Rome to Berlin 2026
This was a pretty spontaneous trip. We had discussed the idea of a backpacking-style trip around Europe many times, but still on a high from our trip to Japan, we jumped at the opportunity after spotting that Interrail had a Christmas sale. After some back-and-forth we decided on a route that would start in Rome - to which neither of us had been - and end in Berlin 3 weeks later. On the way, we wanted to see as much as possible, preferring to explore on foot and sample the local food rather than doing too many of the touristy things.
Our Itinerary
On our journey we wound through 10 countries: ๐ฎ๐น Italy, ๐ป๐ฆ Vatican City, ๐ธ๐ฒ San Marino, ๐ธ๐ฎ Slovenia, ๐ญ๐บ Hungary, ๐ท๐ด Romania, ๐ฆ๐น Austria, ๐ธ๐ฐ Slovakia, ๐จ๐ฟ Czechia and ๐ฉ๐ช Germany. Most of these are countries we’d never visited before and a lot of them are budget friendly - a bonus given that this was our 3rd trip in 6 months. We generally tried to book cheaper hotels and hostels, prioritising practicality and meeting people over comfort or luxury. However, we treated ourselves to slightly nicer accommodation in Rome and Berlin to bookend the trip.
We would fly from the UK to Italy and from Germany back to the UK again, but all the travel in between would be by train or some form of public transport. The route [1] included two overnight trains from Budapest to Brasov and Bucharest to Vienna. This saved us money on hotels and meant we’d be able to travel while sleeping (in theory). We planned to spend at least a couple of nights in each place, but in some of the smaller cities, we only booked one. We knew this would limit what we were able to do in those places, but we were willing to make this trade-off in order to see more things and with the knowledge that we can always come back to the places we like the most!
Rome, Italy ๐ฎ๐น
Our trip started with a flight from London Gatwick to Rome Fiumicino. It was due to depart at 06:25 and to avoid an expensive early morning taxi/train, we opted for a lift from a family member just before midnight. Unfortunately, security at Gatwick doesn’t open until around 3am, so our trip began on the floor of the departures hall watching episodes of Race Across the World on our phones. However, the early morning flight meant that we would be able to spend the whole of the first day exploring once we got to Rome.
We arrived in Rome on the 3rd May, which happened to be the first Sunday of the month. A lot of tourist attractions in Italy have a day (usually a Sunday) once a month when entry to attractions is free. While this is great in theory, it means that most places are rammed on these days and so we specifically avoided booking anything for our first day. This gave us the chance to relax and to explore unconstrained by plans.
Our accommodation was a little flat hidden in the backstreets of Trastevere [2], an area of Rome that I thoroughly recommend. The neighbourhood is made up of a maze of beautiful, narrow street lined with plants, cats and graffiti. There is also a plethora of restaurants, cafes and bars and it’s just a short walk across the river to the city centre.
Unfortunately, being one of the nicest areas, it is inevitably full of tourists. You will hear English spoken as much, if not more, than Italian and you definitely want to check restaurant prices and reviews before stepping foot inside. We found that smaller, less busy places that are further from the main hubs are almost always more reasonably priced and have significantly better food. The staff also tend to be happier to see you and less rushed. Remember, just because Italy is famous for its cuisine, doesn’t mean it can’t produce bad food!
Our first day was spent walking around the old city. Starting at Piazza Navona we walked past the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain and then up to the Spanish Steps. This route is easily completable in an afternoon, and you’ll get to see some of Rome’s prettiest sites. Just remember to prebook tickets if you want to go inside the pantheon because the queue was huge on the day we were there.
The Trevi Fountain sure is pretty, but it’s in a very small area and it is almost always crammed full of tourists. Come back in the evening if (like me) you’re not a fan of big crowds. I personally enjoyed the Spanish steps more. If you visit in spring, as we did, they are covered in thousands of flowing azaleas which makes for some fantastic photos. Just don’t be one of those tourists who sits on the steps or you’ll be swiftly moved on by the police and possibly even fined!
In the evening we treated ourselves to dinner at one of the rooftop restaurants near the top of the Spanish Steps. There are a few to choose from and they all offer fantastic views across the city. Even better if you visit at sunset.
Our second day was focussed on the Colosseum and the Roman Forum [3]. As with many attractions in Europe these days, these need to be booked well in advance unless you want to pay scalper prices. We didn’t bother with the underground or balcony tickets and we still really enjoyed the Colosseum.
The Roman Forum and Palatine Hill are vast. If you really wanted to study every detail, you’d need a full day. However, personally, there are only so many ruins I can look at in a day, and a couple of hours was plenty of time to explore the main parts. The ground is uneven and there are plenty of steep slopes and steps so, you’ll be looking for a place to take a break after a few hours anyway.
On the final day we had a tour of the Vatican museums booked. Sadly, Eve was unwell on this day, so I had to do the tour by myself. However, this gave me the opportunity to solo explore Rome and The Vatican [4] for a bit. The Vatican museums were far more interesting than I thought they would be, with endless corridors, rooms and courtyards containing both contemporary and classical art of all shapes, sizes and mediums. Unless you’re entirely uncultured, you’ll find something that piques your interest as you look around. We booked an official tour which had the benefit of skipping the gigantic queue to get in and provided a bunch of insight on the most interesting parts and details that I would never have picked out myself.
Rome was a great way to start this trip, and it remained one of our favourites to the end. It was a lot of walking, and our feet were already starting to feel it by the end of the 3 days - not a good sign for the remaining 2 and half weeks! However, it was worth every step. There is so much to see and do whether you’re interested in history and architecture or if you just want to eat and drink. We could have easily stayed a week and still found new things to do. 3 days was plenty of time to see all the important stuff though as long as you’re prepared to get your steps in and start your days early.
Naples, Italy ๐ฎ๐น
We didn’t originally plan to visit Naples otherwise we would have flown there direct instead of having to go south from Rome. Unfortunately, our hotel in Venice (where we had planned 3 days) cancelled a week before our trip. They actually removed the entire hotel from the site we booked on! Rather than rebooking an extremely expensive, last-minute hotel, we booked 2 days in Naples instead and paid for one (still very expensive) night in Venice.
The main reason to visit Naples is to look around Pompeii or Herculaneum, something that I did with my family in 2006. However, the view from the castle looking over the city and Mount Vesuvius [5] is also pretty breathtaking. It’s quite the climb if you do it by foot, but the views keep getting better and better as you go up. We did this in the afternoon on the day we arrived. You definitely want a bottle of cold water to hand if it’s a warm day.
The city of Naples itself felt a bit less welcoming in general than Rome or other Italian cities, but this is part of its charm. The locals are just going about their day and don’t really care about the tourists. It felt a bit like being in London as compared to “friendlier” cities in the north or west of the UK.
Of course, the other big reason to visit Naples is the pizza. On our walk back from the castle on our first night, we stopped by a local pizzeria for a proper Neapolitan pizza and wine. After a bit of bad luck with some of the restaurants in Rome, we were relieved to have nailed our choice this time. Some of the best food we tried in Italy.
On our second day, we headed to Pompei via the Circumvesuviana metro line. It’s only about half an hour from Napoli Centrale. However, the trains in both directions were rammed full of tourists visiting Pompei and seats were hard to come by.
Pompeii is a big tourist location, but it felt like the quietest place we visited in Italy [6]. The ancient city is vast, and it can take a considerable amount of time to walk around it. It’s big enough that you’re not going to come close to seeing every street or building - even with a couple of days there. With a maximum daily entrance of 15,000 people, it’s hardly busier than the city would have been at its peak in the 1st Century AD and most of the tourists stick to the area around the Forum rather than venturing out to the north or east sides.
We used an app as a tour guide which cost about โฌ5 and then shared the audio between us using an Auracast stream and our earbuds. This both saved us some money from having to buy the app on two devices and meant that we were both listening to the same thing as we walked around. It was great that when it said something interesting, you can both react at the same time rather than the old school way of telling someone to listen to a specific bit of the guide and then waiting for them to catch up.
There are plenty of interesting villas and temples to look at as well as some of the less glamorous parts, such as the brothels and poorer parts of the city. It’s incredible how well preserved some parts are with lewd graffiti and propaganda from 2 centuries ago still visible. The amphitheatre is one of the oldest of its kind and predates the Colosseum in Rome by around 150 years.
However, the city is as chilling as it is fascinating. You’ve probably seen images of the famous casts of the unfortunate residents who were caught out during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD. The casts show men, women and children, some of them huddled together, some of them curled up, frozen forever in their final moments. As you walk through the exhibit, you can feel the vibe of the other tourists change as everyone tries to be respectful. At the same time, you can’t help but be intrigued as you stare at a perfect shadow of a person who lived 2000 years ago.
San Marino ๐ธ๐ฒ
Being a mountainous enclave in the Italian countryside with no direct train links, San Marino isn’t the easiest place to get to - Especially when you’re starting in Naples. It took two trains (via Rome and Bologna) just to get to Rimini (San Marino’s nearest city).
Once in Rimini, we needed to catch a shuttle bus to San Marino. However, the connections aren’t particularly frequent and didn’t line up with our train. With some time to kill in Rimini, we were pleasantly surprised by the picturesque walk past the marina from the station to the coast [7]. When we reached the coast, we were met with a massive Ferris wheel, a lighthouse and a vast sandy beach loaded with seashells and small crabs. The weather was warm, but cloudy and windy when we arrived, but I can imagine this being a really nice place to visit on a sunny day.
We then had a brisk walk back to the station to catch the bus. San Marino is a little bit bigger than I had originally thought. The journey takes around an hour, and you spend about half of that time inside of the country. You see photos and assume that it’s just the mountain with a castle on top, but there are a lot of people who live on the flatlands bellow too. One thing you notice immediately as you cross the border is the numberplates on all the cars. I assumed that they would all be registered on Italian plates, but at least 90% of them are on San Marino plates. Quite cool.
About 8 hours after we set off from Naples, we were finally checked into our hotel in San Marino, and we were met with the most incredible view from our room. We didn’t even book a room with a view, but in San Marino, almost everywhere you go has a stunning view of the sweeping hills below.
The vibe was such a contrast to Rome and Naples, but in such as positive way. While there are still plenty of tourists pottering about, there are no big crowds or tour groups. Just people wandering around and exploring quietly and soaking up the views [8]. It’s certainly less travelled than most of the cities in Italy and definitely a place you should visit if you’re travelling through the area.
Because of how long it had taken to get there, once we’d checked in, we didn’t have that much time left in the day to explore and we were only staying here for one night. Fortunately, it doesn’t take a great deal of time to look around the castles, and the walkways and exteriors are open 24/7 so we were just about able to see everything we wanted to see before things started to close.
In the evening we sat down in a restaurant with some pizza, pasta and wine and we were treated to the most spectacular sunset I’ve ever seen (shown at the top of this post). The photos are great, but they don’t do it justice. We just sat in silence taking it all in for a while. It was a really special moment that I’ll treasure forever. I wonder if we were lucky or if it’s just that pretty every day.
Venice, Italy ๐ฎ๐น
I was kind of sad to leave San Marino only 17 hours after arriving. However, 10 countries in 3 weeks was always going to result in compromises and I think we’d have regretted another full night over seeing another place on another day. The trip back was largely the same as the one up. The shuttle bus is really the only practical way to get to the city, so we returned down the mountain and into the coastal town of Rimini.
Rather than using the connection time to explore, this time we used it to refuel ourselves with tea and coffee for the trains ahead. It seems a shame that we passed through Bologna twice without seeing anything, but again, these are the compromises you have to make if you want to see more.
The train to Venice was reasonably uneventful. However, it was fun to watch all the locals disembark at Venice Mestre leaving only the tourists to continue onto the island. I think this speaks volumes about the unfortunate consequences of over-tourism - Sadly far from the last time we would witness this here.
Venice is everything you think about and see in the travel guides, online and in the photo below [9]. It’s very pretty, very photogenic, with canals and bridges everywhere you turn. It’s incredibly difficult to navigate with endless twisty, narrow alleys, half of which stop abruptly at the edge of a canal. Gondoliers dressed in black and white stripey tops taking couples on a romantic trip around the canals.
The problem with Venice is that everyone knows all of this and wants to see it. There are so many tourists in the city that almost all the locals now live on the mainland instead. To me, this makes the whole place feel more like a theme park than an Italian city. It almost feels kind of fake and that genuinely makes me sad.
I’ve already said that I don’t particularly like crowds, but I’m usually fine so long as I can find a quiet spot to relax every now and then. This was really difficult in Venice and there was a point when we walked down a long narrow street towards Piazza San Marco where the street slowly got narrower and more crowded until I cracked and that was enough for me to be miserable for the rest of the day.
When our 3 nights in Venice were originally cancelled, I was initially pretty sad about it. Venice is objectively nicer to be in than Naples, but we couldn’t afford to spend ยฃ1000 to cover 3 last-minute nights of accommodation. In hindsight, I don’t think I missed out. There is a decent nightlife and the city is pretty, but it’s just not my kind of place. Too touristy, too busy, too inauthentic.
One thing we were not expecting to see was the vast crowds of Venice FC fans throughout the city. Unbeknownst to us, they had beaten Palermo 2-0 the day prior to our arrival, and the city and fans were celebrating their promotion to Serie A (the top Italian club football league). This meant the crowds were even bigger and as we passed by the Ponte di Rialto, the famous bridge in the centre, we noticed that it was lined with football fans cheering their team as a flotilla of boats passed by underneath with flares and horns [10].
Ljubljana, Slovenia ๐ธ๐ฎ
Crossing the border from Italy to Ljubljana was a bit fiddly. There are no direct trains, so whichever route you take, there are going to be a couple of changes. Our route took us via Trieste with quite short transfers. Fortunately, all the trains were on time, and we didn’t have any issues. On the train from Villa Opicina to Ljubljana, you start to really notice the difference in the landscape as the train weaves around tight corners and into increasingly rural areas.
Ljubljana is the so-called city of Dragons, and you can tell as you walk around. Everything is inspired by them, from their food and restaurants to their bridges and architecture [11]. I’ve always had a thing for Dragons, originating from my obsession with the Spyro games as a child. Now living in Wales, which has its own dragon folklore, I felt a connection with the city.
It’s not a big city, even less so when you consider that it’s a European capitol. However, it has a charm to it that big cities don’t have. Lots of local businesses selling obscure (to me) meats like bear and horse. There’s a lot of space to walk and nowhere is too crowded and there are friendly people everywhere you go. To put the cherry on the cake, the whole city sits with the backdrop of the Slovenian Alps towering in the distance and the castle that overlooks the city from the centre.
We only spent one night here, and realistically, that’s all you need. We were unfortunate that we stayed on a Sunday which meant the local market (and many shops) weren’t open. However, we were still able to visit the castle and the grounds surrounding it (If able, walk up instead of taking the funicular!). There were plenty of bars and restaurants to sit down at. I also have to specifically call out Klobasarna. It’s a “fast food” place, but it sells traditional Slovenian sausages in their various forms, and it was one of the food highlights of our trip!
Budapest, Hungary ๐ญ๐บ
The train from Ljubljana was probably the worst train of our entire trip. There was nothing fundamentally wrong with the train or the route, but it left at an unforgiving 5am and took nearly 9 hours to get to Budapest. The first half of the journey was fairly painless. We had most of an entire carriage to ourselves and while sleeping on a train with only seats is never going to be comfortable, we managed to get some form of rest.
Unfortunately, we soon hit the Monday morning rush hour, and the train got busier and busier until we were finally booted out of our nice seats by people with reservations who kindly explained that our seats were in the carriage at the back of the train. This carriage was about 10 times the age of the one we started in, so I’m kind of glad we didn’t have to spend the whole 9 hours there. No chance for any rest though as the train was now rammed full of people having loud conversations and grumpily punching their laptop keyboards.
We were pretty relieved when we finally arrived in Budapest, but Kelenfรถld is nowhere near where we’d be staying since we wouldn’t be returning to this station, so we still had another journey on the local metro and then a short walk to find our first hostel of the trip. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that Budapest has a tap-and-go style system for their public transport network. This is something I am very used to in London and Cardiff and I sorely miss when travelling to places without it (Some foreshadowing here).
I said very early on when we arrived in Budapest that I was going to like it. I try not to get my hopes up too much before visiting a place, but I’ve heard so many good things about the city in the past that I definitely had some expectations going into it. Thankfully, these were consistently upheld, and I still maintain that Budapest was my favourite city on this entire trip.
It has everything you need: A good public transportation network, friendly people, fantastic food and a great nightlife. It’s relatively cheap if you look in the right places and it’s both big enough that you always have something new to do and yet small enough that you can walk pretty much anywhere if you need or want to. It even had some odd home comforts that I didn’t expect such as a Tesco Express, complete with meal deals and self-service checkouts!
Hungary has recently gone through a large political shift and many of the people we talked to spoke with excitement about the future of the country and city. It seems like an exciting time to live there. Speaking of people, one of the reasons we chose a hostel in Budapest is because we knew that the people were friendly and the nightlife was good. We wanted to meet people on our trip and not just keep to ourselves.
Following on the advice of a local, we ventured to a few bars with some of our hostel-mates. Finding ourselves in what can only be described as an underground bunker, detectable on the outside only by a tiny stickered door with the soft beat of music leaking around it and a steep, narrow staircase leading to the bar below. Inside, there is enough room for 5 or 6 tables and a small bar where we are enthusiastically ushered in by the bartender. Immediately, we are all listening intently to a story about his grandmother and how she used to drink a glass of Palinka (A Hungarian plum liqueur) every night to keep her healthy and cure her ailments. Probably a sales tactic, definitely rehearsed, but charming nonetheless and a great icebreaker for the night ahead.
This was just one of the bars we visited - and I won’t go into detail on all of them - but Budapest is full of places like this. Many are your more traditional bars or pubs, some are clubbier and some are… a bit sketchy. But we felt safe everywhere we went.
Budapest is not just about food, drink and relaxation though. It also has some fantastic tourist sites. We spent our second day doing a lap around the city, starting by walking down to the Central Market Hall which is amazing both architecturally and in terms of its size and volume of stalls. We then crossed the bridge to the Buda side of the city and climbed up to the Citadel, which has beautiful panoramic views across the city [13], and then across to the incredibly photogenic Fisherman’s Bastion where you also have a great view of the Hungarian Parliament building [12].
Climbing back down the hill and along the river to the north, you eventually come to Margaret Island, a huge park in the middle of the Danube River. We rented a quadricycle to explore the island - one of those ideas that sounds kind of expensive and lame but ends up being a lot of fun if you go in with the right mindset. Finally, walking south down the Pest side of the Danube, we passed directly by the Parliament building and then stopped to look at the Shoes on the Danube, a chilling tribute to those who were executed on the banks of the river during the second world war.
To end the day, we took a walk down Vรกci u - the main pedestrianised street where you find plenty of places to eat and buy souvenirs and we visited a street food market where you are able to try foods (both traditional and not) from a variety of stall and sit down together with a drink from the bar surrounded by the remarkably polite sparrows.
One thing that you can’t do in most other cities is visit a natural thermal bath. Budapest is built on top of a thermal spring. This means that naturally hot water, said to have healing properties, is piped up to the surface where it is used to fill vast pools of water and Turkish baths. There are several spas dotted around the city that allow you to visit and relax in the thermal waters and we did exactly this on our last day. It was a great way to relax our bodies and our brains after nearly 2 weeks of walking.
Braศov, Romania ๐ท๐ด
It’s a long way from Budapest to Braศov and the train takes half a day to do the journey, so it makes sense to get the overnight train. In theory this saves a night in a hotel, and you can travel while you sleep. We got ourselves a private couchette for around โฌ80. The cabin was small, the beds were hard and train was loud and rattly, but it was surprisingly one of the easier night’s sleep I had on the trip.
We arrived in Braศov bright and early in the morning and surprisingly on time. There to meet us was our guide for for the day. When we researched Braศov and the surrounding areas, we looked into hiring our own car, or booking taxis, but I am extremely glad we spend a bit more on a private tour. Our guide had so much local knowledge and knew how to avoid the notoriously busy roads which would have absolutely tripped us up. Because the tour was private, we were also able to customise what we did. We even made an unplanned stop in one of the local ski resorts just to have a look around.
There are two main reasons tourists come to this area. The first is Peleศ Castle in Sinaia [14]. This is about an hour’s drive from Braศov on a good day. When you hear the word “castle”, you sort of automatically assume that it’s old. However, Peleศ isn’t old at all. In fact, completed in 1914, it was built with electrical lighting powered by an on-site water generator, a telephone line and a building wide ventilation and vacuuming system. This is quite novel to someone who comes from a country where your average castle is somewhere between 500 and 1000 years old. Nonetheless, the architecture is beautiful and the level of detail on the interior decoration is incredible.
The second reason is Bran Castle, perhaps better known as Dracula’s Castle. In fact, Bran has little to nothing to do with Dracula. In part, because Dracula is a fictional character, and in part because Bran was just a random fortress that was converted into a residence by the Romanian royal family in the early 20th century. The Dracula aspect of the castle is a fabrication created for tourists to enjoy and, in my opinion, is a distraction from the real history of the castle. It’s not as pretty as Peleศ, but worth a visit anyway.
Bucharest, Romania ๐ท๐ด
A short train onwards from Braศov to Bucharest and we found ourselves at the most easterly point of our route and the furthest from home that we would travel. We only had a single night here before turning around, but we made the most of it. After arriving, we met a friend from university who lives in the city for some drinks and per their advice, spent the next morning and afternoon exploring the beautiful old city centre.
The Church of the “Stavropoleos” Monastery is a tiny little church in the city center. Built in 1724, it’s probably the oldest thing we saw in Romania. The inside is covered in old artwork, and the outside has a beautiful courtyard surrounded by columns and plants [15].
Vienna, Austria ๐ฆ๐น
It felt like we’d only just arrived in Bucharest after a long journey (because we had), but it was now time to head back on ourselves. This time, passing by Braศov and Budapest and continuing all the way to Vienna on an 18-hour train. We hadn’t really planned to visit Austria, but that’s where the overnight train goes, so we thought we’d make the best of and spend the morning exploring.
Unfortunately, this coincided with one of the worst weather days of the entire trip. It was cold and grey and there was a constant dusting of fine rain. The kind that tickles your face and soaks everything even though you can barely see it.
Still, we were able to walk past the Sacher hotel, stopping at the Mozart Cafe next door for tea/coffee and cake (This was recommended over the Sacher Cafe, and I have no regrets at all). We then walked down to Burggarten where you can find the statue of Mozart. This area is surrounded by museums such as the Hofburg which are really pretty to look at, but instead of paying to go into any of them, we decided we wanted to go see something a bit different.
In an unsuspecting corner of Vienna is the Hundertwasser house [16] designed by Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser. It stands out amongst all the surrounding traditional architecture due to its interesting angles and bright colours, and it’s covered in plants and vines. Despite becoming a bit of a tourist attraction it is lived in by real people. There’s not a whole lot to do here, but it’s worth seeing nonetheless.
Next door there is a small “village” built in the same style. Unlike the house, you can go inside the village, and you’ll find a cafe and various shops. Many of them selling art and souvenirs inspired by Hundertwasser’s work.
A short walk down the road is the Museum Hundertwasser which has a fantastic cafe on the ground floor. All their food and drinks are made fresh on site. I had a wonderful eggs benedict and Eve had what she claims was the best goulash she’s ever tried. I’m sure the actual museum is good too, but we sadly didn’t have any time left before our train to Bratislava, where we’d be staying that night. Now full of food, we rushed to the nearest tram stop to head back to the main station.
Bratislava, Slovakia ๐ธ๐ฐ
Bratislava is just a short train ride away from Vienna, but it’s a drastically different place. Vienna had felt like a return to western Europe after being in Slovenia, Hungary and Romania. However, getting off the train in Slovakia felt like an immediate return to the east - and I don’t mean that in a bad way at all!
There are a lot of parallels to Ljubljana. It’s a fairly small capitol city. Very pretty, well-kept streets with lots of bars and restaurants and an old fortification or castle on a hill overlooking the centre. I really like this kind of place. You can easily see everything in a full day but could happily stay for longer and just enjoy the vibe of the city.
When we arrived, I wanted to watch the FA Cup final between Chelsea and Man City, so we found a local bar to have a drink in. There were a surprising number of football fans around watching alongside us. Given the result, I was a bit disappointed after the game finished, so we headed to a huge traditional Slovakian tavern. We had beers, various soups served in a bowl made of bread, a plate of bacon dumplings and sausages. One of the heartiest meals of the trip and served in a massive tavern with giant clay decorations of all the castles in Slovakia on the wall. This more than made up for the bad football results!
After food, we found a cosy rock bar to have a few more drinks in before finally heading back to our apartment for the night. Fortunately, we didn’t have an early train the next morning, but little did we know how painful our next journey would be…
Prague, Czechia ๐จ๐ฟ
Getting from Bratislava to Prague was its own special kind of shitty. Originally, we had planned to catch the direct train at 11:58 which didn’t require seat reservations. However, the night before, we discussed staying an extra couple of hours to see a few more things in Bratislava, so we purchased reservations on the 13:58 which only cost a few quid.
Come the morning and we changed our minds again. Way too tired and lazy, we decided to just get on the earlier train and try to find seats somewhere. We arrived at the station at around 11:30 and saw that the train was delayed. Fantastic. It started with just 30m, but this slowly creeped up to over an hour. By the time the train arrived, the platform was rammed full of people and as we got on, we immediately realised that getting a seat was very unlikely.
But no problem! We have seat reservations on the 13:58 and this train was so delayed that that’s only another 45 minutes waiting so that we get seats on a 4-hour train. Sounds like a no brainer! It’s only after disembarking and watching the train pull away that we spot the 80-minute delay to the next train. This also slowly climbs up to 130 minutes until sometime just after 16:00 when the train we had seat reservations on the entire time finally arrived. 4 and a half painful hours wasted in Bratislava train station.
We finally arrived in our penultimate city, in the early evening. I personally visited Prague many years ago (2004) [19] with my family, but I have very limited memories of that trip. In particular, trying to find all the numbered cow statues that had been painted by artists across the city, eating a banana split in the central square and watching my sister spend an eternity taking photos of an (admittedly very pretty) sunset as she grew into photography.
Unfortunately, the cows had long gone, there were no banana splits to be found and the sunsets on both nights we were there were a bit rubbish. Especially after seeing the one in San Marino a week before. St. Vitus Cathedral still looked spectacular [18] as it got dark though, even if the sky refused to go pink.
Our first evening in Prague was very relaxed. Enjoying some of the many themed bars and clubs in the centre. It was our second day that we got to really know the city. When in Budapest, we did a massively walking loop around the city and really enjoyed it. Prague isn’t quite as big, but we were still able to plan a long route to explore as much of the city as possible in a day.
Starting by walking to the main square and then down Karlova street which is lined with more souvenir shops than you could ever visit in a day. We then crossed the famous Charles Bridge to the other side of the Vltava River and started the climb up towards the Castle and Cathedral. The architecture in Prague is truly unique in Europe. It has such a fascinating blend of styles from gothic to baroque sat side-by-side with modern glass fronted buildings. At times it feels like you’re standing next to something out of a fantasy movie.
Next to the Castle and Cathedral, is the famous Golden Lane. Initially, we were a little annoyed that you could only buy a combined ticket for all the sites as we only wanted to do a few of them, but the ticket is worth it for Golden Lane alone. It’s a relatively small, 16th century street (or lane), but all the houses are fitted with mocked up interiors showing how they would have looked when they were lived in. These included a tavern, a blacksmith’s, a fortune teller’s and the guard’s house.
The fortifications above also house a long corridor with hundreds of suits of armour and weapons collected from different eras. At the end of the lane there is the old dungeon where prisoners were kept. There are a few original torture devices on display to give you an idea of the grim repercussions of being caught stealing or murdering in that time.
After exploring the Cathedral, Prague Castle and Golden Lane, we walked back down the hill, stopping to get some food and check out a trading card shop and then crossed the river via Park Legiรญ, a small island on the Vltava River. The island is famous for its local population of Nutrias, a small (and invasive) rodent that looks similar to a beaver. When we arrived a few of the locals were feeding carrot sticks to a mother and its baby. Very cute! even if they’re not really supposed to be there…
In the evening, we tried another underground bar (this time themed around horror franchises) and then headed to a well-reviewed restaurant just off the main square where we both had the most incredible duck and dumpling platter. One of my favourite meals of the trip! Before heading back, we waited at a viewpoint to see the mediocre sunset I mentioned earlier. I was hoping to recreate a picture my sister took 22 years ago, but alas, the skies weren’t playing ball.
Tomorrow would be our last long-distance train of the trip, so full of food and tired from a long day of walking, we decided to head back to the hotel and pack our bags for what felt like the hundredth time.
Berlin, Germany ๐ฉ๐ช
The last part of our trip started (to our relief) with a good nights sleep, a pain-free morning with a free breakfast and an on-time train to Berlin. It felt good to finally be heading to a place where we knew we’d be staying for longer than a day or two.
Similarly to Naples and Prague, I have visited Berlin once before. However, unlike those cities, at just 3 years old, I was far too young to remember anything from that trip and so Berlin was as new to me as it was to Eve and another close friend who flew out to join us for the last few days of our trip. The plan was for the three of us to wind down and relax a bit before heading home. 5 nights was still enough time to look around and see everything, but also time to take it easy and enjoy the lack of trains and constant repacking of our bags.
We were staying nearby the Brandenburg gate [20] which meant this was one of the first parts of Berlin that we saw. After that, the following days turned into a bit of a blur, so the following is in no particular order and without metro trips or busses.
I’ve always liked a good view, so visiting the Berlin Tower was on my list of things to do. With the tower being shorter and the observation deck smaller, it was not as impressive as Tokyo’s Skytree. However, the view was still great. From the top you get a great sense of which bits of the city belonged to East and West Germany. The architecture and road layouts in particular are very distinctive depending on where you look.
The East Side Gallery [21] was another highlight. It is the longest open air art gallery in the world and the longest surviving section of the Berlin Wall at 1316m. The wall was painted with huge murals in 1990 shortly after the reunification of Germany and then restored again by the same artists in 2009 (with a few artists choosing to not participate). Most of the artworks portray messages of togetherness and breaking down barriers such as Dmitri Vrubel’s Fraternal Kiss and Birgit Kinders’s Trabant breaking through the wall.
As soon as the sun goes down in Berlin, the vibe of the city completely changes. During the day, it looks like any other city in Europe, but the nightlife here is not like anywhere else I’ve been. Because of the open nature of the metro system, you see all sorts of characters on the trains. Not unlike the UK, public drinking is not only allowed, but in the evenings becomes normal.
We found ourselves in many bars and even a few clubs during our stay. Everyone we met was super friendly and up for a chat, but there’s also this unwritten personal bubble rule that seems to exist. In my opinion, something that the UK desperately needs. At no point did anyone feel uncomfortable or harassed. Even on a busy dancefloor, you had your own space, and it was easy to move around.
The few times that I found myself alone for more than a minute, I immediately had groups come over to make sure I was ok, talk to me for 5 minutes and then they’d be off, never to be seen again. The environment just felt safe and friendly with zero pressure. I actually felt far less safe on their public transport system than I ever did in the clubs - especially late at night.
With the fun part of the trip now over and the transport part of our journey having gone surprisingly smoothly so far, we were thrown one final curveball when going through Berlin airport’s new EES (Entry Exit System) when the border control agents for both Eve and I couldn’t find how we’d entered the country. Not surprising since we’d obviously entered the EU from Italy, not Germany.
Naively, I thought that explaining this would resolve the issue, but after 15 minutes blocking 2 of the only open border control lanes and with an increasingly frustrated queue forming behind us, we were still stood there. The two agents, equally confused, were now at least talking to each other and after showing them our boarding passes from the UK to Rome (thank goodness we kept them) and the Interrail app they were finally convinced that we weren’t criminals (or something?) and let us leave their country. But not before receiving the news that our flight had been delayed by an hour. 🫠
Food
In my last post about Japan, I included a section for food. Trying food is a large part of why I like travelling and I really enjoyed putting the Japan collage together. On this trip, we had slightly longer away and I made sure to be more vigilant about food pictures. I lost count of the number of photos we have of each other photographing our meals. This has resulted in a much bigger collage this time! [22]
Everything from seafood salads and gnocchi in Venice to Slovenian sausages, Neapolitan Pizza, Romanian Mici and Hungarian Langos. We tried everything we could get our hands on. It’s hard to choose favourites, but for me, the Slovenian sausages, the duck platter in Prague and the Romanian Mici were all S-tier. Eve would add the Austrian Goulash and the Seafood pasta from Venice to the list.
Summary
After a total of 89 hours spent travelling 6821km on some kind of transport and an additional 273km or 410,738 steps on foot (more than the distance from Cardiff to London), it’s pretty safe to say we needed a break after this trip. However, what surprised me the most is that I didn’t really want to go home. I usually get a bit home sick after a few weeks away, but this kind of trip, where your scenery is constantly changing and your legs never stop moving, kind of numbs you to thoughts of home.
It’s astonishing how quickly your brain can adapt to a new lifestyle - even a temporary one. Waking up early and walking around a city for a full day isn’t part of my regularly scheduled programming, but it became normal very quickly, to the point where I’d be bored if sat in our accommodation for too long - Something I’d have no problem with at home. Though with that said, none of this stopped me from enjoying rotting on the sofa for 2 days once we got back.
I think the lesson here, is to get out and do random things as much as possible. Make it a part of your programming. It doesn’t have to be a big trip to Europe. There’s so much of the UK that we haven’t seen yet and getting up and going out to see it isn’t that hard if you consistently make the effort.
There is already talk of a UK version of our Euro-trip to visit all the towns, cities and national parks we haven’t seen. Ironically, this is something that will likely cost us far more due to train prices, but maybe we’ll rent a campervan or something instead. Also a northern European trip up the Baltics and back down Scandinavia is definitely on the cards.
Step Count
We completed a total of 410,738 steps over the 22 days of travel. That’s an average of 18,670 steps a day! We got off to a speedy start with over 20k steps for the first 4 days of the trip - mostly in Rome. There are also notable peaks on the 12th (Budapest) and the 14th (Prague) when we completed over 30k steps on our walking tours of the cities.
Distance Travelled (Kilometers)
The following graphs show the total and daily distance travelled broken down by transport type and walking. You can clearly see the gaps in train travel during our longer stays in Rome and Berlin. The two overnight trains would have significantly higher peaks if counted in one day, but because the journeys were split across two days, this results in a graph with consistently high train travel between the 13th and 16th. You can also clearly see the solo spike in car travel from our tour when we were in Romania.
Time Travelled
We were on some form of transport for a total of 89 hours. That’s over 4 hours a day on average. The following graphs show the total and daily time spent broken down by transport type. The graphs are similar to the distance travelled graphs, but the differences between the different transport types is smaller because speed no longer has an influence on the data. For example, plane travel was by far the largest type on the distance graph, but all the other types are much more prominent in comparison on the time graph.
It’s worth noting that I haven’t included walking time on these graphs because what counts as walking vs standing/sitting etc is ambiguous and I don’t have any reliable data for it.