We arrived in Brugge (Bruges) late in the afternoon, following a 5-hour train from Amsterdam. I had never thought about visiting Belgium during our Euro trip, but Andrew insisted we stay at least one night here as he is a great fan of the film, ‘In Bruges’. I personally felt the film was too gruesome, but I had to admit that the scenery did look rather spectacular. We were certainly not to be disappointed in that respect. Brugge is almost entirely composed of beautiful historic buildings, with cobbled streets and canals running through the city. Architecturally, Brugge looks like a relic of the past as during the 18th and 19th…

We arrived at Amsterdam at lunchtime on Friday and decided to head straight to a restaurant for lunch. We walked down Damark Street, which was absolutely teaming with tourists: mostly young British guys discussing their excitement over visiting Amsterdam’s “coffee shops”. It immediately struck me how the centre of this city is a complete tourist trap. There are loads of museums everywhere you look, from the Torture Museum to Madame Tussauds. There are also numerous shops selling absolute tat, such as decorated wooden clogs and statues of Rastafarians smoking marijuana. We found what seemed like a reasonably priced Italien restaurant and in pride of place was a photograph of a…

On Wednesday evening, we joined the Sandaman’s bar crawl with a couple of our friends from ‘Paul’. Needless to say this was rather boozy and very fun. On Thursday morning we had to get up early in order to book our night-train to Amsterdam. You cannot book this particular train online so we had to take the tedious journey to Berlin HBF (the central station) and were subsequently told there were no seats left on any trains to Amsterdam that day. This was a rather unhelpful discovery but in the end our own fault as we should have booked it the first day we arrived in Berlin. We racked our…

On Tuesday, we arrived at Berlin full of anticipation and excitement. Having previously forgotten to check where our hostels were located in Copenhagen and Hamburg, we had the sense to look up the street of the ‘Comebackpackers Hostel’ before we boarded the train. For about twenty minutes, we traipsed through Adalbertstraße in the Kreuzberg district trying to find the right number, feeling increasingly uncomfortable with the area in which we were meant to be staying. The walls all around where covered in graffiti and there were some pretty interesting characters wandering around, as well as numerous beggars. After wandering around in circles, it turned the hostel was actually right next…

After our excellent tour, we stopped at a cocktail bar where I drank what was basically a glass of tequila and ice. We had asked our tour guide where the best place was to eat cheap but delicious food. He recommended we take a 20-minute walk to the Portuguese sector of the Hamburg as there are many restaurants there selling delicious tapas. After stopping by the hostel to change into some slightly more respectable clothing, we headed off in what we hoped was the right direction. I have a feeling we took the scenic route but eventually we heard some Spanish-style music and arrived at our destination. There were rows…

We arrived at Hamburg station late in the afternoon of the 23rd of July, again having forgotten to check where our hostel was actually located. Fortunately it turned out to be right next to the station, and was a seven-floor monster known as the ‘Generator Hostel’. We decided to have a relaxing night in the hostel bar in preparation for a day of tourist activities We left the hostel the next morning in search for an internet café and ended up wandering down a rather sketchy street with its fair share of shifty-looking characters. This turned out to be the Red Light District of Hamburg, made abundantly clear by the…

At around midday on Saturday 21st of July, Andrew and I arrived at the first destination of our Eurotrip: Copenhagen in Denmark. We were surviving on a couple of hours sleep, having spent a rather restless night at Chateau Gatwick. At the airport in Copenhagen we headed straight for the information desk, due to the fact we had no idea how to get to our hostel, aptly named ‘Sleep in Heaven’. We were also slightly concerned by the fact that we had absolutely no understanding of the Danish language, but this turned out to be no issue as Danish people speak fantastic English. The man at the information desk kindly…