what to eat and where to eat it. I said in the last blog that most of the things I’ve written about are based on my own experiences. I don’t want to be writing about, never mind recommending things that I haven’t done myself. However, I also said that I immediately knew that I hadn’t given myself enough time in Lisbon so after all the food talk, I’m also going to include the things that I still want to do in Lisbon that I will just have to go back for.

What to eat and drink

Bacalhau

Bacalhau is the Portuguese word for cod but in a culinary context, specifically refers to dried and salted cod. Bacalhau is so ubiquitous in Portuguese cuisine that some people say that there are at least 365 ways of preparing it, a different way for each day of the year, and up to 1,001! Portugal loves fish but it is mostly served fresh. Bacalhau is not fresh because cod is not actually found off Portugal’s coast but brought in from near Newfoundland.

Sardines

Another very popular fish is sardines! They are linked to Lisbon’s patron saint, Santo Antonio, which is why they are eaten during the festival of Santo Antonio in June. There are canned sardine shops all over Lisbon but the best time for fresh sardines is from June to October. Recently, the prices of sardines have gone up massively because of a drop in population due to climate change and overfishing.

Bifanas

Bifanas are Portugal’s answer to a pork sandwich, a bread roll filled with a marinated pork cutlet. The meat is cooked in garlic, white wine and a few spices but served very simply. There are some variations on the bifana depending on where you are in the country but the version that I ate was the simple roll and pork with some added yellow mustard, a common combination in Lisbon and the south. They are a cheap and quick option, often eaten standing at the bar in the restaurant. A good recommendation for bifanas is As Bifanas do Afonso or read on to see where I ate.

Pastéis de nata

I’ve already mentioned these a little but pastéis de nata is Portugal’s national pastry. It’s an egg custard pastry tart often topped with cinnamon, crunchy, buttery pastry with a smooth, creamy custard and (hopefully, for me) a little burnt and crunchy on top. It was first created in the monastery in Belém. They were using a lot of egg whites to starch clothes and the egg yolks were often used to make cakes and pastries. In 1820, the monastery started selling the tarts to raise money in a moment of financial uncertainty. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough and the monastery had to close. The secret recipe was sold to a local businessman who opened Fábrica dos Pastéis de Belém and to this day, nobody quite knows what’s in their pastéis! My favourite places to get pastéis de nata were in Belém and also Pastelaria Santo Antonio in Alfama.

Ginja / Ginjinha

Ginja, or ginjinha, is a sour cherry liqueur made from aguardente, brandy or fortified wine, and a little cinnamon. Ginja also refers to the fruit itself which is known as a morello cherry in English. I was welcomed to Home hostel (at 11am!) with a small measure of ginja but they warned me that it’s not a shot! Much like the Italian liqueur grappa, ginja is meant to be sipped. A new twist on ginja is that in the past few years, many street sellers have started to serve ginja in little chocolate cups!

Vinho verde

Vinho verde, or green wine, contrary to popular belief is not actually green in colour! Vinho verde is not restricted just to white wine but can also be rosé or red. It translates better as young wine as it is bottled three to six months after harvesting. It refers not to a particular type of grape but to the process which sees it harvested, bottled and drunk sooner in the process than most other wines. There used to be something in the process that gave the wine a slightly fizzy quality, something usually seen as a fault but appreciated by the consumers of vinho verde. It is now added by artificial carbonation. White vinho verde is usually fresh, fruity and floral and goes well with fish which is often on the menu in Lisbon!

Where to eat and drink

O Zé da Mouraria Mouraria

This is my number one recommendation for where to eat in Lisbon! It might even be my number one full stop. If you only listen to one thing from this blog or the previous one, let it be this. After the first walking tour that I did in Mouraria, our tour guide Zé suggested going for lunch as a group. Eight of us were up for it so we headed back to a restaurant that he had pointed out to us at the start of the tour as one of his favourites in the city. It was hidden away up a side street near Praça Martim Moniz, you would barely know there was a restaurant there, never mind one with such good food

We gave Zé free reign to order for us which was definitely the right decision. Unfortunately, we got there around 2.30 and they were already out of the bacalhau which is almost their signature. If you go, try it for me! Instead we had cuttlefish with boiled potatoes, parsley and a garlic sauce, tuna steak with more potatoes, mushrooms and tomatoes and veal in a creamy peppercorn sauce. The veal was good if you got a nice piece but some pieces were pretty chewy but the tuna steak was fantastic. I think it’s the first time I’ve eaten tuna like that and it was incredible. Just note that the portion sizes are huge! For nine people, we had the three main dishes and two portions of chips. You can get half portions but I would still say a half portion would be more than enough for two people. To finish, we shared a few slices of bolo de bolacha, biscuits soaked in coffee and covered in cream. It tasted a bit like tiramisu without the liqueur.

Tasca do Chico

Tasca do Chico is a fado house in Bairro Alto. I talked about the history of fado a bit in the last blog but what is it like to experience fado? I say experience because you don’t just listen to fado, it is something you feel. Even if you can’t understand the lyrics, like I couldn’t, the feelings of melancholy and longing still come through. There is a word for this feeling, saudade, although it encompasses much more than just that and is considered untranslatable by many people.

Tasca do chico is a more informal fado house. It’s not so much somewhere to eat but fado goes well with a beer or a glass of red wine (although there are snacks on the menu). Most fado houses are very small and this one in particular is very popular so we had to queue for a while to get in. The seating is pretty cramped and even once we got inside, it wasn’t a guarantee that there was somewhere to sit. Beyond the chaotic seating plan, there is also a particular etiquette in a fado house. When the music is about to start, the lights go down and the doors are closed. Usually the fado singer will do two or three songs in a row and you cannot talk while they are singing. If you do, you will definitely be shushed and maybe even asked to leave.

Casa das Bifanas

On my final night in Lisbon, after a walking tour in the morning and a trip to Belém, I was tired and in need of a little alone time. I love travelling by myself because I get to meet so many new people and gather friends all around the world. At the same time, I’m someone who needs a good amount of alone time which can be hard to find in a busy hostel and a shared dorm. I knew that I had lots of friends in the bar of Home hostel when it came to dinner time but I decided to slip out with just my book for company and find them for some drinks after dinner.

I still had one culinary experience left on my list that I still wanted to try before I left and that was a bifana. A friend had recommended a place called As Bifanas do Afonso which was actually really near my hostel but I was having a late dinner and it was already closed. Fortunately I had a back up recommendation from my walking tour guide, a place on Praça da Figueira called Casa das Bifanas. This meal was a great achievement because I managed to get through it all in Portuguese! (Other than asking if I could sit outside in Spanish…) It was mostly understanding what the waiter said to me and one word answers but still! The bifana was great, nothing fancy but flavourful and filling, served with chips and a beer on the side.

Pastelaria Santo Antonio

Found in Alfama, just below the castle, Pastelaria Santo Antonio is perfectly placed for a pastel de nata pit stop after wandering the hilly streets. If you don’t make it out to Belém to try the pasteis from the original vendors at Fábrica dos Pastéis de Belém, then this is a good back up plan as they were crowned the best pastel de nata in 2019! You can also try their other specialty, the croissant Porto, an enriched dough more like a brioche and glazed in port, a fortified wine from the north of Portugal.

Tabernita

This is where I ate after my second walking tour with the tour guide Zé and a few others from my hostel. If you are looking for somewhere to eat after visiting the feira da ladra flea market, this is right in the midst of it. It’s nothing fancy, nothing pretentious, just decent food! I had bacalhau à brás, like a cod fish cake made with scrambled egg and shredded potato with a side salad. I think it was the most vegetables that I had had since arriving in Portugal as most of the dishesI had didn’t involve a lot of veggies. After we had finished eating, we were trying to get the bill but apparently they can be quite slow (something to bear in mind). I didn’t mind too much because while we waited the charismatic waiter brought us some glasses, lemon slices and a dodgy looking water bottle filled with amaretto – on the house! We had to squeeze a good amount of lemon juice into the glass and then top it up with amaretto and it was delicious!

The Wish List

That’s the end of where I went, what I did and everything I ate in Lisbon! But as I’ve said before, I definitely didn’t give myself enough time and I’m already desperate to go back to Lisbon and Portugal in general. Below are some of the things that are on the list for when I make it back, hopefully in the not-so-distant future. Obviously I haven’t done these myself so can’t attest to them but hopefully it gives you some ideas and you can go and test them for me if you end up there before me.

Tram 28

This is one of the classic activities in Lisbon, the iconic trams are somewhat a symbol of the city. Tram 28 starts at Praça Martim Moniz and goes through the districts of Alfama, Baixa, Estrela and Graça and passes some of the main sights in Lisbon like the cathedral and Portas do Sol. I didn’t take the tram because I walked everywhere but it was also packed! There were long queues at Praça Martim Moniz so be prepared to wait but if you get on at any other stops, it’s unlikely you’ll get a seat and you’ll have to stand. Get on at the front, off at the back and buy a ticket in advance or top up your metro card if you want a cheaper ticket. If you want to avoid the crowds, try and ride early in the morning or later in the evening but whatever time, be aware of pickpockets!

Ascensor Santa Justa

Another classic of Lisbon, elevators in Lisbon are generally considered public transport in Lisbon, a way to navigate the many ups and downs of the city. Santa Justa is the most well-known one but using it will involve a long queue and paying €5. However, if you want the views but not the wait and are willing to brave some stairs, head around the back and walk up to the viewpoint at the top!

Castelo São Jorge

The castle is a dominant figure over Lisbon so if I was back in the city and had a bit more time, I would like to visit it. I heard from people from Lisbon though that if you’re short on time, there are other things to prioritise.

Sintra

Sintra is number one on my list of things for next time. I actually almost went because Home hostel where I was staying runs a day tour there but it wasn’t running one of the days I was there and was full the other day. Sintra is most known for the Palácio Nacional da Pena, a gorgeous structure with vivid red and yellow walls. There are several other castles and palaces to see in Sintra as well as the gorgeous hills of the Serra de Sintra. Not too far away are the Cabo de Roca cliffs which are the most westerly point of mainland Europe and some nice beaches.

Cascais

Cascais is another town outside of Lisbon, somewhere between Sintra and Belém, and is apparently a coastal gem. There are cliffs and beaches galore and is the perfect place for a few chill days.

Over the water

A recommendation from my tou guide Zé was to get the ferry over to the other side of the river and walk along the coast towards the bridge. There’s also a restaurant over there called Ponte Final which is supposed to be nice for a drink, some food and views back over to Lisbon. You can carry on walking along the coast until you get to the bridge where you get the lift up to the level of the town and get a bus back over.

LX Factory

LX Factory is an old industrial complex that has been transformed into a trendy spot filled with bars, restaurants, shops and offices. It’s a cool spot to grab a drink and hang out with friends in the evening. It also has a big bookshop so I will definitely be back!

Museums

There are some interesting sounding museums in Lisbon that I’d like to check out like the Fado museum, the tile museum and the Aljube museum of resistance and freedom.

Estufa Fria Botanic Gardens

As I’m writing this blog, I have a friend (Aine of Une Bouchée A Day) who is in Lisbon and she sent me these gorgeous photos from the botanic gardens! Definitely added to the list!

Next up on my trip in February was Lisbon, Portugal! I was really excited for this because I’d never been to Portugal before but I’ve only ever heard really good things about Lisbon. I was leaving Madrid the morning after carnival, running on about an hour’s sleep and leftover good vibes. It was also my birthday! Having celebrated it at midnight with my friend, I wasn’t too fussed about making a big deal of it once I got to Lisbon.

I had three nights in Lisbon, two and a half days. I didn’t really have any set plans before I arrived but I had lots of recommendations from friends, particularly one who spent her Erasmus year there! After talking to some people in the hostel on my first day, I added more things to the list. It may have been the hangover or the lack of sleep, but I felt pretty overwhelmed I arrived in Lisbon. I quickly realised that I hadn’t given myself enough time to do everything that I wanted to, having decided to go to Porto in the north of Portugal for a few days after Lisbon. I didn’t even know where to start! What helped was that I very quickly realised Lisbon is definitely somewhere I want to come back to in the future. That took some of the pressure off in that I didn’t have to try and fit everything into a few days.

Seeing as I found Lisbon a bit overwhelming (in the best way!), I wanted to try a slightly different structure to the blog today. Even if I was only there for a few days, I think I managed to see, do and experience a lot in that short time, and I loved everything I did! I learnt a lot as well so to try and adequately share what I know about Lisbon, without overwhelming you, I’m going to break it down into two parts – where to stay, where to go, and what to do first and then where and what to eat and drink next. Enjoy!

Where to stay

Home Hostel

I want to give the biggest shoutout to Home Lisbon Hostel. It is possibly one of my favourite hostels that I’ve ever stayed in. From the minute I arrived (extremely tired and running on a couple of hours of sleep), I felt so welcomed by the staff and the generally friendly environment. You’ll hear me mention going for dinner with girls from my dorm, meeting people on the walking tour and going to Belém with a friend from the hostel. Sometimes staying in a hostel can be intimidating and starting a conversation can be a lot of pressure but Home is somewhere where the environment is already so warm and welcoming that speaking to people feels like the natural next step.

The hostel has community at its heart. The owner, affectionately known as Mamma, cooks dinner every evening for anyone in the hostel that wants to sign up (€15 for a three course meal). There is also a great value breakfast, €5 for a buffet of eggs, bacon, beans, bread and spreads, granola and fruit, plus tea, coffee and juice that anyone can help themselves to. I had breakfast there every morning because I don’t think you could beat the value for money. I wanted to take part in mamma’s dinner on my first night but not enough people signed up and the other nights I was there, I was too full from lunch for a three course dinner! There is also the bar which is always lively in the evenings. It was a great place to have a few chill drinks with the friends you’d already made or to make new friends! They also run walking tours, day trips to places like Sintra and pub crawls.

I cannot recommend this place enough if you are going to Lisbon!

Yes! Hostel

I stayed in Home which is a very sociable hostel but if you want something that’s a bit more lively, a proper party hostel, look no further than their sister hostel, Yes! Hostel. I didn’t stay here but have a friend that did and really enjoyed it. The walking tour, as well as the pub crawl, is an activity that is shared between Home and Yes so you can meet people from both hostels. That’s what happened on one of the walking tours I did (yes, I did two! More on that below). I made friends with a guy from my hostel and a guy from Yes!, both from Quebec. I got to try out my French on them and attempt to understand their accents! Even though I lived with a guy from Montreal last year, he didn’t have the accent but these guys did! Combined with the different vocab they used, I could just about understand them when they were talking to me (I think they slowed down for me) but when they were talking to each other, no chance!

At the end of the walking tour we agreed to meet up again that evening at Yes! hostel to play some beer pong. We got there just as a lot of the guests were finishing their version of a family dinner. It was very wholesome but as soon as the meal was finished, the lights went down, the music went up and the beer pong tables came out. It was a really fun evening chatting with the guys from the walking tour and a few others, crushing it at beer pong and then going Home (pun intended) to bed as everyone from Yes! went out on the pub crawl.

Where to go

Mouraria

I’ve already mentioned that I did two walking tours while in Lisbon, both through my hostel, and the first was in the neighbourhood of Mouraria. This neighbourhood is the most diverse in Lisbon, with over 50 different nationalities living there, and was traditionally Muslim. It is also the birthplace of fado music, a very soulful and mournful type of music very closely associated with Lisbon. We passed through a square on Largo da Severa where Maria Severa, the first famous fado singer, lived. She was a prostitute credited with bringing fado music to the aristocracy, contributing to its growth in mainstream popularity. Fado is intrinsically linked with the past of Mouraria because it is said that its origins come from slaves longing for their previous lives, sailors longing for home, the women they left behind longing for the sailors and Muslims longing for the pre-Christianity Lisbon. Lisbon was a Muslim city until the Second Crusade in 1147 when it was converted to Christianity by the first king of Portugal. At this point, Muslims living in the city were forced out of the neighbourhood of Alfama, inside the city walls, and into the new Muslim ghetto of Mouraria.

Mouraria starts at the bottom of the castle hill by the Praça Martim Moniz, the starting point for the famous, yellow Tram 28. At the corner of the square, where you start to head uphill, there is a church but the most interesting part about it is actually on the floor. The facade of the church is reflected in mosaics on the street around it! Walking through Mouraria, you’ll notice that it’s not as aesthetic as other neighbourhoods like Alfama but it feels more authentic and real in some ways. We passed one of the oldest houses in Lisbon on Largo da Achada. When you look at other buildings as well, you’ll see that the upper floors of some buildings, including this one, stick out a bit because houses used to be taxed based on the surface area of the ground floor so often the upper floors were built outwards to get around that.

Alfama

The second walking tour that I did took me into Alfama, Lisbon’s oldest neighbourhood. Cobbled streets will take you up to the Castelo de São Jorge and the Sé de Lisboa, the castle and the cathedral respectively. Alfama used to be a gritty neighbourhood filled with sailors and dock workers but nowadays it has a trendier, more vibrant reputation. As with Mouraria, be prepared for a lot of climbing! Lisbon is a very hilly city, particularly around the castle, but this also means that it has some incredible views. We started by heading up past some fado murals by the Escadinhas de São Cristóvão and then up to a great viewpoint next to the Palácio do Marquês de Tancos. We carried on further into Alfama, passing a house that is owned (but is apparently not really used) by Louis Vuitton.

Alfama is a great place to find fado houses but while we were in Alfama, we actually stopped for our tour guide to tell us about music that is more or less the opposite of fado. Fado is very melancholic and nostalgic but pimba is very uptempo and almost comedic. They range from corny to saucy to downright vulgar all while retaining an element of innuendo. We also heard about the massive street parties that happen in Lisbon, particularly Alfama and Mouraria. The Festival of Santo Antonio happens throughout the month of June and sees the streets draped in colourful streamers and filled with the sound of pimba music. People crowd the streets to drink traditional cherry liqueur, grill sardines and dance until morning.

One of the most interesting things I took from the walking tour I did in the neighbourhood of Alfama was the ‘Alma de Alfama‘ (Soul of Lisbon) project by British-born photographer Camilla Watson. The project commemorates the long-time residents of Alfama, from immigrants of former Portuguese colonies to young people to the elderly. Portraits are printed directly onto the wall of the house where the subject lives or lived. There is a big problem with the residents being forced out because of increases in prices. A lot of this is due to buildings being bought out to be used as AirBnBs as tourism in Lisbon has soared in the last decade.

Bairro Alto

The one and only stop for Lisbon’s nightlife, Bairro Alto has over 300 bars. I actually only spent one brief evening in Bairro Alto to watch fado music but if I had had more time in Lisbon, I definitely would have been here more. Spots not to miss are the ascensor Gloria (a funicular), the Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara (a viewpoint), and Rua Nova do Carvalho, otherwise known as Pink Street, a pedestrianised street lined by bars and clubs.

Belém

Belém, 5 km to the west of Lisbon, is somewhere between a suburb and its own town but seeing as it’s basically attached to the city, it’s very easy and worthwhile visiting while you’re in Lisbon. I had planned on going with a girl from my hostel on my last evening after doing my second walking tour. I was pretty tired by the time I got back to the hostel and almost didn’t even go but I’m very glad I did! It’s very easy to get to Belém using public transport but Uma and I wanted to get there in time to catch the last of sunset so we hopped in a Bolt (the cheaper version of Uber that is popular in Portugal). Even the drive to Belém was lovely, along the water and under the Vasco da Gama bridge. It looks suspiciously like the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco but at more than 12 km long, it is actually slightly longer.

We got dropped off at the Torre de Belém just in time for the last rays of sunset. The Belém tower is a symbol of the city and more widely of the Portuguese age of exploration as it was a starting point for ships in the 16th century heading to East Africa, Brazil and India. You can walk along the banks of the estuary from the tower to the Padrão dos Descobrimentos – the Monument of the Discoveries. This is the official celebration of the Portuguese Age of Discoveries in the 15th and 16th centuries. At 52m high, it’s hard to miss and has great views over the estuary and to the tower. Because I was there in the evening we weren’t able to climb it but I would love to. The figures lining the sides of the monument are the explorers themselves and those that made the expeditions possible. The monument is pretty impressive but I think it’s also important not to romanticise this era of discovery. It marked the adoption of colonial mindsets and practices by many countries and was accompanied by brutalities as much as discoveries.

The final major sight in Belém is the Mosteiro dos Jeronimos, the monastery where the Portuguese national pastry, pastel de nata, was invented. Again, because we were there in the evening it was closed but it is somewhere I would have liked to go inside. Just a bit further along the street is Fábrica dos Pastéis de Belém. It was the first place to sell pastéis de nata and now sells over 20,000 a day! I had heard that this place has THE best pastéis de nata and I have to say that it lived up to the hype! It was my favourite pastel de nata that I ate on this trip. There can sometimes be long lines so if you want to avoid those, go in the morning or the evening like I did, but I think that both the sit in and takeaway line move pretty quickly anyway and it’s worth the wait!

What to do

Walking tours

I’ve already talked at length about where I went and what I learned on these tours in the Mouraria and Alfama sections but I want to talk a little more about the experience of the walking tour. In general I’m a big fan of doing a walking tour, especially on the first day in a new city. I think it’s a great way to get your bearings and also figure out if there’s anywhere you want to go back to. Tour guides are a font of knowledge as well so you can ask them questions and for some off-the-beaten-path recommendations, as well as finding out if there’s anything that they think is overrated. Often these kinds of walking tours are ‘free’ but tip based. A ‘free’ walking tour should not actually be free. Your tour guide has spent sometimes hours walking you around the city and sharing their hard-earned knowledge with you and they deserve to be adequately compensated for that. I think €10 is a good minimum price but if you had a great time and think they deserve more, go for it!

If the walking tour is linked to your hostel, or even if it’s not, it’s also a great way to make friends. This is what happened with the two I did through Home hostel. I went on the first walking tour with a few girls from my dorm, met more people at breakfast that were doing it and then spent the evening with the Canadian guys I met on the tour itself. For the second walking tour the following day, there were four of us from the day before who were back for round two.

And now, a moment to speak about the man of the hour. The tour guide for both of the walking tours I went on was a Portuguese guy called Zé. He was the main reason that I decided to go back for the second tour. I was a big fan of his style, he was very engaging, clearly knew his stuff and has done this plenty of times before but at the same time it’s obvious that he enjoys not just showing people around Lisbon and sharing it’s secrets with them, but also getting to meet new people from all over. We got a lot of information from Zé which he also balanced well with his own opinions on certain subjects. He was also happy to go with the flow. At one point on my first tour, which was a smaller group of about 12, some people wanted to get a coffee so the whole group stopped at this little cafe in one of Mouraria’s narrow streets. Zé ordered a round of espressos and we drank them outside the cafe before moving on. The following day the group was much bigger, more like 35 people, so it had to be slightly more regimented to make sure it didn’t take us all day to get around the route but the vibes were still great. Zé also got to know me quickly enough that halfway through the first tour, every time we passed a cat he would look around and make sure I’d seen it!

Viewpoints

In a city as picturesque as Lisbon, there is no shortage of spots to appreciate it from. Bearing in mind how hilly Lisbon is, the viewpoints can be a double-edged sword – the views are incredible but the climb up is killer. Therefore, any viewpoint where you can enjoy a cold beer after arriving gets bonus points!

Miradouro da Senhora do Monte

This is the highest point in Lisbon and honestly an underrated viewpoint in my opinion. At least from what I’ve heard and read, it gets talked about a lot less than Portas do Sol or the castle for example but the views are better! The viewpoint is in the neighbourhood of Graça, just next to Mouraria, and has fantastic views across to the castle, over to the downtown neighbourhood of Baixa, into Bairro Alto and across the water.

Miradouro das Portas do Sol

Miradouro das Portas do Sol is potentially the most popular viewpoint in Lisbon and it’s not hard to see why. There is a large terrace area where you can sit with a drink and enjoy the view over Alfama’s burnt orange rooftops, the National Pantheon, the Monastery of São Vicente de Fora and the Tagus river.

Just behind the square at Portas do Sol is the oldest house in Lisbon. This house is 500 years old! What is even more impressive is that it survived the earthquake of 1755. On 1st November 1755, a 7.7 magnitude earthquake with its epicentre in the Atlantic ocean destroyed Lisbon. Because the epicentre was at sea, Lisbon was also hit by a massive tsunami. As if that wasn’t enough, religious celebrations for the Feast of All Saints meant that candles had been lit in churches all around the city which caused a huge fire. Bad things really do come in threes! Between 12,000 and 50,000 people died making it one of the deadliest earthquakes ever. After that, the city had to be rebuilt and was earthquake-proofed by using internal cage-like wooden structures in the new buildings. They thankfully remain untested. When you walk around Lisbon, you will see a mishmash of buildings because some had to be rebuilt so there are newer ones shoulder to shoulder with older ones.

Just below the Miradouro das Portas do Sol is a fantastic mural covering the history of Lisbon which is definitely worth checking out! It starts with the Phoenicians founding the city of Ulissipo, through the Portuguese Inquisition, the earthquake in 1755, ending with the carnation revolution in 1974 which overthrew the Estado Novo regime.

Miradouro de Santa Luzia

Portas do Sol‘s little, lesser known sister is a great option if you want basically the same views but much smaller crowds. It is behind the Igreja de Santa Luzia which feature some beautiful tile panels showing Lisbon before the earthquake and also crusaders storming the castle in the 12th century. There is a little cafe and often artists selling their work and buskers providing ambient background music to this romantic corner of Lisbon.

Feira da Ladra

Feira da Ladra, the Thieves’ Market, is a flea market that happens in a square behind the National Pantheon every Tuesday and Saturday. The word ladra means ‘female thief’ but some people say that the name of the market actually comes from the Portuguese word ladro, referring to a specific type of bug or flea that is found in antique furniture. A nice little play on words there. It has everything you would expect from a flea market, some tourist souvenirs, lots of beautiful tiles, stalls with a mishmash of books, jewellery and a random assortment of bits and bobs, local artists and more. This is where we finished the Alfama walking tour and even though the market carries on until 6pm, some sellers will pack up around 2pm. That’s around when we arrived though and it was still pretty bustling!

That’s it for now but I hope this has been helpful and given you an insight into why this city captured my attention so much and makes you want to visit it as much as I want to go back! Part 2 is coming soon and going to cover what and where to eat in Lisbon. Most of the things I’ve written here are based on what I did myself on my trip but next time I’ll also talk about some of the things that I didn’t do but wanted to or had recommended to me. See you soon for part two!

Throwing it back to mid-February, it’s time to talk about Madrid! This trip was during the winter holidays of the university. Due to my timetable this semester, I managed to stretch the week off into an 11 day trip as I don’t work on Thursday or Friday. And when I say first thing, I mean first thing! My flight wasn’t until about 10am but it just so happened to be on a strike day. You may or may not have seen but France has been afflicted by repeated and worsening strikes since the start of the year (this isn’t the time or place to get into it). Not only have they been affecting trains, so I was worried about getting to the airport, but also air traffic controllers so my actual flight was at risk. In the end, everything was fine – I got up really early, factoring in extra time for cancelled trains but didn’t need it so just got to the airport with plenty of time.

When I landed in Madrid, it was easy to get from the airport into the centre of town. I got out of the metro at Puerta del Sol, one of the main squares, and had a five minute walk to my hostel which was just off Plaza Mayor. I was staying at The Hat hostel and while I didn’t spend much time in it other than to sleep, I would recommend it! My dorm room was clean and spacious with its own bathroom, there was a rooftop bar that also served some food and a cafe downstairs. You can have breakfast there in the mornings and take part in free sangria making workshops every evening to meet other travellers. The reason I didn’t spend much time there was because part of my reason for coming to Madrid was to visit a friend from university that lives there, as well as finally see the Spanish capital. There was a brief period back in October or November when I was actually thinking about moving to Spain after finishing my time in France and visiting Madrid was going to be a test run to see if it would be somewhere I could live. Having now decided that I’m heading back to Scotland when I finish in Mulhouse, any pressure was off this trip other than just to have a good time!

My friend Marta, who I know from our water polo team at Edinburgh University, and her friend Elisa met me at the hostel and we headed out for the day. First stop was food! My breakfast was a long time ago at that point but thankfully Marta had somewhere in mind to try a Madrid classic. Bocadillo de calamare is crusty bread filled with crispy rings of calamari. Sometimes they can have a little olive oil, lemon juice or alioli but ours were just plain and simple. La Campaña is quite a small restaurant just around the corner from my hostel that could easily be missed if it weren’t for the lines out the door! At least when I was there the line for takeaway was much shorter and moved very quickly so I would recommend that, especially when you can enjoy it in Plaza Mayor just a few steps away. Saying that, we took ours a little further and ate them opposite Palacio Real. This is the official residence of the Spanish royal family in Madrid but is mostly used for ceremonial purposes.

With the extra energy from the bocadillo we walked up into Parque de la Montaña where you’ll find the Templo de Debod, a displaced ancient Egyptian temple. You might be wondering how an Egyptian temple landed in the middle of a park in Madrid Spain. A fair enough question! In 1960, construction of the Aswan High Dam in Egypt was threatening a number of highly valuable archaeological sites including the Temple of Debod and the famous Abu Simbel temples. Spain was instrumental in moving the Abu Simbel temples 65m higher than their original location on the banks of the river Nile and 200m further back to avoid the rise in water level from the dam’s reservoir. Out of gratitude for their help, Egypt gifted the Temple of Debod to Spain. It is unique in being one of the few examples of ancient Egyptian architecture that can be found outside Egypt and the only one in Spain.

Back down out of the park is Plaza de España with a monument to Miguel Cervantes, author of Don Quixote. In front of Cervantes there is a statue of Quixote and his sidekick Sancho Panza. While here, Marta told me an interesting fact that Cervantes and Shakespeare died only a day apart in 1616! From Plaza de España we walked along Gran Vía, sometimes known as the Spanish Broadway, where you’ll find most of the big shops in Madrid. My excellent local tour guide pointed out some interesting statues on the roofs along Gran Vía around the big Primark (it’s so big that this is honestly a tourist sight in and of itself). On the roof on one side of the street is a statue of Diana, the Roman goddess of hunting, shooting arrows across to the other side. On the opposite side of the road, you can see a statue of a man and a phoenix. The story goes that this man represents Endymion, the mortal shepherd that Diana fell in love with and would visit every night. When her father Zeus found out, he was enraged and sent a phoenix to capture Endymion and hide him away from Diana. She discovered the plan and that’s why she’s shooting across the street. You can see the arrows that have fallen short engraved in the paving stones outside Primark. In fact, the statue is not Endymion but Ganymede, Zeus’ lover, and the phoenix is more likely to be an eagle to fit with that but never let the truth get in the way of a good story!

We wandered around a little more with an ice cream pit stop and ended up down at Plaza de Cibeles. The square is traditionally where Real Madrid fans celebrate their wins and it also has the impressive Palacio de Cibeles, a grand building that used to be the main post office and is now the city council building. There is also a flame that burns in memory of Madrid’s covid victims. At this point it was time to enjoy some beers in the last of the sun so we headed to a nearby 100 Montaditos, a chain specialising in mini sandwiches for a couple of euros and beers for the same price.

Eventually it was getting late and we needed a little something to eat so we headed back towards Puerta del Sol. Marta chose a place for hornazo de Salamanca, a specialty from Salamanca, where Marta’s mum is from. It’s a meat pie cut into sandwich-like pieces. It has pork loin, chorizo and ham inside as well as boiled eggs (although the ones we got didn’t). It was a bit heavy but very tasty! And thus concluded a very packed first day in Madrid!

The first day felt like it was all about getting the lay of the land and seeing all the main tourist spots. I already felt like I knew the basic layout of things and had a good feel for the city. I genuinely felt like I had seen most of the tourist spots on our 13.5km tour yesterday. Little did I know that my second day would have six more kilometres on top of that. Day two was about digging in more. I had the morning to myself today until Marta, who lives just outside Madrid, came in to meet me. I anticipated another big day ahead of me so started out with the breakfast of champions – churros, chocolate and coffee – at Chocolatería Valor, enjoying it in the sunshine with my book. I started by heading back into one of the neighbourhoods that we had walked through a little yesterday. Chueca is known as Madrid’s gay neighbourhood, home to many shops, bars and restaurants and is one of the liveliest parts of the city. A friend had recommended a bookshop to me so I stopped by and of course ended up buying a book because that’s my weakness in life.

After that I headed over to Retiro Park where I was meeting Marta. Parque Retiro is 1.4km² with plenty to do and see inside. We walked past the monument to Alfonso XII, a Spanish king in the 19th century, which is alongside an artificial lake where you can hire row boats. As you walk further in you’ll find the Palacio de Cristal which reminded me a lot of the big greenhouse in Edinburgh’s Botanic Garden! We came out the other side of Retiro and then walked back along Paseo del Prado, a boulevard that runs along the long side of the park and is home to the so-called ‘Golden Triangle of Art’ with the Prado Museum, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum and the Reina Sofia Museum. It also has another fountain where fans of the football team Atlético Madrid celebrate their wins!

We had lunch (at 4.30pm) in a kind of fancy tapas restaurant called Vinitus. There were patatas bravas of course, huevos cabreados (chips with a fried egg and patatas bravas sauces mixed through), pulpo a la gallega (octopus with mashed potato and paprika), a montadito (a little sandwich) with beef tenderloin and foie gras and the squid, octopus and artichoke special. It was a lot of food! But very delicious and a cold beer and a sit down was very welcome.

There was one final stop for the day. Marta suggested that we visit one of the museums in the Golden Triangle. She was giving me a little synopsis of each one when suddenly I knew which one I wanted to go to. It wasn’t something I had on my radar but the Reina Sofia Museum is home to Guernica by Picasso. I remember learning about it and recreating it in art class in primary school and I’ve always wanted to see it. There’s a museum in Colmar that has a tapestry version of it but when I visited, it was on loan elsewhere! We headed to the museum and with various student and young people’s cards we both managed to get in for free. We wandered around a little before and after but Guernica was the main thing that we were there to see.

After this, Marta headed home and I went to meet up with another friend for a drink. I met Mabel when I was volunteering in the hostel in Tenerife and she was staying in the hostel. She suggested getting a drink in the rooftop bar of Hotel Riu on Plaza España but it had a 40 minute wait. We went just next door instead to another rooftop bar and had a drink while catching up. Afterwards we walked into Malasaña, the neighbourhood next to Chueca. It is known as being the ‘hipster’ area, with lots of bars, clubs and young people. We were actually looking for somewhere to have another drink but it was a Friday and there were too many young people and not enough bars in this case. After a while, I was getting tired (I had walked close to 20km that day by this point) so we called it and I headed back to my hostel.

On my final day, I had the morning in Madrid and then I was actually heading out of the city for my final night, to stay with my friend Marta in her hometown for carnival! But before I get ahead of myself, I still had a morning to kill in the city and I had a few things lined up. On the recommendation of a friend, I wanted to visit the Museo de América, apparently the only museum in the world dedicated to the entire American continent, north and south. It was free using my university card which was great although it’s only €3 otherwise. There was so much to see but all the information was in Spanish so it took me a while to go round and I don’t think I saw everything. If you don’t speak Spanish, they also have audio guides in English and French. I had my eyes peeled throughout for anything from Honduras, it being my area of special interest but the closest I got was El Salvador or general mesoamérica. It was really interesting seeing things from areas that I’ve visited, having actually been to various Mayan ruins in Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico, and particularly learning about the Mayan script. I would say that the majority of the exhibitions I saw were from Mexico, Colombia and Peru so if you are interested in those areas I would definitely recommend it!

Right next door to the museum was the faro de moncloa, a tower with a viewpoint at the top (faro means lighthouse). There is a saying ‘de Madrid al cielo’ which means ‘from Madrid to heaven’ because Madrid is so good that to top it, you’ll have to go up into the skies. Well, with the faro you can be 110m closer! (But don’t worry, it’s a lift that will take you up to the top!) It cost €4 and didn’t take long so if you’re in the area it’s definitely worth it. I love getting aerial views over cities so I was all for it, especially seeing as I had already seen a lot of places so now I was able to pick out the places I knew. If I wasn’t short on time, there are a series of parks below the faro that lead down to the temple of Debod which I think would be lovely to walk through.

After this I headed out to Marta’s where we got ready for carnival (a power nap was involved). Everybody dresses up in costumes for carnival so I was joining in with some of her friends and their pirate costumes. Mine was very makeshift as I was only travelling with a rucksack for ten days so the base was black jeans and a white t-shirt. I used an off-cut of pirate themed material from Marta’s costume as a belt and we had lots of gold pieces to put in our hair.

We joined the massive parade as it slowly made its way through town and it was so fun to see all the costumes! My favourite was a guy dressed in a kilt, a group dressed as creative interpretations of Madrid subway stations and a huge group lined up with foam noodles fashioned into seats around them, fake legs hanging down, pretending they were on a rollercoaster! After a quick dinner from Lidl (jamón sandwiches) we made our way down to the main area where we would spend the rest of the night. It was basically a big concert with a few DJs playing until 5am! We found a few more of Marta’s friends and found a spot amongst the masses. This was actually the day before my birthday so when it hit midnight we celebrated me turning 25! An hour later, at midnight in the UK, I phoned my twin sister who was at home in bed and made everyone say happy birthday to her! It was very unlike me but we actually stayed out until the end of the concert at 5am. By the time we got back to Marta’s and into bed it was 6am. I managed to get an hour and a half of sleep before calling an Uber to get to the airport and head off to my next destination!

I’m taking a brief break from Tenerife related content to fill you in on my recent trip to Croatia! Now that we’ve covered the basics of how I found my Workaway and what it was like, I’ll be back soon with more specific posts on the island itself. Think beaches, think hiking, best activities and road trip itineraries. But for now we’re taking a brief holiday to Croatia, much like I did!

This trip really was miraculous. Not because where we went was breathtaking or because I had a great time amongst friends, even if both are true, but because it even managed to get out of the group chat phase in the first place. I took this trip with my university flatmates. We all met in halls in first year and then lived together for our remaining three years in a flat in Edinburgh. We have thrown out many ideas for trips or adventures over the years but very few have actually come to fruition. I don’t really know what was different this time but the idea for this group trip was thrown out and really gathered momentum.

We started by finding some dates that worked for everyone in our very mixed group. We have two people with ‘big boy jobs’ as I call them, proper 9-5s down in London, two students finishing their final year or masters and myself, the English teacher who would be floating around Europe all summer. We settled on the weekend straddling the end of July and the start of August that coincided with a bank holiday. Next we threw out places that we would be interested in. Croatia was in there from the beginning as was Budapest. Once we started looking at flights, we were actually quite fixed on Milan because we found flights for something ridiculous like €20! In the end we swerved away from that because Milan in the height of summer would be packed for one and boiling for another. We found slightly more expensive but still very cheap flights to Zagreb in Croatia and that was it! Zagreb is a city in the centre of Croatia and we wanted something on the coast so we decided on Rijeka as a final destination, just a couple of hours on the bus away from Zagreb.

Because some of the group are working full time while others are students or on holidays, we made our way to Rijeka in dribs and drabs. I travelled from London with Lizzie, one of the students. Luckily we were both there already, Lizzie spending some time with her family while also doing research for her master’s thesis and me doing the rounds of my friends that are down there. Our flight was at silly o’clock in the morning but we were hoping that this would help us avoid the worst of the airport chaos that has been plaguing the British travel industry this summer.

Our journey was pretty plain sailing (or should it be flying) until we landed in Zagreb, if very crowded along the way. We made it out of the airport just in time for the 1pm shuttle bus from the airport to the bus station. It took about half an hour and cost 45 kuna. It had to be paid in cash but you could also use Euros which would come out at €7. The issue here was that we were booked on a bus to Rijeka at 1.30pm. We pulled into the bus station at exactly 1.30pm and then couldn’t find the right platform so no luck in trying to jump on our bus at the last minute. Luckily there was another one with the same company at 2.15pm that we were able to use our tickets on so just a short wait. It cost an extra 10 kuna to put our wee suitcases in the luggage area below the bus. After our early start I slept away most of the two hours to Rijeka but the glimpses that I caught of the Croatian countryside were beautiful.

At this point we all know that I’m a big fan of staying in hostels but we had booked an AirBnB for our stay so that we could make the most of our time all together again. The AirBnB was literally 30 seconds away from the bus station which was great because the last thing you want to do after a day of travelling is trek to your accommodation. The apartment was really nice, plenty of space for the five of us with a nice living room and most importantly – air con!

Because it was just the two of us for our first night, we had a pretty chill one. We grabbed some groceries and made pasta for dinner and then took a little siesta before heading out for a wander. We made our way down the main street of Korzo and found a cute square through the arch under the city clock tower. Fun fact, the clock face on the tower has remained unchanged since the 1600s! After an early start and a long day we decided to call it quits early.

We were joined the next morning by Georgia who had already been travelling in the Balkans for a few weeks and arrived in Croatia on an overnight bus. After taking Georgia to the apartment and catching up a little we decided we wanted to spend the day at the beach until the last two arrived in the afternoon. We grabbed a taxi from the bus station to take us to Sablićevo beach, just outside the centre of Rijeka. We hadn’t done much research into good beaches in the area other than a quick Google search but it did the job. It was small and very crowded as well as pebbled which was a bit annoying but there was a cute little beach cafe and space to swim and lie in the sun. The water was so beautiful, bright blue, warm on top and then freezing down below. We chilled on the beach a little and then moved into the cafe for a beer and an ice cream. Classic holiday behaviour.

Dina and Pippa were arriving at the bus station at around 4pm so we walked back from the beach with plenty of time to spare, grabbing some groceries on the way. Finally all together, we celebrated by making pesto pasta and taking a collective nap. Just kidding, we did do that but we also sat around a lot, catching up and enjoying each other’s company. Speaking for myself, I’ve seen each of them since we finished university but this was the first time that we had the five of us all in the same place since we moved out of our apartment in Edinburgh in May 2021.

We headed out for a few more drinks that evening, back to one of the bars that Lizzie and I had found the night before and then onto a place Georgia discovered. Here I have to admit that the nightlife in Rijeka is not exactly the most lively. However we did stumble upon a cool spot by accident, Klub Mladih. It was a youth bar and we pretty much stuck there for the rest of the weekend. It boasted something like 60 cocktails so we had a great time sampling as many of them as we dared!

The next day we all gradually surfaced from the night before, starting the day at our own paces. Dina and I were up a little before some of the others and decided to go out in search of coffee. Me and Lizzie had found a cafe just around the corner the day before that was literally called a book cafe. Is there any better place? We sat there for a bit and then headed back to make a nice brunch of scrambled eggs and avocado on toast. The plan for this day was to explore a bit more of the actual city of Rijeka. We started wandering back down the main street of Korzo in the daylight this time and found ourselves by St Vitus Cathedral. This is one of the well known symbols of Rijeka and actually appears on the 100 kuna banknote! Just beyond the cathedral we stumbled upon a tunnel that was built by the Italian military in WW2 as an air raid shelter. It’s 330m long and snakes beneath the old town, coming out by a primary school back in the direction of our apartment. It was free entry so we decided to go on a little adventure, even just to enjoy the much cooler temperatures underground!

Continuing on, we passed by the Maritime and History Museum of the Croatian Coast and then carried on down towards the river. Our eventual aim was to walk up to Trsat Castle that sits above Rijeka but we stopped for a drink and a rest at a cute cafe called Bar Striga right by the river before embarking on the 128m climb. Now here I have a tip for you. If you follow Google Maps or even just the signs in Rijeka for the castle, you will be taken up a brutally steep set of stairs and you’ll be so dead by the time you get to the top that you won’t be able to enjoy it. Instead I suggest searching Križanićeva in maps and taking this windy road up the hill to the castle. Not only is it a much gentler incline but you will also be taken down this passageway filled with incredible street art. I mean, just look at that!

About halfway up the more languorous route, you can actually cut onto the steps heading up which is what we did. Stairs in 30º+ heat are as bad as they sound but the views back down across Rijeka and out to the Adriatic sea are (maybe) worth it. Thankfully, you are welcomed to the top of the trek by a water fountain so you can replenish all the moisture you’ve just aggressively sweated out of your body. A couple of hundred metres more (along flat ground) will take you to the castle itself. Again entry is free which I think is good because it’s quite small and there’s not really much to see. The real benefit are the views, again back down over Rijeka and out to sea but also out the other side and over the hills that back the city. We had the obligatory photo shoot and then explored the parts of the ramparts that you can climb up before our stomachs demanded we find some food.

There are a selection of bars and restaurants at the entrance to the castle, and even one inside the main building, but none of them were serving food. We walked on a little more and tucked away next to sleeker, more modern establishments, we found Konoba Papalina. It was the rustic charm that drew us in and the warm welcome of the server that made us sit down. There were only a few specialty dishes on offer, no menu, and all fish or seafood. A couple of people went for the seafood risotto and a couple for the fresh mussels but I asked what our waiter would recommend. He refused to tell me but promised that it would be good so I sat back to wait for my surprise dish! It turned out to be the grilled sea bass served with blitza, a traditional Croatian side of chard and potatoes. The sea bass was delicious but I had to share with everyone because a whole fish proved to be a little too much for just me!

We headed back home, all ready for a shower and a nap, not necessarily in that order. We returned to our old faithful Klub Mladih where highlights of the night included a strawberry mojito and a dog! When you can pet a dog in the bar, a night out immediately gets better.

The plan for our last full day in Croatia was to head back to the beach! The initial plan was to head further afield to a new beach but after a later start than anticipated, we ended up back at Sablićevo. It was a great place to waste away the day. It was even more packed than Thursday, if that was even possible, but we marked out a spot and settled there. Rotating between lying on the beach and reading, a little swim and chilling in the shallows and chatting was exactly what we all needed. After a while, I had had my fill of sun and moved to the cafe again. I managed to get one of the deckchairs that faced out onto the water and sat there with a coke and a Nutella crepe – perfection. I even had a little kitten dancing around to keep me company. After we’d had enough of sun, sea and sand we got the bus back into town. We didn’t have it in us for another night on the town so we ended our time in Rijeka with a MacDonalds and a showing of Freaky Friday.

Monday morning meant that it was time to leave Rijeka. We weren’t actually leaving Croatia until the next day but our flight was from Zagreb and super early so we had decided to spend the night there. We got the bus again from Rijeka to Zagreb but all together this time. We had another AirBnB about 20 minutes from the bus station in Zagreb. We ended up chilling there for a while before heading into the centre of the city to explore a little and get dinner. The centre of Zagreb was cute, with some beautiful colourful buildings and churches. Dinner was ramen followed by ice cream for dessert, one last holiday treat. It was an early night because we had a taxi booked for 4am the next morning.

And now some final thoughts on Croatia. It’s a beautiful country that I definitely want to see more of. It seems like everyone I know was in Croatia this summer but in the more popular spots like Dubrovnik, Split or some of the islands. While I would definitely like to make it to those places one day, I’m glad that I avoided both the crowds and the heat for now. I think Croatia in the off-peak season is the way to go. Getting to know somewhere a little less popular like Rijeka was a nice taster. Even in that area, there’s now more places I want to go like the island of Krk or Pula, a town just around the coast known for ancient Roman buildings including the Pula Arena, one of the best preserved Roman amphitheaters.

Something I was so impressed with was the level of English everywhere. Even in a less touristy place like Rijeka, everyone we spoke to had a great level of English. We had attempted to learn a few words in Croatian, like hello and thank you, but there were limits on how much we could communicate. I really hate not being able to talk to people in their own language but I still felt really welcomed by everyone we spoke to, taxi drivers, waiters, people we met in a bar. It really made me think about how bad the British system is. It is impossible to learn a foreign language to fluency just through the British school system without some kind of outside help or experience yet it seems that in Croatia, the language skills do primarily come from school. It’s not just in Croatia that this is the case either.

Finally, just being amongst such good friends was so refreshing. I had been in London for a few days before we left and was really tired from that. I love visiting London because I have so many friends there that I love to catch up with but I find the city really draining. I was a little worried about going on a trip immediately after that as my social battery was already feeling depleted from a few days running across the city. I would describe myself as an extroverted introvert, in that I love being social and seeing friends and meeting new people but I then need to recharge with some alone time. Despite having lived together for four years, this was actually the first trip that the five of us had taken together and you never quite know how that many personalities are going to mesh together in a different situation like travelling. Despite all this, I came away from a busy five days feeling refreshed. My university flatmates are friends that feel like family and after being surrounded by them for a few days, they actually did fill my energy up again. Thank you ladies for a lovely few days!

Welcome back to another travel blog, a little Brucey bonus for you! This wasn’t a blog I expected to be writing when I embarked on my travels but sometimes you never know where the journey is going to take you. When I first arrived in Vienna I was organising doing a walking tour with my friend Nic and he was telling me the day he spent in Bratislava, the nearby capital of Slovakia. I hadn’t realised quite how close they are but there’s only 80km between them. I thought it would be a great way to spend a day, adding another country into the mix. I convinced my roommate Hannah to join me on her last day, making it three countries in one day for her as she was moving on to Budapest in Hungary that evening.

Our plan was to get the 9.15 train from the central station so we left with plenty of time as Hannah had her big bag with her ready for her train to Budapest that evening. I went to buy the tickets while Hannah found the lockers and I discovered that there is a specific Bratislava ticket. It costs €16 for a day return and also covers public transport while you are there! A pretty good deal if you ask me.

It took just over an hour to arrive in Bratislava where we pointed our noses towards the castle. On our way down we must have been walking through Slovakia’s embassy district and we made a game out of guessing which country they were. It was another glorious day, probably the hottest of my stay, so the walk got a bit sweaty! When we arrived at the castle the views weren’t the best I’ve ever seen although you could see across the Danube and back into Austria. There were a lot of cranes in the way and I think we were looking out onto a bit of an industrial area. The castle itself however was very nice! It had lovely gardens to walk through and the views from those, looking into the old town, were much nicer.

We walked down from the castle to the city walls and came out by St Martin’s cathedral. From there we were on the edge of the old town and just wandering through the streets in the bright sunshine was lovely. Now that we weren’t climbing uphill like earlier it wasn’t that bad! We found the main square with the city hall and several of the statues that are littered throughout the city. One is a man tipping his hat to passersby, there is a Napoleonic soldier leaning on a bench in the main square and the most famous, the Man at Work (or Čumil, the watcher), a worker peeking out of the sewer while taking a rest. There is a legend that says if you touch him on his head and make a wish it will come true, as long as you keep it a secret forever!

We carried on and out the other side of the old town in search of one of Bratislava’s most popular sights, St Elizabeth’s church. It is a vibrant blue building that is an icon of Slovakia. It was really stunning but completely tucked away behind a school that it was originally built to serve. By this point we were both ready for some food so headed back to one of the streets we had walked down with lots of restaurants. We settled on a traditional Slovakian restaurant where I had a stroganoff with beef, bacon, tomatoes and mushrooms in a creamy sauce (€15 with a beer) and Hannah had goulash with bread dumplings. We had a drink to cool down after lunch (€2 for a beer) and picked up an ice cream (€2) as we were walking back to the train station.

Because Hannah was heading to Budapest in the evening we had given ourselves plenty of time to get to the station in time for our train, which in turn was supposed to get us back to Vienna in plenty of time for her next train. Emphasis on supposed to… When we got to the train station in Bratislava there was a delay which continued to get longer as we waited. Throw in getting on the wrong train when it pulled into our platform and a last minute platform change and the return journey wasn’t quite as easy as the outward journey. Saying all that, we did get back in time for Hannah to dash through the station, grab her bag and make her train!

Back in Vienna, I hopped on the subway back to the hostel because I was exhausted and sweaty and grabbed a few things in Hoefer (€6) before chilling in the hostel for the evening.

I was really pleased to have the opportunity to visit a new and unexpected country for me. Bratislava was beautiful, a really cheery, charismatic place. Of course there is more to do than we were able to fit into 6 hours but at the same time, I think you can fit the essence of the city into a day trip. I’ve heard that the nightlife is very lively so if that’s your thing it would be nice to stay overnight but I would say that one night would be all you really need.

Throughout these travel posts I have been chronicling my spending and it’s time for the big roundup. Here is what I spent on two weeks travelling in Germany and Austria (and a little bit of Slovakia) –

Transport (Mulhouse to Munich to Innsbruck to Vienna) – €91.40 (£77.74)
Accommodation (15 nights in hostels) – €423.93 (£360.57)
Eating out – €220.65 (£187.67)
Groceries – €66.77 (£56.79)
Activities – €40.50 (£34.45)
Miscellaneous (trams, small souvenirs etc.)- €43.30 (£36.83)

And with that, it really is the end of the travelling series! Next stop: Tenerife!

Welcome back to the final instalment of this travel series! It’s taken a while to get here because I’ve been caught up doing some exciting things but you’ll just have to wait to read about those! (Or you can follow the blog on Instagram @sara_somewhere_ for more current updates!) My final stop was Vienna, the capital of Austria. Even though I was already in Austria, Innsbruck and Vienna are almost on opposite sides of the country from each other. Saying that, it only takes about four hours to get from one to the other by train. This was my last stop on my trip before flying to Dublin for a family party and quickly moving on to Tenerife to volunteer in a hostel through Workaway. Once again I will take you through what I got up to, day by day, including my costs for each day as well.

Monday 9 May

I started my journey to Vienna by leaving Innsbruck mid-morning. Now, here I have to admit to a rookie travel mistake. When I was booking all my trains for this trip, I acccidentally booked a train from Munich to Vienna instead of Innsbruck to Vienna. It was a non-refundable ticket so I looked at how much it would cost to book a new ticket from the right city but I also looked at the stops that the Munich to Vienna train would be making. One of these stops was Salzburg, a city just an hour and a half north-east of Innsbruck. I figured out that it would be cheaper to keep the wrong ticket, book one from Innsbruck to Salzburg and then hop on the original service there. Overall the two tickets cost me €53.65.

When I got to the train I saw that it was actually going to Vienna anyway, even though I only had a ticket to Salzburg. I asked the conductor if I could stay on to save me having to wait an hour in between trains and got an expected no but it’s always worth asking. I had one hour to waste in the station in Salzburg where I bought some food (€6) and then it was on to Vienna. The journey was easy, if a little longer than necessary, and I was welcomed to Vienna with some glorious weather. I set out towards my hostel, originally planning on getting the tram but by the time I figured out that I had missed the stop I was already halfway there.

I was staying in the same chain of hostels as I did in Munich, Wombat’s City Hostel. It was right by the Naschmarkt, a 1.5 km stretch of food stalls and restaurants that has been around for 500 years. It was originally a milk market until 1793 when authorities declared that any produce arriving in Vienna using a route other than the Danube river had to be traded here. The hostel was even nicer than the one in Munich, with a small coffee counter as you walk in, a bar tucked further into the back and a large dining space upstairs next to the kitchen. The location was great as well, like I said it was right next to the Naschmarkt that is lined with some really beautiful buildings and it was only a 15 minute walk into the city centre. For five nights in a six bed mixed dorm I paid €141.28.

As I was settling into my dorm room I got talking to some of my roommates. There was an American girl called Hannah who had actually been in the same hostel as me in Munich at the same time although we hadn’t crossed paths and a Honduran guy called Andres! What are the chances! Safe to say we had a good old chat about Honduras. The three of us went for dinner together to one of the restaurants in the Naschmarkt (€14.50) and then had some drinks in the hostel bar (€11.40). It was really fun getting to chat to a bunch of people, although sadly most of them were leaving the next day.

My first day in Vienna, not including the transport and accommodation costs, came out at €31.90. You’ll see that my daily spending in Vienna goes up and down a bit more than it did in either Munich or Innsbruck, sometimes managing to stay below my initial budget of €20 a day and sometimes being over even the adjusted €30 a day budget.

Tuesday 10 May 

After only making it on to a walking tour on my last day in Munich, despite being of the opinion that these are great first day activities, I had come to Vienna more prepared and pre-booked a free walking tour for my first full day. I went with Nic, a guy I had met in my hostel in Munich who was in Vienna at the same time as me, as well as (a different) Hannah, a girl from Edinburgh that I had met in the hostel bar the night before. I picked up a quick breakfast from the Aldi next door (called Hoefer in Austria) before we left (€2 for a croissant and a banana plus a €2.20 espresso from the hostel coffee bar).

After a little bit of confusion over the meeting point for the tour we eventually found the guide, a German guy who has been living in Vienna for 10 years and is clearly a bit of a history buff. This tour was with Prime Tours who have a range of options across cities in Eastern Europe and even multiple versions of the tour in Vienna, including the classic one (which I did), one focusing on Hitler and Vienna around 1900 and a craft beer tour. Like with the one I did in Munich, reserving a place on the tour is free but at the end you are encouraged to leave a tip for the guide. You can leave as much as you want, depending on how much you enjoyed it, but I think it’s important to bear in mind that these tours often last a couple of hours and the guide puts a lot of work into them. Specifically in Austria, becoming a tour guide involves taking an intensive 8 month course or the more spread out two year option followed by THREE exams. It can be tempting to take the ‘free’ part of ‘free walking tour’ a bit too literally or just to chuck in a few euros at the end but that isn’t fair on the people that make it possible for us to get to know these amazing cities. Even without the official course and exams of Austria, tour guides everywhere spend years accumulating their knowledge and then present it to you in an understandable, engaging, two-hour package and they deserve to be fairly compensated for that.

The meeting point for this tour was next to the Albertina Museum (apparently one of the best museums in Vienna, if a little expensive), in a small square with a monument against fascism and war. Even though the tour was two hours long, we didn’t actually cover that much ground. We spent a long time working our way through the Hofburg, the imperial palace of the Hapsburg dynasty. You can see several different styles in the different wings that were added over the years and it was interesting to see the influence of the individual rulers who added to the complex. Just behind the Hofburg is Heldenplatz (Hero’s Square) where you can currently find some temporary offices for Austria’s parliamentarians while the actual parliament building is under renovation. You can also find two statues that give the square its name, one of Archduke Charles of Austria and the other of Prince Eugene of Savoy, both on horseback. Despite the fact both statues are meant to commemorate the men as heroes, both suffered crushing defeats either just before or just after the statues were unveiled!

We carried on past the residences of both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, through some very grand side streets, past Michaelerplatz with the Hofburg on one side and Roman excavations at its centre, finally arriving at Stephansplatz with the iconic St. Stephen’s cathedral. This is one of Vienna’s and even Austria’s most important symbols. This was the end of the tour and after giving the guide his tip (€10) I spent a bit of time recovering from all the walking by chilling in the sun in Burggarten, a cute little garden at the back of the Albertina museum.

After a busy morning out in the glorious weather I had a chill afternoon back at the hostel before going out into the Naschmarkt for dinner with Nic. It was very handy having it right on the doorstep of the hostel because as well as having lots of stalls and shops for buying ingredients there are plenty of restaurants too. We opted for pizza at a place that didn’t look too expensive (because there are some more bougie options around) and we were right because my pizza only cost €12. To top off the evening we went to the bar in the hostel and played some pool with Hannah from my dorm room and some new people we met.

With the €6.60 I spent on drinks in the bar and €3.78 on a few groceries, my total for today was €36.58. I was pushing it a little, even on the new extended budget but I tried not to get stressed about it. The budget was really more of a guideline so I didn’t blow through all my money too fast (or am I only saying that because I did blow through all my money today? You decide…).

Wednesday 11 May 

Waking up to my third day in Vienna, I didn’t really have any solid plans. After the walking tour yesterday, I felt like I had seen a lot of the centre of the city but I wanted to go back and see it again under my own steam. I retraced our footsteps from the day before but a little sped up. I was able to explore the areas I wanted to see a bit more, like Maria-Theresien-Platz where you can find the natural history museum and the fine arts museum. The very central area of Vienna is encased in a ring road that once marked the outer limits of the city. I followed this around to Volksgarten, another beautiful park, and sat there reading for a while. I also passed by the parliament building that is currently being renovated and the Rathaus (city hall).

I had the vague idea that I wanted to walk down to the river, for no particular reason, and while I didn’t actually make it there it did mean that I got to walk through some much quieter, less touristy neighbourhoods. On my way I passed by Central Cafe, another icon of Vienna for its beautiful interior and importance to Viennese intellectuals. I contemplated going in to sample a piece of Sachertorte, an Austrian staple, but all the luxury (and the prices!) seemed a bit beyond me! Sachertorte is a chocolate cake with apricot jam that was invented in the city. (Interestingly there is a dispute as to whether the original comes from Hotel Sacher or the Demel cafe. Eduard Sacher first made the cake while an apprentice in Demel and then set up his own establishment, Hotel Sacher.) Instead, I stumbled upon a great little place called Pickwick’s. It markets itself as an English speaking bar and restaurant but is also a bookshop and video store. It was covered in movie posters and had floor to ceiling bookshelves – my kind of place! I got a drink there (€4.30), taking the chance to shelter from the heat and sun for a while, plus it only felt right to get my book out again.

My wander through the city had taken me across the city centre and out the other side so when I was ready to go back to the hostel I was quite far away. I figured I had already gotten my steps in for the day so I gave my aching feet a rest and got the U-bahn (subway) back. I spent the evening chatting with Hannah from my dorm and arranging a day trip for the next day. It’s going to get its own bonus travel blog but if you’ve been to Vienna or know the geography of that area, you can probably guess. Hint: it’s the capital of a neighbouring country.

After a few days of upper or over budget spending, today came to a respectable €13.98. On top of my drink at Pickwick’s, I spent €4.08 on some groceries, €3.20 on a coffee and €2.40 on a U-bahn ticket. Not eating out today definitely contributed to lower spending. My normal habits were usually one meal out a day, often lunch while I was out and about, but while in Vienna I also made sandwiches to bring with me a couple of times to save a little more here and there.

Friday 13 May

After my day trip out of Vienna on Thursday (more on that here), for my final full day I had a nice surprise! One of my friends that I had visited in Innsbruck had decided to come through to Vienna for a night! Ciara had been thinking about it for a while and in the end booked a last minute train and hostel. She arrived around lunchtime and had a great suggestion of what we could do. You might remember that in Munich I spent one afternoon at the Müller’sches Volksbad, an art nouveau swimming pool. Ciara suggested that we visit Amalienbad, an art deco style swimming pool built around 1926 in the Vienna worker’s district. It is named after Amalie Pölzer, a social democratic councillor, at a time when most of the squares in the area were named after the royal family. Naming the pool after a worker represented the fact that the pool was built to bring the traditionally more bourgeois activity of bathing to the proletariat. The inside of the pool was stunning but very different to what I had seen in Müller’sches Volksbad. The interior would not look out of place in a Wes Anderson film with the brown and golden tones of the tiles and changing room doors contrasting beautifully with the bright blue of the pool. There were diving boards at one end and sun loungers lining the pool. It was a lovely, chilled way to spend an hour.

After we finished swimming, we got the tram over to Belvedere Palace. Because I was running about the city a bit more today, the pool being a bit further out, I bought a 24 hour tram ticket for €8. This was a pretty good price considering I could use it the next morning to get out to the airport as well. Belvedere, technically made up of two palaces, was the summer residence of Prince Eugene of Savoy. It was one of the final places that I wanted to see in Vienna so I spent a bit of time wandering around the gardens while Ciara went to visit an exhibition of Black Austrian artists in Belvedere 21, a contemporary art museum in the gardens of the Belvedere. I didn’t have time to go and see the exhibition because I had to get back to the hostel and pack my suitcase but it turned out that it was only opening the day after anyway!

I went back out in the evening to have dinner with Ciara. We met at Stephansplatz, by the cathedral, and wandered around a bit first, enjoying the nice evening light on all the beautiful buildings. We had nowhere in particular in mind for dinner so settled on a nice Italian place that we passed by where I had a pizza, some chips to share and a Hugo for €18.80. It was lovely to spend a little more time with Ciara and have a buddy for the day, even if it was short and sweet. I was leaving quite early the next morning but getting to the airport was super easy. I already had my 24 hour tram pass and I just needed to add on a city limits ticket for €1.80 that would allow me to take the S7 train out to the airport. There is the dedicated CAT train that leaves from Wien Mitte station and takes you directly to the airport in 16 minutes but the S-bahn is much cheaper and really not much longer or more hassle.

For my final day in Vienna I spent a grand total of €31.10. On top of my 24 hour tram pass and my dinner, I also spent €0.69 on a banana and a croissant for breakfast and €3.60 on a latte.

I was really happy with everything I got to do in Vienna but there’s always things left over. One of the big sights that I didn’t get to was Schönbrunn Palace, the summer residence of the Hapsburg family. It’s a little further out of the city centre and doesn’t really have anything else that I wanted to see around it so I couldn’t make it fit into my plans. From what I’ve seen, it reminds me a little of Schloss Nymphenburg in Munich. The palace(s) are one thing but then there’s also a massive garden where you could waste away a day. Another place still on my list is the Schmetterlinghaus (the Butterfly House). Multiple people recommended this to me when I was asking for things to do in Vienna. In the end I just didn’t have time but I loved Vienna so much that I already know I’ll be back. Finally, something Ciara was really keen to see but that I had never heard of was the Hundertwasserhaus. It was built by Friedensreich Hundertwasser and is a stunning mosaic of colours and shapes. Because I found out about it last minute and Ciara and I had already packed a lot into our day together, it’s just another thing I’ll have to see next time.

Vienna saw the end of my two weeks of travelling. When I left I headed to Dublin for a couple of days for my uncle’s delayed 50th (thanks covid!) and got to catch up with his family who I hadn’t seen in three years. I also got to see my mum and one of my sisters which was nice. In general I loved my two weeks on the road. Seeing new places and meeting new people energises me in a special way and collecting new experiences is always special. It’s tiring as well though! It was nice being amongst family for a few days because there’s an ease to the interactions there but at this point I was also looking forward to getting to Tenerife and staying there for a bit longer. I was pleased with my choices of where I visited and a lot of people I met were doing similar routes, sometimes in the opposite direction and often for longer. For many of them the next stop after Vienna was Budapest as it’s only a couple of hours on the train. Budapest is somewhere that’s always been on my radar and I do wish that I had thought about adding it when I was planning. I had five days in each place which was good because I had plenty of time to get to know each place but if I had shortened my stay by one day in each city, I definitely could have added in Budapest.

For now, there is one more bonus travel blog to come and then we are on to Tenerife, baby!

A final breakdown of my spending –
Transport (incorrect Munich to Vienna ticket and Innsbruck to Salzburg ticket) – €53.65
Accommodation (5 nights in a 6 bed mixed dorm room) – €141.28
Average daily spending – €31.91

Check out the bonus travel blog up next for a look at my overall spending for two weeks travelling in Central Europe!

Next stop on my trip was Innsbruck, Austria. Less than two hours away from Munich, Innsbruck is in the mountainous Tyrol region of Austria, nestled between the Alps. It is a well known destination for winter sports (you can read a little more about one in particular later on). This trip was actually planned around coming to Innsbruck which might surprise some people. The reason I wanted to visit was because I had some friends, Emily and Ciara, that were doing part of their Erasmus year there. I met them while they were in Mulhouse last semester to study French and this semester they have been in Innsbruck to study German. I knew I wanted to go to Innsbruck from the beginning and Munich was a nice stopover after leaving Mulhouse plus I figured that while I was in Austria I might as well visit the capital, Vienna!

I’m going to take you day by day through what I did in Innsbruck, like I did in Munich, although this is less of an itinerary. Innsbruck is obviously a perfect place to do some hiking or outdoor activities but after a little accident (I won’t keep you in suspense for too long, the story is coming next), I wasn’t able to do much of these. My main priority while in Innsbruck was also more to catch up with my friends than to see the city. However, I will still include my costs so you can continue to see my spending over the trip. If you are too impatient, you can also check out the blog on Instagram, @sara_somewhere_, where I’ve already posted a reel summarising my spending over the two week trip!

Thursday 5 May

As I said in the Munich blog, I got into Innsbruck at around half 5. What I didn’t mention is that the first thing I did after arriving was throw myself down the stairs in the train station. I somehow missed a step, lost my footing and just went down like a ton of bricks. My ankle got twisted pretty badly under me and so we had to take a few minutes before I could move. Everyone passing, people travelling or working in the station, were very nice and tried to help but all I really needed was a minute to gather myself. Thankfully, once I was back on my feet, I could still put weight on my ankle and therefore walk. Moving it or rotating it, however, was something different.

Our first stop was my hostel which was a little far from the centre of Innsbruck, about 20 minutes on the tram. It was a Hostelling International hostel so it was a bit more business-like and clean cut than the Wombat’s hostel that I had just come from. Saying that, the room was very nice. I was in a four bed dorm, much more compact than my room in Wombat’s but with enough space. It also was never full during my five nights stay and I even had one night by myself, an absolute luxury! We didn’t stay long, just long enough for me to make my bed and freshen up, and then we headed back into town. Even though the hostel was quite far from the centre of the city, any guests staying more than two nights are given a free public transport card so you can hop on and off the tram and buses as you please! Also included in this Welcome Card are various discounts for mountain cable cars and lots of activities with more becoming available the longer you stay. I didn’t use any of them as a lot of the activities required two working ankles but it would be a great thing if you were looking to get some adventures in during your stay!

Back in town we headed to what is probably the central plaza of Innsbruck, Maria-Theresien Strasse, where we were immediately tempted by an ice cream shop. Ice cream for dinner is not just acceptable but encouraged while on holiday. Shoutout to that ice cream shop which saw me three times in the five days I was there. Fully recommend the passion fruit flavour, fig and walnut and the mango sorbet. Our main destination was a cool bar called Tribe Haus where we wanted to get some food. Unfortunately it was packed so we just had a drink. Since arriving in France I have discovered and become obsessed with a Hugo (not a French boy but a popular apéro drink with the same vibe as an aperol spritz). There’s something about the combo of prosecco, elderflower syrup, lime and mint that is one of the most refreshing things you can drink. It was nice to catch up with Ciara and Emily and find out what they’ve been up to in Innsbruck and how much they miss us in Mulhouse!

It was a nice welcome evening (sprained ankle aside). My foot was feeling alright but a little tender and had definitely swollen a lot by the time I went to bed. This being a travel day, I included the costs at the end of the Munich blog so you can find them there if you haven’t read it already.

Friday 6 May

First priority today was to follow my doctor dad’s recommendation and find a brace to support my ankle. Thankfully I had my German translator with me (dankeschön Ciara) because ich spreche kein Deutsch (I’ll let you guess what that means). After trying a couple of places we finally found one and it gave me immediate relief. I said that my ankle wasn’t necessarily sore unless I rotated it but there was this uncomfortable pressure. I couldn’t actually fit my foot in my trainer in the morning so I was wearing this ankle brace with my Birkenstock sandals. Is that better or worse than socks and sandals? As this was an extraordinary expense I didn’t include it in my budget but we celebrated our success with a coffee and an ice cream (€7 in total plus another €2 for a cheeky supermarket sandwich).

Emily joined us at this point and we headed out to our main attraction of the day, Bergisel. This is a ski jump overlooking the city that was used for the Winter Olympics in 1964 and 1976. We got the bus over, free thanks to my transport card from the hostel, and then had a short but steep walk up to a viewpoint where you can get a panoramic view over the city. Here you can also find the Tirol Panorama, a museum on the history of the Tyrol region, and the Kaiserjäger Museum, a museum on the Tyrolean Imperial Infantry. Another short but steep walk takes you to the bottom of the ski jump where a student ticket cost me €8 (€9.50 for an adult ticket).

You enter the grounds next to the stands that can hold 26,000 people and get an impressive and rather intimidating view up to the top of the jump. It is 455 steps up to the top of the jump but thankfully there is also a lift in case you are also down one ankle. The lift takes you to the top of the hill but you still aren’t at the top. Another lift takes you up to the top of the building where you get the most incredible view of the valley that Innsbruck sits in. One floor down is a restaurant and also the starting point for the skiers. You can go and stand at the top of the ramp, look down and question whether or not you would have it in you to jump. The ramp is 98 metres long and the landing slope is 37º steep in some places. The official record set here was a jump of 138m from Michael Hayböck.

After taking in the viewing and deciding that none of us had the guts to make that kind of jump, we decided to have a wee drink in the restaurant. I was again tempted by a Hugo that cost me €6. I headed back to my hostel to have some chill time before heading out again in the evening to have some drinks and meet some of Emily and Ciara’s other Erasmus friends. We went to an Irish bar because it doesn’t matter where you are in the world, there’s always an Irish bar called Limerick Bill’s and it always has good vibes. A couple of pints here cost me €15. One of the people I met was from Harrogate in the north of England and actually knew or knew of two of my university flatmates who are also from there! Small world eh?

I really enjoyed today because visiting the ski jump felt like a really random thing to do but was actually really cool and interesting. Because it sits atop such a high hill you can see it from many points in the city, including the tram back to my hostel, and it lights up at night so it’s very visible. In total I spent €38 today, the drinks and the paid activity really destroying my budget for the day. This might be the point where I saw my costs start to go up a bit more so I started aiming more for €30 a day if €20 didn’t feel possible.

Saturday 7 May

I wasn’t feeling great when I woke up this morning but thankfully not because of my ankle which was actually feeling better. I also realised this morning that my hostel came with a free continental breakfast! Emily and Ciara both had some work to do and because I wasn’t feeling great, I was quite happy to accompany them to a cafe and just do some work. It was a very chill day that I spent blogging, once I started to feel a bit better. Overall, not much to report from this day. I spent €6 on a sandwich and then €4.50 on a milkshake later in the afternoon, plus €12.90 on some groceries for my dinner and the next day for a total of €23.50, just slightly over budget.

Sunday 8 May

I was woken up nice and early this morning, in true hostel style, by the group in the other rooms on my floor who I suspect were some kind of teenage sports team with no concept of sharing the space with others. I was meeting Ciara for brunch later in the morning but I was awake so early that I still took advantage of the free breakfast.

We met around midday at a spot that Ciara had been wanting to try called the Breakfast Club. It must be some kind of law that every country must have somewhere with this name. I had an omelette with onion, cheese and bacon (€12.80) and Ciara had toast with this delicious looking almond and spinach spread. Both came with a wee glass of elderflower juice which is very common in this area. The weather was glorious after a few more cloudy days so after breakfast we decided to take a stroll. We walked by Triumphforte, a gate built to honour the marriage of Archduke Leopold to the Spanish princess Maria Luisa. Unfortunately, while the arch was being constructed Leopold’s father died unexpectedly so the south side commemorates the wedding and the north side is dedicated to the memory of his father. We also passed by what is considered the symbol of Innsbruck, the Golden Roof (Goldenes Dachl). It was built by Emperor Maximilian I to celebrate his wedding to Blanca Maria Sforza in 1500.

It was such a nice day that it would have been rude not to get an ice cream (€3.40) before we visited one of the museums in the city. The Taxi Palais Kunsthalle Tirol is a contemporary art museum that shows up to four exhibitions per year. The exhibition when I was there was called GODDESSES and it included various works by four different artists that were installed gradually with performances by Ursula Beiler in between. The first section had paintings by Elizabeth von Samsonow, very abstract and using bright, almost neon, colours which I liked a lot. The second section by Tejal Shah had three or four short films or videos playing on a loop. My favourite part of this section was a poem that was spelled out letter by letter in Morse code. There was a film room showing a film by Karrabing Film Collective, an indigenous Australian grassroots collective, called Mermaids, or Aiden in Wonderland. Karrabing ‘refers to a form of collectivity outside of government-imposed structures of clanship or land ownership’. We came in halfway through so it was a bit confusing to start with but made more sense once we had watched it in its entirety. I say it made more sense but I still didn’t fully understand it, not that that was a bad thing because it meant that I was still thinking about it for a few days after seeing it. The final section of the exhibition was a room downstairs with large square pillows made from beautifully patterned material arranged within a circle of speakers playing choral music in Igbo. The installation, by Emeka Ogboh, was called Ámà (meaning village square in Igbo, the language of the Igbo people of southeastern Nigeria) and is supposed to evoke that sense of gathering and community that a village square represents. It was a very tranquil and relaxing experience, lying down on the pillows and listening to the music. It was only €4 for a student ticket and because of the nature of the exhibit, that it was installed over time (though it was complete when we saw it), you could use the same ticket four times which is great value for money.

Austria is the same as France and Germany in that most things are closed on a Sunday, things like shops and supermarkets at least, so after leaving the museum we sought out the only supermarket that was still open. I spent €8 on a salad for dinner as well as a highly coveted can of Heinz tomato soup! It’s one of the things I sometimes missed in Mulhouse but couldn’t find anywhere so when I saw it in M. Preiss I knew I had to get it. After a lovely day, I headed back to my hostel for the last time to relax a bit before leaving the next morning. My total for the day was €28.20 so just under my new, adjusted budget of €30 a day.

There were definitely plenty of other things that I wanted to do in Innsbruck that I didn’t get the chance to. It would have been nice to get out into the mountains a bit, either using one of the many cable cars in the area or as a hike. Unfortunately my ankle stopped me from even considering that. It’s also a great place for winter sports, as evidenced by the Bergisel ski jump, so skiing here would be really cool. However, my intention was always to spend these few days catching up with my friends and I feel satisfied with the time I spent with them and the things we did together.

As for my final thoughts on Innsbruck, this was a great opportunity to visit a city that it’s unlikely I would have visited otherwise. For me, my highlight was the stunning scenery. Whether it was the sweeping vistas from the top of the Bergisel or the many vivid colours of the buildings, especially along the river, I had my breath taken away multiple times. It was also nice to see Emily and Ciara in their new environment, after seeing them on Erasmus in Mulhouse.

Last but not least, a breakdown of my costs –
Transport (train from Munich to Innsbruck) – €19.50
Accommodation (5 nights in a 4 bed female dorm) – €140
Average daily spending – €29.90

Welcome to the first of three travelling posts! After leaving Mulhouse at the end of April I had a family event in Dublin in the middle of May so I was looking for something to do in between. I had friends that were studying in Mulhouse last semester during their Erasmus year and who had moved to Innsbruck in the second semester and I thought that this would be as good an opportunity as any to visit them. I was looking for somewhere to go on the way there and Munich, while not on the way, was in the right area. I’ve wanted to go to Munich for a long time so I figured it was a perfect addition to my itinerary. While I was in Austria to go to Innsbruck, I also fancied going to its capital, Vienna. Innsbruck and Vienna are on almost opposite sides of the country but only four hours or so by train. And that was how I decided on my two week itinerary.

I’m going to take you day by day through my itinerary for each city because while some of the things I did were very specific to my own interests (you’ll see what I mean), I think in general I found a good balance of seeing some of the main sights and discovering some nice hidden spots. There’s also always more places that you wish you had time to go to or to see, no matter how long you spend anywhere so I’ll let you know what those are for each place as well.

Something else I’m going to include is a breakdown of what the trip cost me. I think there’s this impression, or at least I had the impression, that this kind of backpacking in Europe is really expensive and more unattainable than somewhere like Central or South America or Southeast Asia. Some things are expensive, like hostels and transport, but on the day to day it’s possible to keep costs down. I started out wanting to keep to a €20 a day budget and by the end of the two weeks I had increased it to €30 a day (not including accommodation or transport). €20 was fine for days when I wasn’t doing any activities that I had to pay for or when I was cooking my own food for all my meals but it didn’t have a lot of wiggle room. Sometimes I wanted to eat lunch or dinner out, especially if I was away from the hostel for the whole day, and if I wanted to do something that I had to pay for, it was impossible. I wasn’t rigorous with the budget, there were days when I went over even €30 but it was a good limit to aim for.

So without further ado, let go!

Saturday 30 April

This was my first travel day. I wasn’t leaving until 1pm so the morning was spent packing up the remnants of my stuff in my flat. Thankfully I’m able to come back in September so I can keep my things there but I’m changing rooms so I still needed to put everything into boxes.

I got to the train station in Mulhouse with plenty of time to spare and loaded up on train snacks (€7.10 for a baguette sandwich, some crisps and a bottle of fizzy juice). My travel involved taking a train to Basel where I changed onto a service heading to Berlin (a whopping 8 hours long!) although I was getting off at Karlsruhe, only 1 hour 45 minutes later. I was only supposed to have 7 minutes in Karlsruhe to change to the train that would take me to Munich but 7 minutes would have been too easy. Instead the train was a little late so it was only 3 minutes to transfer. The conductor was very encouraging when he told us over the speaker that we should have enough time to make it if we hurried! You could tell who was trying to make the same connection because we were all pressed up against the door, raring to go and raced out as soon as the train pulled to a stop. Thankfully we just had to go down some stairs and across a few platforms and I think everyone made it. They might have even delayed the Munich train for a few minutes to make sure everyone could get on. Overall this little adventure from Mulhouse to Munich cost me €28.25 (all my train tickets were bought using my carte avantage jeune, a young person’s discount card).

It turned out that my hostel, Wombat’s City Hostel Munich Hauptbahnhof, was right by the train station (the name should have given it away, bahnhof is German for train station). I stopped in at a supermarket on the way as the following day was Sunday and like in France, not much in Germany is open. I spent €5.10 on some bananas, pasta and pesto, the traveller’s staples!

I immediately liked the hostel when I walked in. It has this great common area with a big high ceiling made out of windows that makes you feel like you’re in a building in a botanic garden. Food was high on my agenda and the first person I met while I was cooking in the shared kitchen was a Chinese girl who studied in Dalian of all places! We were there at different times and studying at different universities but what a coincidence!

After all the travel and commotion of the day, I was very tired so I didn’t actually go out anywhere on the first evening. I chilled in the common area for a while and then went to bed. My spending for the day came in way under budget at €12.20.

Sunday 1 May

For my first full day in Munich I didn’t have anything in particular planned. I have to admit that I was a little underprepared for this trip. Other than asking people for recommendations for the cities I was visiting and putting all the answers onto a Google Map, I hadn’t done much research. In a way this was nice though because I was able to look around the city, read the information boards in the hostel and talk to people who had already been there for a few days to get inspiration. I definitely got some good recommendations that way, both for what to do and what not to do! The weather was also a little limiting while I was in Munich because while it didn’t rain that much other than two evenings, the weather forecast kept threatening that it was going to.

I figured a good starting point would be the main square in Munich, Marienplatz. This is where you will find the Neues Rathaus, the new town hall. The building includes the famous glockenspiel, a clock that reenacts two very important events in the history of Munich. The first is the wedding of Duke Wilhelm V and Renata of Lorraine, commemorated by a jousting competition, and the second is the Schäffler dancers who danced in the streets once the plague was gone from the city. It can be seen every day at 11am and 12pm and also 5pm between March and October. However, today the main attraction was very different. Seeing as it was 1st May, Germany was celebrating May Day or Labour Day. There was a big stage set up with performers and the square was packed with people waving banners and handing out flyers for unions and other organisations. Someone even tried to recruit me until I sputtered out my go to line in German – ‘Ich spreche kein Deutsch!’ (I don’t speak German!).

From Marienplatz I headed deeper into the old town, with the vague destination of the English Garden in mind. It’s basically just a massive park but seeing as this was potentially going to be my only day of dry weather I wanted to go and wander around while I could. On the way I passed by the Munich residence which was the official residence of the Bavarian royal family for more than 400 years until 1918 and is the biggest city palace in Germany. I didn’t go in but I walked through the garden and later learned that the building now houses multiple museums so if that’s your thing it’s a good spot!

Just beyond the residence was the bottom of the English Garden. Here is where you will find one of my favourite spots in Munich and a bit of a legendary sight. The Schwabinger river runs into the garden and at the most southern point in the park you can find the Eisbach wave. The rock formations at this point in the river create a wave that is perfect for surfing! It’s only for pretty advanced surfers but even if you can’t partake, it’s fascinating to stand on the bridge overlooking the wave or the banks of the river to watch those that can. It’s such a curiosity and I loved whiling away some time watching the surfers there.

After being entranced by the surfers, I walked into the actual garden and wandered around for a while, coming across the Monopteros, a small Greek style temple. I was starting to get hungry so I found a biergarten, appropriately enough the Chinesischer Turm Biergarten (Chinese Tower Beergarden) which has a pagoda in the middle. I spent €9 on some currywurst (sausage with a sweet tomato and curry sauce poured over it) and kartoffelsalat (potato salad, pretty much the only reason I got this instead of chips was because when the guy asked me what I wanted, I recognised the words and was very chuffed with putting my Duolingo level German to use!). I was tempted by a beer but the only option was a 1L stein that would have cost the same as my food!

After a busy morning full of walking I was a little tired so headed towards one of the recommendations I’d been given, a coffee shop in the university district to the west of the garden. It was called Lost Weekend and was exactly my vibe! It was filled with young people with their laptops and books out, was part bookshop and has events like open mic nights and poetry readings in the evenings! I got a coffee and read my book there for a while, happy to take a break from being a tourist and blend in for an hour or two.

I dandered back towards the hostel past some of the museums that I was considering visiting later in the week and then stumbled across a square with a Greek style gate called the Propyläen and also the Sculpture Gallery and the State Collection of Antiques which were both in interesting buildings. Back at the hostel I was wiped out so I just made some more pesto pasta, got a beer from the hostel bar (€2.80 for a pint!) and got chatting to an Australian woman about her extensive travels.

My first full day in Munich came out to €14.30 after walking everywhere, just taking in the sights of the city plus eating breakfast and dinner in the hostel. Off to a good start!

Monday 2 May 

My plan for day 2 stemmed from the conversation I had with Lisa, the Australian woman, the night before. She recommended going to see Schloss Nymphenburg. It’s a palace a little further out from the centre of the city but is easily accessible by tram. It was €3.50 for a one way ticket, a little expensive in my opinion, and I was very confused about where to buy it until I realised that the ticket machines are actually on the trams. From where I was staying near the main train station it was about 15 minutes to the tram stop named Schloss Nymphenburg and then the palace is right there. I decided to skip the pais entry to the building, at a certain point once you’ve seen one fancy building you’ve seen them all, and instead spent a few hours wandering around the extensive gardens. There were some nice buildings and statues hidden away amongst the trees and I paused by a lake to read my book as well.

I went back to the hostel for lunch and went back out in the evening to explore Frühlingsfest. One of the things Munich is most famous for is obviously Oktoberfest, a beer festival held every year from mid-September until the first Sunday in October. Frühlingsfest is the much smaller version held in April and May (Frühling means spring in German). In comparison to Oktoberfest’s 14 large beer tents, Frühlingsfest has just 2. Due to the pandemic, Oktoberfest hasn’t happened for the last two years so this Frühlingsfest is the first similar event to take place since Oktoberfest 2019. I haven’t been to Oktoberfest but to me Frühlingsfest felt a little more like a funfair with a few extra beer tents than the mass drinking event that is Oktoberfest. There’s nothing wrong with that at all, it’s a more low key and still very enjoyable atmosphere. I wandered through the rides and the various food stalls until I was tempted by one of them. A Bratwurst sausage in a bread roll and a waffle covered in icing sugar cost me €7.

Along with my two tram tickets and food at Frühlingsfest, I also picked up some more groceries, things like cashew nuts, Pringles and some granola bars so my overall spending was slightly over my allotted goal at €23.16.

Tuesday 3 May

I had a slow start to my third full day in Munich because I was waiting around for a phone call that amounted to a job interview for some extra teaching once I get back to Mulhouse in September. I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know it went well! I made it out just in time to get to Marienplatz to catch the 12pm showing of the glockenspiel which I had missed the first day I was there. I went to the neighbouring Viktualienmarkt, a food market, to get some lunch. I had been recommended a stall called Schelmmemeyers and been told to get the rostbratwurst, another form of sausage in a bread bun. I had a proud language moment when the guy asked me if I wanted mustard (senf) and I understood and was able to say yes! I also got a potato rosti purely because it was called an Elsässer rosti and Elsässer is how you say Alsace in German! It was €6 for the two.

My main activity of the day was very specific to my interests. I had been reading the information board in my hostel and came across an ‘off the beaten path’ recommendation from one of the staff members. There is a public swimming pool in a beautiful old baroque building that I thought would be fun to visit called Müller’sches Volksbad. It was a little out of the centre again in a direction I hadn’t explored but not too far by foot so I walked over and got to see a new neighbourhood on my way. It was only early afternoon when I arrived in the area so I found a cafe nearby and got an iced latte for €4.30. Café Blá itself was a great find!

The pool was actually just down the road so I found it easily enough but it took me a couple of tries to find the door because despite the building being very grand and impressive, it’s actually rather inconspicuous. I wasn’t totally convinced from the outside that it was currently in use. It must be a ploy to keep it a well kept secret because inside was stunning. It cost €3.50 for a student ticket which was 100% worth it because when I got through to the actual pool there were barely five other people in there! I don’t know enough about architecture to do a description of the inside any justice but I’ll just say that I’ve never enjoyed backstroke so much! There was so much to look at on the ceiling, even in the changing rooms. There are two pools that used to be separated for men and women but now the only difference is in temperature, with the former women’s pool being a few degrees warmer. Overall, this was actually one of my favourite things I did in Munich!

My evening was spent back at the hostel again with some sandwiches for dinner so adding in a few extra pieces I picked up at the supermarket my total for the day was a respectable €21.76.

Wednesday 4 May 

Several days of well over 10,000 steps a day were catching up to me a bit at this point so I had a more chilled day planned. I wanted to go to a museum or gallery today and one that had caught my eye, again on the hostel information board, was the Museum of Urban and Contemporary Art. I got talking to a guy while I was eating breakfast and he was looking for something to do that day as well so asked if he could come with me. The more the merrier!

The museum itself was really cool. You couldn’t take pictures which was at the same time a shame because there were a lot of pieces that I really liked but also a really nice idea because it lets you just enjoy the art that is in front of you. There were a lot of pieces from Banksy, including one from his Dismaland installation and one entitled ‘Are You Using That Chair?’, based on Edward Hopper’s famous late night bar scene ‘Nighthawks’. My favourites were by an artist called Vhils, sheets of iron that had designs burned on to them with acid. The skills it must take to get the level of detail that there was is incredible. There was also a whole room devoted to Richard Hambleton’s shadowan, an eery silhouette that haunted the streets of Manhattan in the 80s. To top it all off, entrance was only €5!

As we were leaving, the rain that had been promised all week finally arrived. It had rained a bit the previous evening but I was already tucked up in the hostel by that time but I was fully caught in it this time. Luckily I had the foresight to bring an umbrella with me to help me scurry back to the hostel. I ventured out again in the late afternoon once it had stopped raining. The sky still looked pretty menacing though and I did in fact get caught in an even bigger shower, nay thunderstorm. I was in the process of deciding what I wanted to eat for dinner and in the end I was forced into Five Guys as much for shelter as for sustenance.

When I eventually made it back, slightly damp, to Wombat’s I ran into one of my dormmates. When I first arrived I had been sharing my mixed six bed dorm with a group of five Irish guys who were there together and liked to snore and come in loudly at 5am. Safe to say nothing was particularly pushing me to make friends with them but after they left there was a much nicer group of individual travellers that came in. I spent what was my final evening having a drink with some of my dormmates, Mohammed from Afghanistan, Gael from Israel and Nic from the French speaking part of Canada, and playing a board game. It was really nice to hang out with them because while I had gotten chatting to a few people over the course of my stay it was mostly on a one to one basis. I struggled a bit during the first few days with feeling like I was out of practice with the social aspect of travelling. I think everyone’s social skills have suffered a bit since the start of the pandemic as we just haven’t had the opportunities to be amongst people we don’t know and to make new friends and I felt this at first. It was good to shake that feeling off and it turned out that Nic was even going to be in Vienna at the same time as me!

For my last full day in Munich I spent €21.45 on my admission to MUCA and my Five Guys dinner so still more or less on track!

Thursday 5 May 

I was leaving to head to Innsbruck but not until mid-afternoon so I still got the morning in Munich. In a slightly backwards turn of events I was spending my last morning doing a free walking tour. Ideally I would have done it on the first day but the company that I wanted to go with, Sandeman’s New Europe, only had tours later on in the week. It would have been a perfect way to get to know the city centre a little but even though I had already seen a lot of the places we went to, I got to learn more about these places. The main spot that I hadn’t seen until then was the Hofbrauhaus, one of the most famous breweries in Munich. While the walking tour was technically free, donations are suggested at the end. You can pay what you want, depending on how much you enjoyed it and I thought it was great so I gave €10.

Before getting my train I went back to Viktualienmarkt to get some lunch. I wanted to try schnitzel while I was in Germany, which is pounded, breaded and then fried cutlet, usually of pork. It’s very popular and very common but I was a little disappointed. It was like a dry chicken nugget because it’s so much thinner. A portion of schnitzel with chips cost €7. It was a pretty heavy meal but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing as it would keep me going during my journey to Innsbruck!

I arrived into Innsbruck at around half 5 and was met by my friends. We got the tram out to my hostel (€1.70) and then went out for some drinks (€8). All things together, I spent €28.10 so starting to creep a little higher. For more details on my arrival to Innsbruck and Austria, you’ll just have to wait for the next post!

I said I would let you know what I didn’t do that I wish I had and that was Schloss Neuschwanstein. This is an iconic castle in the Bavarian hills, if you don’t know the castle I’m talking about have a quick Google search and you’ll recognise it. I really wanted to go but like I mentioned the weather forecast kept threatening rain in the afternoons which either didn’t happen or only in the evening. The castle is about 2 hours away from Munich which is fine if you know it’s going to be worth it. What I didn’t want to happen was that I went all that way and spent the day in the rain without getting any good views of or from the castle. I kind of wish I had just gone but I did my best with the information I have and I guess it just means that I have to go back!

Some final thoughts on Munich – I liked the city a lot although maybe my impression of it was slightly dampened by the weather (boom boom). My favourite thing I did was actually going to the old swimming pool which is maybe a lesson in choosing wisely – sometimes the most popular things aren’t for you but you can surely find something that is. Overall I think I could have done with one day less or even just to have left earlier in the last day. I felt like I had more than had my fill of Munich by the end. Saying that, I would still like to go back, maybe to experience Oktoberfest or even just to finally make it to Schloss Neuschwanstein.

A final break down of my spending –
Transport (train from Mulhouse to Munich) – €28.25
Accommodation (5 nights in a 6 bed mixed dorm room) – €142.65
Average daily spending – €20.16

Up next – Innsbruck, Austria!