Accomadation review

Almost every time we stayed somewhere, we got an email not long after from the booking website asking us to rate the hotel. Now a large part of researching what hotel to stay at was based upon looking up reviews that other people had made - after all, you're much more likely to get a more accurate and unbiased view of the hotel that way. I'm pleased to say that the research paid off well, and none of our hotels were duds.

As I drew so heavily on other people's comments in sorting out our accommodation, I feel it is only right that I should make comments on our stay too. I will go and do this on the booking websites, but first I'll put them in this blog, partly to collect my thoughts and partly to recommend the places to you, the readers, in case you ever follow, even in part, our footsteps this summer.

Bear in mind what we were after - cheap, simple accommodation, preferably with a good location (this could mean near the train station, or even 15 minutes on a tram from the city centre). It needed to be a double (or sometimes, a twin or bunk bed) private room. Breakfast facilities was important to us, and we had a budget to stick to - under €75 a night for both of us, including breakfast. We only went over this at two locations - one was Paris (€76) and the other was Switzerland, which was over €100 a night once you converted it from Swiss Francs. However, we were only there 2 nights, it was an amazing hotel, and Switzerland is very expensive... a 2-bed private room in the local hostel was only something like 20% cheaper!

So, without further ado...

Frankfurt (1 night) : Hotel Europa Frankfurt. This hotel is 2 minutes walk from the station. The room was pretty small, but the breakfast serving hours were very generous :) Our room faced a main street, so it was a bit noisy, but we still fell asleep without any problems. 8/13
Leipzig (4 nights) : Guesthouse Apartments Leipzig. 15 minutes tram ride away from the City Centre - the tram station is really close to the hotel. The area didn't feel the nicest, but it wasn't any bother. We had a massive room (and kitchen) at a tiny price. The guy who ran it was nice & friendly; slight fly infestation though! 10/13
Munich (2 nights) : Munich YHA Hostel (Park). There are two official YHA hostels in Munich; this one was a bit further out of town but very well linked via the metro. We had a room with 1 bunk bed... had to keep the window closed else loads of flies came in! Breakfast & dinner included but it remains a mystery to us what exactly was in the container labelled "juice"... 9/13
Vienna (4 nights) : Wombat hostel (the lounge). This hostel company have won many awards over time, and they provided for everything... laundry facilities on site, a kitchen to use, a cheap & nutritious breakfast, a clean & simple double-room (with fans), internet on site and a very convenient location. Any complaints were very minor. 12/13
Venice (3 nights) : Pretty cheap offering - partly due to the location, a 15 minute bus ride from Venice itself. Definitely worth it compared to the prices for staying in Venice itself. Room had a very noisy fridge in it which did affect my sleeping quite a bit. Nice room though and the breakfast was alright. 8/13
Rome (3 nights) : Bavaria B&B. More of a hostel, I think we had the only double room. Lovely hosts though 2 bathrooms between a possible 20 people can get a bit crowded! Excellent location; free internet was very nice. 9/13
Milan (1 night) : American B&B (though possibly changing its name to Albergo B&B or something like that). Room was quite nice, location was a little out of the way and the breakfast was almost entirely pre-packaged! Staff a bit moody. Fine for one night but I wouldn't want to stay there longer. 6/13
St. Moritz (2 nights) : Muottas Muragl. This stunningly located hotel was at the top of a mountain railway - it's covered in snow and has skiers and the like all over it in the winter. Fantastic views of the area. The hotel itself was straightforward and fine - also the main host woman was really nice & helpful. Would definitely go back, only this time more prepared for mountain sickness! 13/13
Barcelona (2 nights) : Barcelona B&B. No really, that's the whole name of the place! Lovely host, lovely room, all nicely decorated. A free internet connection, and breakfast was at the family breakfast table with other guests. Very close to a metro station, seemed a nice area of town. 11/13
Andorra (2 nights) : Hotel Florida. First thing is, the room STANK of smoke, it was horrible. They had no non-smoking rooms and said it was like this throughout Andorra, though I have my doubts. Other than that, it was compact but nice, and the breakfast was one of the best we encountered. 5/13 because of the smoke, 11/13 otherwise
Carcassonne (1 night) : Hotel Astoria. Booked off the back of a recommendation from our Lonely Planet guide, this ended up being just what we wanted - a cheap, clean & tidy place near the train station, as we had an early train the next day. Basic breakfast - room was adequate, and it was very cheap. 10/13
Avignon (1 night) : Hotel Park. Booked after we asked the tourist information office for somewhere cheap. Centrally located, again very cheap (though breakfast was quite expensive and basic). Room was a good size and shower was fine. 10/13
Paris (3 nights) : Hotel de Paris. The staff here never seemed to smile! A little bit out of town (thankfully reflected in the price), but right next to the metro so not a problem. The room was fairly large and the breakfast fairly basic (though pretty standard for our experience of France). Would consider using again. 8/13

I think if we ever went to these places again, then we would probably go back to the hotels in Barcelona, St. Moritz and Vienna. For the others, we would certainly consider where we stayed but might look for somewhere different.

Safely home

Our train from Avignon proved to be our only real train mix up of the holiday and it wasn't really our fault. There are two stations in Avignon - Avignon Centre and Avignon TGV - and we were expecting to get the 12.38 from Avignon TGV to Paris. However, when Benjamin went to get our reservations for it, the ticket office woman told him that the train left from Avignon Centre. So we assumed it did and since there was a train leaving Avignon Centre for Paris at 12.39, we assumed that was the one we were booked on. Only once we were on it and realised it had several intermediary stops did we twig it was the same train as our reservations were for and that the Avignon ticket woman had told us the wrong thing. The ticket man spotted our reservations were for the wrong train and spurted a torrent of French at us which we couldn't understand at all, but Benjamin thought he might have meant that we needed to pay something at Paris. Having no mind to end up with a hefty fine, we decided to escape at Lyon which has hourly services to Paris and get ourselves some correct reservations.

Our train from Avignon arrived at Lyon's airport station which is some way from Lyon so we caught the shuttle bus into Lyon and Benjamin left me with our baggage and went off to try to get us onto the next train to Paris which left at 4, and hoping we wouldn't be too late as we were due to meet our friend Jessica there and were already running behind. Benjamin appeared some time later with the sorry news that there were no reservations available until the 7 o'clock train! This isn't because there weren't any seats available - it's because the French train companies don't like giving reservations to people like us with rail passes when they might be able to sell the seat to someone who would pay them for it. Quite how many people were likely to do that less than half an hour before a train's departure, I don't know, but we did know before setting off on holiday that France had a reputation for being difficult over the issue.

That left us with over 3 hours in Lyon so we dumped our bags into a luggage locker and headed for a park (that Benjamin had been to previously) to relax for a couple of hours. It was a very pretty, large and popular park, even including a zoo which we didn't see, and a very pleasant place to while away the hours. We also went on Lyon's metro system to get to an internet cafe to contact Jessica and the hotel to let them know about our delay, grabbed some food, and were very grateful to finally get onto the 7 o'clock train! Incidentally, we were booked onto carriage 17 and initially we could only see carriages 1-8 which, after the day of trains we'd had, was worrying. It turned out that our train to Paris was two TGVs stuck together and ours just hadn't turned up yet! We finally reached our hotel at about 10pm and, after a confab with Jessica, headed straight for bed.

We went to Versailles on our first full day. It was the one thing I really wanted to do in Paris and I wasn't disappointed. Room after room of grandeur and splendour with gold shining everywhere... And it was free since we're EU citizens aged 25 or under :) The gardens were really nice too, especially the huge fountain which is only on for an hour a day, presumably because it gets through so much water! We hired bikes in the afternoon and tootled around the grounds for an hour and they meant we got to the far end of the Grand Canal. There was patchy cloud so we were in the shade but could see down to Versailles gleaming in the sun, which was beautiful.

We went to Flunch in the evening, which is a jolly eat what you want sort of place where you can see the staff cooking various food options and can help yourself to whatever you want, including heaping on as many vegetables as you like. Benjamin and I have both been there before and it's a decent place for getting a filling meal at low cost (I quote Benjamin: "Flunch - living the dream!"). If we'd realised they'd changed things since last time and there were now microwaves, our food would have been hotter and probably pleasanter but nothing could impinge on the deliciousness of my strawberry tart. On the downside, when we came out on the restaurant to go to the metro station right outside on the door, we did find ourselves in the middle of a French police confrontation involving baton wielding and lots of shrieking. We didn't stop to ask questions but made a dive for the stairs and got safely away from it all!

We began our last full day abroad with a walk from Jessica's guidebook which took in several minor Parisian landmarks. These included a lovely park with a lake and a (mock?) Roman temple perched on top of a hill, a church with a mightily impressive wooden porch, and some views across Paris. It took most of the morning since Benjamin and I were increasingly quick to tire after four weeks of travelling. Afterwards, we headed out to La Grande Arche de la Defense which is a huge building in Paris' business district, is (almost) in line with the Arc de Triomphe and is an almost perfect cube, though hollow in the middle. It's mostly offices but there's a lift up to the top which has good views over Paris and a computer museum. Benjamin got very nostalgic there! We played Scrabble on the roof while we rested and then, after stopping at a patisserie to stock up on sweet sugary things (tarte aux framboises for me, apple muffin for Benjamin), we went to the ultimate Parisian landmark: the Eiffel Tower. I hadn't been to the top before as it had been shut on my previous visit and Benjamin and I hadn't been up together so we braved the queues and made it to the top just as the sun was starting to go down and bathing everything in a soft pinky light, which was gorgeous.

As the remark about the sun suggests, it was getting late by this time and we were starving so we headed to Notre Dame which has many restaurants in the surrounding roads. We found a nice one with a three course meal for 15 Euros and feasted extremely well there. The chips that accompanied my steak were particularly tasty, as was the apple tart for dessert.

The following morning was our last in Paris; our train was at 14.10 back to London. We stocked up on presents and walked to the science museum which, had we had time to make paying to go in it worthwhile, would probably have been really good. It certainly looked it and the gift shop had lots of fun things in it, though we didn't buy anything.

Our Eurostar ended up being 15-20 minutes into St Pancras thanks to speed restrictions around Lille so we had only about half an hour to get across to Paddington to make our connection. Fortunately the Circle line west from St Pancras was one of the few lines to be running and even more fortunately given the number of people waiting for the train, it was empty. We made good progress until the Edgware Road Vortex of Doom where we always have to wait for several minutes but we made it to Paddington with a few minutes until our train was due to go. However, the tannoy was instructing everyone to get on the train immediately so it could prepare to go and it was something of a frantic run to get there, but we made it!

We're now back in Oxford, our fridge and freezer are starting to look restocked and the mountain of post has mostly been opened. A good night's sleep has been had and it's back to work tomorrow... In the coming days, we'll do at least one more post and get the photos uploaded too.

Sur le pont d`Avignon...

Hello from southern France! It`s been a while since the last update - indeed we have stayed in three different places these last four nights - so I better start off where we finished from in our last post.

The three hour bus to Andorra was not too nauseating for either of us and the scenery was nice. The capital itself was as implausible as I remembered it to be - far too much squeezed into a tiny valley - a very unique place. However a surprise awaited us when we went to our hotel - our room stank of cigarette smoke, and when we asked for a no smoking room we were told that no such thing existed in Andorra! You see, Andorra is not part of the EU so is not subject to the anti-smoking rules prevalent across the rest of Europe. As we walked around, we found many people smoking, vending machines everywhere, huge boxes of cigarettes available at cheap prices and smoking products being advertised (which has been banned in the UK for many years). We didn`t spend too much time in our room because of this.

On our full day in Andorra we went to the village of Ordino, which was quite pretty and had loads of museums... we went to the Postal Museum, the only stately home in Andorra, the iconography museum and the museum of miniatures all in the space of 3 hours and all for the cost of €10 total. They were of varying quality but we enjoyed and giggled our way through them :) After that, we went up a cable car for some lovely views of this mountain country. One place we didn`t go to but nonetheless provided us with much amusement was the pin museum - we speculated on what exciting exhibits could be found there and made up lame jokes, eg I can`t quite pin down what is so exciting about the pin museum...

Then it was back to our smelly room for an early night as we had to catch a 5:45 bus the next morning! This was followed by a 40 minute wait for the train station in France, during which we both got VERY cold... eventually though we made it to our next destination, Carcassonne, some 7 hours after leaving Andorra. It`s not that it was a terribly long way away, just that it takes a while to get down from the hills.

Carcassonne is home to a beautifully restored large medieval castle, which dates back mainly to the 12th century, but the place has been inhabited since Roman times. Entry was free for us, because we are aged 25 or under and are EU citizens, yay! We invested in an audio guide which was fun, and took many lovely pictures. The day worked out quite well as we didn`t feel rushed despite the early start but still felt we had done all we wanted to in Carcassonne.

(I have 8 minutes left on the internet now so the rest may seem a bit rushed!)

Unfortunately, after that early start the next day entailed an early-ish start as we got the 7:42 train to Avignon. All went well and we enjoyed a lovely (dopey) day in this historic old walled town. It is home to a famous bridge, built some 800 years ago at a length of over 900m. However only 4 of the original 22 arches remain now but the history was interesting. We also went to the Papal palace - the popes took up residence here for a while in the 13th and 14th centuries (from what we can recall) due to instability in Rome. It`s a big place and quite interesting though I was quite tired!

In less than 2 hours we are off on our high speed TGV train to Paris where we shall be meeting up with a friend from home and spending the following 3 days with her before heading home. Of course the end of a holiday is sad but we are looking forwards to some our creature comforts again.

Country Number 8

The Glacier Express was as good as we´d hoped for. To get to the station, we took a local train from the bottom of the mountain where we were staying (incidentally, Benjamin had a much better second night on the mountain :) ). The station contained nothing more than a bench and a list of the train times and we had to flag down the train ourselves which was fun. The views from the Glacier Express were superb, even though it was overcast in places, and the engineering was spectacular, with an endless stream of viaducts, bridges and tunnels. We had a three course lunch on the train which finished with a magnificantly rich chocolate tart. Mmm...

We left the Glacier Express at Brig and caught a train up to Bern after a brief wander around Brig on a (successful) mission to buy a bottle of water. We then had a couple of hours wandering around Bern before our overnight train to Barcelona left at 9pm. We saw several interesting looking buildings and grabbed some food before the excitement of our sleeper train. We had splashed out on a compartment for two and, given the ultimate epicness of the trip, we were glad that we did. It was a very ricketty ride and both of us felt somewhat nauseous though I managed a decent night´s sleep - lying down evidently wasn´t as bad as sitting up! I woke up about 7 and we were at Narbonne in southern France. At 8.30, we were still at Narbonne and it was obvious we were never going to make Barcelona by the scheduled time of 9.43. In the end, it was about 1.30pm when we arrived. Benjamin wasn´t feeling great so we spent the rest of the day pretty quietly - so much for our plan of arriving in Barcelona and getting almost a full day of sightseeing in! However, we got our laundry done and walked to La Sagreda Familia to look around the outside in the evening so it wasn´t a completely wasted day.

Benjamin felt much better the following day so we were set for heading out. First we went to La Pedrena, an apartment block designed by Gaudi which had really distinctive architecture, different from anything we´d seen before. We really enjoyed that. Then we walked into the centre of town and looked around the older buildings, though it was about at this point that everywhere started to shut for lunch so we didn´t go inside anywhere. So we carried on down to the sea and indulged in some Haagen Dazs ice-cream, which was delicious. We also met up with Benjamin´s uncle, Chris, and his friends who were, coincidentally, on holiday in Barcelona at the same time! Afterwards, we headed up to Montjuic by means of a funicular railway and cable car. There were stunning views up there and a castle to look around. We also walked towards the Olympic Stadium which is there too. Afterwards, we headed back into town to eat at a Catalan restaurant and then bed it was.

We´re heading off to Andorra in a matter of minutes. It´s a three hour bus ride and neither of us is always comfortable on buses so I hope it isn´t too nauseating!

Rome & Switzerland

Hey there faithful readers... sorry it's been a while, we never really got around to posting in Rome, despite having an internet connection in the hostel we were staying at. We did, however, upload lots of photos, taking us into day 7 of the holiday. However, from the current terminal I am on I cannot access the photos; I don't know if it is the same for you but it may be the router at our home is playing up (which it often does) - if this is so then we won't be able to share our photos with you anymore, but there will be plenty to see once we get back and put lots of the photos onto the website/reboot the router.

When we last updated the blog, we were coming near to the end of our time in Venice. We had an... interesting journey down to Rome, on what was probably the worst train of our travels so far. For example, you could look down the toilet and see the track flying by underneath! Anyhow, we arrived in Rome and it was... hot, about 28-29 degrees in the middle of the day. Rebecca and I can't cope with such heat, so we tended to spend 11am-3pm sitting down somewhere in the shade (preferably air-conditioned), we still got plenty done though.

One of the highlights was the Colosseum, which we went to on the day we arrived - it wasn't utterly teeming with tourists as the day was getting in somewhat (indeed, we only left 10 minutes before it closed). Very impressive, especially when you consider the thing is almost 2,000 years old. There were some good exhibits on the history of the place and of the rules of the time too.

Another highlight was going to Gelotti's ice cream place, which had been recommended to me. I had the champagne ice-cream and it was crazy; as well as tasting the alcohol I could also taste the bubbles! Rebecca had blackberry and white chocolate which she rather enjoyed.

We took rather a lot of photos of Rome - it is just so photogenic with history around every corner. Random fountains, big churches, the impressive Pantheon... the list goes on. However I should also point out a few negatives about Rome (besides the oppressive heat).

The metro system, whilst functional, is not a fun experience - the air is very muggy and very smelly and we would find ourselves happy to get out into the 28 degrees sun just to escape the conditions on the metro! The traffic is mental and all sorts of crazy maneuvers happen.... you do feel somewhat at risk every time you cross the road. Rome has a lot of smokers - which as an asthmatic is not a pleasant thing, especially since some of them routinely flout no-smoking rules too (eg train stations, toilets) - this and the traffic madness (and the lack of respect for queuing) does give the impression that the average modern-day Roman is a selfish person.

Finally on the list of negatives is out time at the Vatican. There are two queues at the Vatican - one is to get into St. Peter's Basilica, and the other is to get into the Vatican museums (which include the Sistine Chapel). We turned up at about 9:40am to find the queue for the basilica large, but moving at a fair pace. After about 20 minutes we had gone through about 80% of the queue, when the queue stopped moving. No-one else was going in, and for no apparent reason. After another 80 minutes, the queue had still not moved, so we left as we were melting in the 11:20am sun and had no idea when the queue would start moving again. You have to realise they have huge screens and speakers in the square that could've been used to inform the people but instead they carried on showing Vatican rituals.... so we were not best impressed. By this time, the queue for the museums was about 2 hours long - and mostly in the sun - which did not appeal to us at all, so we never really saw much of the Vatican at all.

Overall though, Rome was fun and we did enjoy it, though we will also remember some of the downsides. After 10 nights in Vienna then Venice then Rome, we were getting quite worn out of being in relentlessly touristy places, as well as the heat in the latter two, so were quite happy that next up (after a brief overnight stop in Milan) was some time in the hills of Switzerland.

Yesterday was mostly spent arriving at our hotel - leaving Milan at 10:20 and arriving at our hotel at about 6pm. First up was a dingy Italian train - the deficiencies of the train were more than made up by the wonderful views of Lake Como and the Italian Alp foothills. After a break for lunch it was time for the Swiss tourist train the Berninia express (I recommend googling it for pics) - a lovely train with huge windows and commentary to enjoy the spectacular scenery and the mad route that it took.

Finally we took the mountain furnicular up to our hotel - the muottas murgal mountain-top hotel. The views are just absolutely stunning. Of course we took lots of photos but again you can google it to see what it is like. We had a lovely meal but I had not such a great night's sleep. It seems a combination of low blood pressure, asthma and being at over 2,400 meters can do seriously strange things to your body and I felt really, really unwell at points during the night, but I felt a bit more human at 4:30am and got some sleep once I could breathe properly and stopped feeling like my head was going to explode or that I wouldn't be able to breathe.... hopefully tonight will be better?!

Today was a nice quite day relaxing in the surroundings of the rather expensive town of St. Moritz, which is very nice after all the business and city air we've been in recently. It's a bit colder too at about 13 degrees!

We are looking forwards to tomorrow - about 24 hours on trains, first on the very scenic Glacier Express train, and then an overnight train To Barcelona (our first sleeper train) which should be fun!

Venezia!

Our train was every bit as painfully early as expected. Due to a certain amount of paranoia about missing it, we reached the station some time before it left and tea and hot chocolate didn't entirely wake us up. Still, the train ride itself was fine. We were in a compartment with four others (one of whom was definitely on the scatty side) and there was lots of beautiful scenery as we crossed the Alps into Italy. We had lunch on the train in the restaurant which was a new experience and quite tasty. We arrived in Venice at 2 and were greeted by a wave of heat. There's a noticeable difference now we're further south.

Venice itself is mad. Crammed full of people, bridges, narrow streets, gondolas, souvenir shops... We've been taking it slowly because of the heat and doing a lot of sitting around watching the world go by from the shade. However, we've made it to Murano and the glass museum there, and to St Mark's Square as well as Rialto and been on several water buses (vaporetto).

We're staying on the mainland in Mestre (it's cheaper) and are getting a bus in every day from just outside our hotel which is very handy. It's also very crowded as everyone else does exactly the same thing so we've had several sardine-esque situations!

Benjamin's Italian is proving its worth though fortunately, for the more complex things in life, most people speak some English so we're getting by just fine. Tomorrow we leave for Rome, which is slightly cheaper than we thought as there doesn't seem to be a huge supplement to pay. It is a slower train but that means we spend the hot part of the day on it rather than out in the sun!

Goodbye Vienna

So tomorrow morning we leave Vienna. Our train (leaving from the other side of town) leaves at the ridiculously early time of 6:23am, meaning waking up before 5am. Erk! Still, it's a 7 hour train ride, so we get time to nap on the way.

So what have we been up to in Vienna? Well, quite a few things and also some rest. The biggest thing we did was to visit the Schonbrunn Schloss, which is a summer palace a little bit away from the centre of Vienna. I've been to Versailles, and it was very much like a smaller version of that - say about 30% smaller. It was enjoyable enough though I think the bit Rebecca enjoyed the most was the demonstration on how to make the local dessert, apple strudle :) Going around the maze, strolling around the grounds and the 40-room tour were all very enjoyable too. We'll be going to Versailles later in our travels too.

We've done quite a bit of strolling around and also resting our feet too... there's one heck of a lot of walking on this holiday and there's no way we could walk all day every day. Whilst resting today we sat down in the Cafe Demel, where we had Sacher torte, which apparently is a famous cake from these parts (though I had never heard of it) and has been the subject of legal battles in the past. It was indeed very tasty and very rich, though it did leave my tummy feeling quite funny for a few hours after.

Also, as previously mentioned, we went to Bratislava for a day. This was an interesting day out for sure, as Slovakia felt a very different country. It's had many different influences and has certainly been influenced more by Russia and communism than the rest of Europe we have visited has. Also the language is very different, with lots of y's and z's and accents that I had never seen before. We were both very grateful to the guy I knew from there who guided us round the city and showed us the sights. The castle was interesting, as was the longest asymetrical bridge in Europe. From the castle we could see the far side of the river, where massive amount of tower blocks had been built (a definite result of communist influences)... it was an incredible sight, never seen quite such a dense area of population before. We also went to the guy's house and played a board game, which is always nice :)

The guy also let us use his internet connection, so we have uploaded a few more photos now, up until half way through our day to Königstein, so only part of the way through our third day I'm afraid!

I think the hotel in Venice has internet, so we should be able to update you there as well.