Summer '06: Stockholm – Kaunas – Vilnius – Riga – Tallinn – Helsinki
My first road trip style holiday. Combining two of the most expensive (and developed) countries in Europe with the cheap Baltics that had only recently joined the EU. 14 days, 6 cities, 5 countries, 5 currencies, 3 flights, 3 bus trips, a boat trip being sick as fuck. One of my most cultural trips in retrospective, visited loads of museums. From the Vasa ship in Stockholm to the impressive Ninth Fort in Kaunas and the national museums in the Baltic with the history containing both the terror in WW II and the communist era. Amazing to see the differences in your budget, a 4 sqm bedroom on a boat in Stockholm being way more expensive than a huge apartment in Kaunas with a balcony on the biggest street. Some funny details: on arrival the towels in Kaunas formed the Dutch flag and when visiting a music festival near Helsinki there where separate 'alcohol zones' to get your beer, lines were over half an hour in the evening. One valuable lesson i learned from this trip is to take some rest once in a while as all the traveling got to me upon arrival in Riga and i couldn't really enjoy that city.
Stockholm: ****
Kaunas: **½
Vilnius: ****
Riga: ** (But it's really biased by my mood at the time)
Tallinn: ***½
Helsinki:***
Summer '07: Dublin – Cork – Dublin – Isle Of Man – Liverpool
Exploring the British Isles. Starting in Dublin with a day trip to Cork. Gotta love Ryanair's prices back in the days, literally paid two cents for a round trip Dublin – Cork. The bus from Cork Airport to the city only cost like 250 times that amount ;). Saw the cliffs at Howth, off course the usual suspects and had a lot of black gold. From there on to Isle of Man with the smallest plane I’ve ever been in. I stayed on a campsite with the idea to explore the isle by bicycle, only to find out upon arrival i didn't really feel to ride all those hills. So traveling with the old steam train and electric railway it was. Cute to say the least. Ending up in Liverpool, the city of the Beatles and English people sounding they don't even speak English but some form of gibberish.
Dublin: ***
Cork: *½
Isle Of Man: *** (for the relaxed atmosphere and scenery, no partyvibe whatsoever)
Liverpool: **½
Summer '08: Krakow – Bratislava – Vienna
A small trip in central Europe. Arriving in Krakow in the late hours was kinda weird. Not knowing the city and language combined with the darkness is something to learn from. The most surreal experience during this trip was visiting Auschwitz in 35 degrees. The sunshine, the big crowd and the 'picknick-like' break between both camps didn't really give me the feeling i was at a place where so much horrific things happened. Really wanna go back there on a desolated winter day. Took a bus to Bratislava and ended the trip in Vienna, a city where almost every building in the citycentre is worth taking a picture of. Never been more happy with a delayed train than this trip, just catched the last train back to Holland on one of Brussel's stations thanks to some delay.
Krakow: ***½
Bratislava: **
Vienna: **½
Summer '09: Cologne – Budapest – Venice – Padova – Milan – Barcelona
Quite a big trip again, with a spontaneous way of booking. In a period of a few months, book a cheap flight to one city, and regularly check the sales for a cheap flight or train ticket to the next city. Repeat this until you have enough cities for the duration you want and book a little more expensive flight back home. Only spent three hours before this at home cause i just came back from a festival and in that three hours i found out i had won an interrail ticket. So, the first days on this trip i was already planning the next one. Furthermore this trip made me fall in love with Budapest with all the cool kerts, the vibe and Széchenyi Spa and especially Barcelona. How cool is a city where the weather is (almost) always nice and 15 minutes of walking can take one from the old city center, via small streets with loads of (tapas/cocktail) bars to the beach! And probably one of the last more than necessary days in Italy. I'm just not a fan of the country and this trip proved it again.
Cologne: ***½
Budapest: ****½
Venice: *½
Padova: *½
Milan: **
Summer '09 Zagreb – Ljubljana – Krk – Rijeka / Area4 – Liechtenstein – Bern – Berlin – Prague – Bratislava
The interrail trip mentioned in the trip before this one. Spend loads of time in German ICE's, surely a safe bet during interrail trips to cover a lot of distance in a short amount of time. And for some reason I always seemed to miss the same two albums on my 1 GB mp3 thingy sleeping in those ICE's. Started out with some city trips in Croatia/Slovenia and a couple of days on the beach on the island of Krk (weird name, that's why i had to visit it). Had to get back home to play a gig and the next part led me to Liechtenstein, cause there is a train there, and i had free train tickets. Plans to go to the Tomatina festival in Spain failed because of an 80€ reservation fee, so went the other way, to Berlin, watched a Darkest Hour gig in Prague and met up with my friends in Bratislava to see Ajax play there.
Zagreb: **½
Ljubljana: **
Krk: **½
Rijeka: **
Liechtenstein: **
Bern: **½
Berlin: ****
Prague: *****
Bratislava: **
May '12 - Antwerp - Dubai - Al Ain - Dubai - Abu Dhabi - Dubai
Taking the train from Antwerp to the airport, flying to Dubai and travel through the United Arab Emirates for a good week. Never expected Dubai to be this cheap. Furthermore i never experienced heat like this before. More about this trip in the blogs i wrote about this:
Blog 1: Antwerp - Dubai - Al Ain - Dubai
Blog 2: Dubai - Abu Dhabi - Dubai
Blog 3: Dubai
Antwerp: ****
Dubai: ****½
Al Ain: **½
Abu Dhabi: ***
August '12 - Brno - Ceske Budejovice - Cesky Krumlov - Ceske Budejovice - Chodova Plana - Cheb - Nurnberg - Frankfurt - Cologne
This trip kinda worked out like i wrote earlier in this blog, with the difference we didn't visit Plzen, as it was too far offroute and Koblenz as it was too hot. We planned this trip in what turned out to be one of the hottest weekend ever in Western Europe, so the heat had its part in this trip.
Cesky Budejovice: *** (quite small, but okay)
Cesky Krumlov: ***½ (a must see if you are in the region, possibly worth one night)
Chodova Plana: just the beerspa, nothing more.
Cheb: **½ (How can a nice looking city be empty on a sunny saturday at about 18:00?)
Nurnberg: *** (should go there once more)
Frankfurt: ** (highlight of the city: a fountain to cool off)
Cologne: *** (couldn't live up to the previous times i've been there and to neighbouring Dusseldorf)
January '13 - Gdansk - Warsaw - Brussels
Two almost free (1€ and 1 zloty) Ryanair flights to and from Poland as well as a almost free (1.5 zloty) bus caused me to make this trip. Originally planned to have 4 hours in Gdansk, from landing there to leaving, going out in Warsaw, and 3 hours in Brussels. Weather conditions gave the planes some delay, so it turned out to be 2.5 hours in Gdansk and 2 in Brussels.
Gdansk: ***½ (Nice old town, would like to go back there in summertime)
Warsaw: **½ (Pavilony area is a cool alternative place for going out, didn't see much of the rest of the city, but i don't know if i'm tempted to)
Brussel: ½ (The example of how a city should not be. Ever seen a multilingual city where they only speak one language? Ever seen a city where a little snow causes the whole city to be covered in a layer of some icy wet mud? Ever seen a city where weather conditions affect underground transport and you have to run 2 kms through the icy wet mud? Go to Brussels if you want to!)
March '13 - Debrecen - Nyiregyhaza - Lviv - Auschwitz - Krakow
I wrote about the plans we had earlier in this blog. It turned out to be a cold, but really nice trip. Lviv especially is an hidden gem which i can recommend to everyone as i feel it has something for every taste.
Debrecen: ** (there is a yellow church, and that's it.)
Nyiregyhaza: ** (one for the turbofolk at the trainstation, other for the beers)
Lviv: ****½ (nice middle European architecture and weird pubs and restaurants in all kinds of varietys)
Krakow: ***½
Auschwitz: It wasn't 35 degrees like the other time, but still: way too crowded for my taste.
May '13 - Western Balkans
I pretty much wrote down everything here, so check it out!
May '12 - Antwerp - Dubai - Al Ain - Dubai - Abu Dhabi - Dubai
Taking the train from Antwerp to the airport, flying to Dubai and travel through the United Arab Emirates for a good week. Never expected Dubai to be this cheap. Furthermore i never experienced heat like this before. More about this trip in the blogs i wrote about this:
Blog 1: Antwerp - Dubai - Al Ain - Dubai
Blog 2: Dubai - Abu Dhabi - Dubai
Blog 3: Dubai
Antwerp: ****
Dubai: ****½
Al Ain: **½
Abu Dhabi: ***
August '12 - Brno - Ceske Budejovice - Cesky Krumlov - Ceske Budejovice - Chodova Plana - Cheb - Nurnberg - Frankfurt - Cologne
This trip kinda worked out like i wrote earlier in this blog, with the difference we didn't visit Plzen, as it was too far offroute and Koblenz as it was too hot. We planned this trip in what turned out to be one of the hottest weekend ever in Western Europe, so the heat had its part in this trip.
Cesky Budejovice: *** (quite small, but okay)
Cesky Krumlov: ***½ (a must see if you are in the region, possibly worth one night)
Chodova Plana: just the beerspa, nothing more.
Cheb: **½ (How can a nice looking city be empty on a sunny saturday at about 18:00?)
Nurnberg: *** (should go there once more)
Frankfurt: ** (highlight of the city: a fountain to cool off)
Cologne: *** (couldn't live up to the previous times i've been there and to neighbouring Dusseldorf)
January '13 - Gdansk - Warsaw - Brussels
Two almost free (1€ and 1 zloty) Ryanair flights to and from Poland as well as a almost free (1.5 zloty) bus caused me to make this trip. Originally planned to have 4 hours in Gdansk, from landing there to leaving, going out in Warsaw, and 3 hours in Brussels. Weather conditions gave the planes some delay, so it turned out to be 2.5 hours in Gdansk and 2 in Brussels.
Gdansk: ***½ (Nice old town, would like to go back there in summertime)
Warsaw: **½ (Pavilony area is a cool alternative place for going out, didn't see much of the rest of the city, but i don't know if i'm tempted to)
Brussel: ½ (The example of how a city should not be. Ever seen a multilingual city where they only speak one language? Ever seen a city where a little snow causes the whole city to be covered in a layer of some icy wet mud? Ever seen a city where weather conditions affect underground transport and you have to run 2 kms through the icy wet mud? Go to Brussels if you want to!)
March '13 - Debrecen - Nyiregyhaza - Lviv - Auschwitz - Krakow
I wrote about the plans we had earlier in this blog. It turned out to be a cold, but really nice trip. Lviv especially is an hidden gem which i can recommend to everyone as i feel it has something for every taste.
Debrecen: ** (there is a yellow church, and that's it.)
Nyiregyhaza: ** (one for the turbofolk at the trainstation, other for the beers)
Lviv: ****½ (nice middle European architecture and weird pubs and restaurants in all kinds of varietys)
Krakow: ***½
Auschwitz: It wasn't 35 degrees like the other time, but still: way too crowded for my taste.
May '13 - Western Balkans
I pretty much wrote down everything here, so check it out!