Overland Tales

Week 15: Mobbed

worldnomad — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 00:00:00 GMT

You'd be forgiven for thinking that the Russian Railway System hadn't realised the USSR had collapsed long ago; whilst towns such as my next destination, Nizhny Novgorod, had been dutifully renamed years ago, my ticket - and the timetable - still proudly displayed its old name of Gorky (named after writer Maxim Gorky, apparently).

Nizhny Novgorod was a breath of only mildly-polluted air after the mayhem of Moscow. I checked into an extortionately priced Russian business hotel, but appreciated every minute of it, washing and drying clothes, dejunking and repacking, degriming and catching up on lost sleep. The next morning I had completely shaken off my unwelcome mugging incident and felt ready to take on the rest of Russia.

The town was situated on the Volga river, which normally flowed through town, but at this stage of Winter it appeared almost completely frozen. High above the river was a Kremlin (there's not just the one, but many: it's a general Russian word that roughly means fortress), so I headed there.

It was all very pleasant. I strolled down a lovely pedestrianised district to get there, lined with shops, ornate old-fashioned street lamps and random statues. The people seemed happy and fairly well-off.

Inside the Kremlin was a display of old Russian military hardware - or perhaps their latest technology, it was hard to tell - and at least five couples in wedding gear getting pics done. Perhaps it was a lucky day to get married. It was certainly a cold one, hovering just above freezing. Rather them than me.

I made my way back to the station in good time and boarded my train for my next destination, Kazan. My cabin mates provided me with the kind of Trans-Siberian experience you read about but don't really think will happen to you. They were railway engineers from Kazan, and a friendly bunch. One spoke twenty words more English than the rest of them, which was none. We communicated in smiles (more insanity?), mimes, maps and most importantly toasts, sharing a few drinks and snacks with each other. It was all very convivial. I spent the first ten minutes wondering at what point they would mug me for my camera, but it never happened and my new-found friends drank the night away, not appearing to sleep one bit.

Kazan was the capital of the Tatar Republic, a vaguely autonomous region with its own flag but still part of Russia. It was all a bit confusing. The people apparently had originally come from Turkey and thereabouts. It made for an interesting if often decrepit city, with crumbling buildings and towering mosques. I spent the day wandering about, heading up to - yes! - its Kremlin, which was a rather fetching white with a striking mosque as its centrepiece. Apart from all the Cyrillic everywhere you could quite easily forget you were in Russia.

Before I boarded my train for the next hop, I decided to brave the ticket counters and expose myself to the pain that is Russian Railway Customer Service. With everything prepared and written down, I proceeded to flick my R's as best as possible and order a railway ticket for a few hops down the line. The trains can get full and so I wanted to order my tickets whenever I had a chance. I succeeded with the miminum of embarrassment possible - which was nevertheless quite a bit - and came away finally with a lovely new ticket feeling pretty proud of myself, but not wanting to go through it again in a hurry.

Yekaterinburg was the next stop on the line, another 12+ hour overnight hop. My cabinmates were people of my age but surprisingly mute not just to me but also to each other, so I concentrated on trying to get some sleep - an impossibility, as the carriage's central heating system was on overdrive, and the windows were bolted shut. The temperature by the hot water urn read close to thirty degrees.

Nasty.

I found Yekaterinburg to be a fairly progressive, even Westernised city. It was where the Romanovs - the old Russian royal family - were murdered by the Bolsheviks after the Russian Revolution, and my first port of call was that location, where a memorial had been laid showing the proud Tsar guarding his frightened family from the murderers. A large church had also been constructed nearby. Back in the main part of the city, it had modern restaurants, cafes, a large supermarket (which I used to stock up on provisions) and even seemingly a few ex-pat bars (Scottish theme pubs). I appreciated the vibe, as my next destination, a small Siberian outpost, would have none of that.

Tobolsk was a few hundred kilometres off the Trans-Siberian mainline. It had a population of about the same as the one-horse hometown I came from: 25,000 or thereabouts. From the train station I packed into the bus with the other passengers and rode it til the end stop, just outside the (all together now) Kremlin.

I had decided to overnight in Tobolsk as a break from the trains. The receptionist in the hotel I had earmarked didn't speak English, so I managed to get out my "I WOULD LIKE SINGLE ROOM PLEASE. VERY NICE" Borat-type phrases. She understood - a lone English traveller turning up to a hotel is not exactly going to be wanting to buy a mortgage - and assigned me a cosy if small single with a view of the next building's roof.

Tobolsk was a real slice of old Siberia which was fading fast. It still had proper wooden huts in the old town, although many were decrepit and being burned down or cleared for more modern buildings. My wanderings were limited by the neighbourhood's dogs, who took a distinct dislike to me.

Refreshed and somewhat cleaner, I moved on for a long journey to Omsk, now deep inside Siberia. I'd been lucky and had a whole four-person compartment to myself, so spread out my picnic liberally: instant noodles, chocolate, crisps, fruit and other train-friendly foods. I'd cheekily supplemented it with a small bottle of Russian Standard vodka, a high quality way to damage your liver.

Omsk was featureless to me. It had a shopping street but with few shops, and couple of old buildings, but my time there was immensely frustrating. Everything I wanted to find - restaurant, internet cafe, ticket office - appeared to have moved or closed down since my guidebook had been written a year previous.

Omsk will, however, not be forgotten by me soon thanks to two Russian chaps I met in the station bar that evening whilst waiting for my train. One spoke German (a little - as in five words), and one spoke a little more English. We got chatting about the usual things - Russia, England, etc - and soon were toasting each other with beer. What nice people.

Then one of them got a phone call, and the jolly mood changed. Something was up. The friendlier of them turned to me and said "my girlfriend is coming now, I don't want her to see me - you have to wear my coat".

Even when slightly trolleyed, I can smell bullshit a mile off. I refused, and grabbed my possessions near, sensing something wasn't right.

Thirty seconds later three policemen came in.

Cue the two Russians being roughed up slightly, and them pointing fingers at me, followed by a suspicious glare from the policemen at the agape Angliski not quite sure what was going on.

We were all taken to a police room inside the station. I was questioned first. None of the police spoke English, although they had the odd word that aided things. My thirty-word Russian vocabulary was on overdrive as I tried to indicate I was a tourist who had only just met these odd characters. I had been meticulously keeping my train tickets together for a situation just like this. They asked for my passport naturally, so I gave them the original, figuring photocopies weren't going to do me any favours here. They seem to understand I was an innocent bystander, but as a last measure they said they would search me and my bag for narkotika. Drugs!

They didn't do it very thoroughly, showing they didn't really suspect I was involved. All they found of course was a few snotty tissues in my pockets.

My mind flashed forward to a future in which I had stupidly agreed to wear the Russian chap's coat, wondering exactly what they might find in that case. I had avoided being set up.

The police let me go, escorting me to the waiting room, after which a railway security guard escorted me to my train. I got the distinct impression this was for my own protection. The two guys who had tried to set me up joked about being Mafia. Perhaps they had been serious after all.

It was with some relief I pulled away from Omsk, at which point I stopped shitting myself about the whole experience and hit the sack, exhausted.

Week 14: Russian About

worldnomad — Tue, 4 Mar 2008 00:01:00 GMT

A brief jaunt into Finland before taking on Russia saw me catching up with a chap I met on my last Round-the-World trip, a Finn who was working in Helsinki. We popped out for a knees-up of some interestingly priced beers... and I thought London was expensive! Rather than burden the bedsit he shared with his girlfriend with my hulking presence, I put myself up in a hostel. Good job I did as well, as I met a great Irish girl who was studying in St Petersburg, and we planned a meet-up when I finally got there.

After some shenanigans with my visa I finally had everything in order to enter the Motherland. You need all sorts to get in - an invitation (which is just a sham, really), a visa (complete with your name written in the Russian alphabet - something to show the folks back home) and seemingly some kind of guardian angel smiling down upon you at the moment the border guard checks your papers. This particular woman looked me up and down, and proceeded to rifle through my passport for what seemed like an eternity, checking the paper texture, the laminate and even the stamps under the UV light. I stared back at her vacantly, remembering not to smile (Russians don't smile at strangers; only insane people smile at strangers in Russia).

Finally I got the green light and I re-boarded my bus which continued its chugging journey to my first Russian city, the elegant St. Petersburg.

I had been speed-learning the Cyrillic alphabet on the journey, but my studying days are long behind me and all I could remember was that Cyrillic P's were our R's and their C's were our S's. This meant I could at least vaguely recognise the country I was in when in written form - Россия - but didn't really help much with the rest of the Cyrillic I soon found I was surrounded by.

Culture shocks are nice in retrospect, but at the time they feel bewildering. As I left the bus I had a sinking feeling that it had not stopped where I had expected it to. My carefully-laid out map to walk to the hostel I hadn't yet booked was useless. Mild panic set in as I realised I didn't have a clue where I was, no-one could speak English, I couldn't speak Russian, I couldn't read anything as my map was in English but the signs were in Cyrillic (good one, Lonely Planet), I didn't have any accommodation and it was freezing at 10pm at night in a St. Petersburg full of drunk Russians (and that was just the drivers). Erk!

Most things do tend to fall into place, however, especially after one and a half hours of wandering the streets. I had found a map in front of a train station that gave me bearings, and so I set off to my chosen hostel. Unfortunately, it didn't appear to exist any more, or so I gathered from the tone of the Russian person who answered the door I had knocked on and probably woken up. I marched on, and on, past a massive traffic jam at a roundabout with fifty car drivers all leaning on their horns, not to mention a chap trying to bump start his Lada, and with the witching hour approaching I reached the YHA, which was still open - but only just. Success! The wonderful girl on reception - smiling from ear to ear, perhaps she was insane? - assigned me to a Soviet military-style dorm of eight single beds, none of which were thankfully occupied. I had the room to myself.

In the cold light of day St. Petersburg was far more sedate. I transferred hostels, to a great place called Crazy Duck Hostel run by a bunch of incredibly laid back Russian yoofs, and wandered the city to get my bearings, taking in the main thoroughfare of Nevsky Prospekt and some fine sculptures of horses on a bridge that sounded like an extra pizza topping (Anchovy Most or something). There were fur hats and fine buildings everywhere. It was all rather grandiose and, dare I say, more classically European-looking than distinctly Russian.

That evening I met up with the girl I had met in Finland who had just moved to St. Petersburg to study, and had a good old knees-up with her and her mates at a great club. In a moment of drunken generosity she very kindly offered to go to the railway station with me the next day and order my first few train tickets for me. This I jumped at, as I knew getting tickets was going to be one of my main bugbears due to the language barrier. A stressful experience it was indeed - and I didnt even have to do anything... but thanks to my new-found friend I had three beautiful Trans-Siberian Railway tickets in my possession, the first taking me away to Moscow.

My first train journey was a delight. An overnighter, I was assigned a lower bunk with three other Russian blokes. We were all mute to each other, but we exchanged polite nods. This was fine by me – I was just looking forward to curling up on my first Trans-Siberian bunk. It was so comfortable, and cosily warm in the carriage, and with earplugs firmly in I had a fabulous night’s sleep being rocked all the way to Moscow.

Setting up in a hostel on arrival, they registered me with immigration (a requirement within three working days of arrival, else you can be fined) and I let myself loose on Moscow, making a beeline for the Kremlin. It is immense. I followed its walls around as night fell, dodging any police officers (they like to “check” the registration documents of tourists and find “problems” which can lead to a “fine” – basically, looking to supplement their income by scamming tourists. Avoid them at all costs and if you do get collared by one, never give over your original documents, only photocopies).

I arrived without any brushes with the boys in blue at Red Square, which was, er, more of a rectangular shape, really. Not at all how I had imagined it. The magnificent – albeit smaller than imagined – cathedral known as St. Basil’s (incorrectly – St. Basil’s is just a chapel in it) sat beside it silently, its stripy, colourful domes beautifully floodlit.

I saw a bit more of the real Moscow when I trudged several miles south of the Kremlin to the office of an English-speaking travel agency. There a girl who was probably called Natalya (most people seemed to be called Natalya) helped me book up another wodge of train tickets for my hop-on, hop-off journey across Russia. The experience was a great deal more relaxed than queuing up at the ticket booths and performing a mime would’ve been.

I had planned to take the Metro back but it was around rush hour and there were people queuing in a crushing crowd that went far outside the entrance. Bugger that for a lark.

The next day I got to meet a real-life Moscovian up-close. He tried to steal my camera.

I was taking a brief snapshot of a towering old Soviet building on the far side of a busy road when he came up to me and started shouting “Militski! Passport!” or something like that. Terrified, I took it to mean he (allegedly) was a policeman and wanted to see my passport. Since without uniform or badge it was more likely he was Kermit the Frog than a policeman, I started backing away with a “Nyet! Nyet! Nyet!” (Translation: no thanks, matey). He grabbed me by a bag strap and started shouting “fotoapparat!”. He wanted my camera. I switched from nyet to talking in English to passers by – this was a busy street at midday in a business district of Moscow, by the way. This made him release me and so I legged it off down the street, adrenaline flying, and decided to move on from Moscow that evening.

Moscow had been fairly overwhelming in general. Aside from the attempted mugging, the pollution was choking, the six lane roads were tough to navigate across without dying, and having both criminals and police out to get you in different ways didn’t really make for a safe feeling when walking around. I had preferred St. Petersburg, and I hoped that none of my other Russian destinations would result in brushes with the criminal-minded.

I thought wrong.

Week 13: Tallinn Tales

worldnomad — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 00:00:00 GMT

After my visit to the Hill of Crosses, which had been equal parts awe-inspiring and chilling (I have never seen so many instruments of torture in one place), I bussed it back to the centre of Siauliai and transferred to a plush new coach to take me over the border to Riga, capital of Latvia. Once again, I didn't know quite what to expect.

Arriving at night, I immediately picked up the vibe - it was thrumming. It was far busier than sleepy old Vilnius. Grand buildings, tall and ornate with fiddly-diddly facades, rose over the cobbled streets. This place had a pulse.

Latvia had an odd mix. Nearly thirty percent of the population were Russian, in stark contrast to Lithuania, which was far more homogeneous with only 6% of Russians. From what I have read about Latvia, the Russians aren't particularly welcome, perhaps being seen as a hangover from the Soviet occupation.

Riga was situated on the Balic Sea, so the next day I strolled down to take a look. It didn't appear particularly inviting in Winter. I broke away for a couple of circuits of the Old Town, admiring the grand architecture. Although it was undoubtably pretty, for some reason I hadn't warmed to Riga as much as I had Vilnius. Riga felt edgier. I think my Baltic heart belonged firmly to Vilnius, to its sleepy innocence - and its gorgeous women!

I was racing through the Baltics. The complete the Trinity I boarded a bus to Tallinn, capital of the northernmost Baltic state Estonia. The chap behind me was talking into his mobile with an unmistakable accent littered with flicky, rolled 'R's. Russian.

Remarkably, Tallinn was different again from the previous two Baltic states. We glided through a pristine modern new city full of sparking office buildings and car garages, all chrome and steel. I later learned that since independence - and especially since coming under the umbrella of the EU - Estonia has seen incredible economic growth.

Yet juxtaposed with this it has a dinky, beautiful little cobbled old town with a strong medieval feel. My wander of it the next day even saw some poor buggers dressing up in Middle Ages togs to offer roasted chestnuts and try to get people to sign up for reservations at the nearby outrageously expensive rustic restaurant. It was everything Lichtenstein should've been.

Tallinn felt like a good place to make camp to work for a bit before my Winter Assault on the Russian Motherland. I set up shop in a hostel which had a remarkably sound turnover of decent occupants. I met a mainland Chinese girl who was studying in Europe for a semester, a chap training to be a hypnotist who finally got me to agree to being hypnotised (he couldn't make me forget my name but he got my hand to stick to my forehead and even got me to hallucinate that there was a giant parrot called Jack in the room), and - coincidence of coincidences! - I bumped into the Dutch & German students again, who turned up one night in the same dorm of the same hostel as me! We couldn't work out who was stalking who...

Week 12: Heavenly Bodies

worldnomad — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The few Polish people I had met so far had been really nice and friendly, and not the misery guts I had for some reason expected them to be. My brief traversal of the country had left me with positive impressions, but now I needed to advance north. I went for the overnight bus option for my jaunt to Vilnius, capital of Lithuania and the first of the three Baltic states I would hop through.

Clocking in at 11 hours, the bus ride was lengthy but a walk in the park compared to some of the mammoth rides I had taken in South East Asia, including one twenty-hour busathon almost the whole length of Vietnam. On this occasion the four stops in the night meant for a broken sleep, but I got a few hours behind me to arrive at a quarter to seven into sleepy Vilnius.

I set off immediately for my hostel, wandering the warren of streets that made up the old city with crapmap (courtesy of Lonely Planet) in hand. It was very quiet. Two figures not far behind - I hoped they weren't following me as my sense of direction is almost as bad as my dress-sense - looked to be backpackers, and peering into the pre-dawn I recognised them as being on my bus. They were a university coursemates, a Dutch girl and a German girl who were coincidentally heading to the same hostel, so we navigated together.

The hostel was, rather bizarrely, run by a young Scottish chap, and was like someone's house - cosy and relaxed. He kindly let us put our heads down for a kip; more strict hostel owners would've either
said to come back at 12 or either charged us an extra night. With the dawn creeping through the windows, I didn't think I'd be able to sleep... and then it was 10:30am.

I set out to explore, knowing precious little about Lithuania. The first surprise was the language, which I had assumed would be similar to Polish. In fact it was completely alien and indecipherable, despite being written with Roman characters. I later learned it is one of the two Baltic languages (the other being Latvian) unrelated to the Romance, Germanic or Slavic tongues, and can be traced back to ancient Indo-European languages - apparently it even has grammar constructs similar to Sanskrit!

Tourist Info sorted me out with a map and some advice as to what to see (and how to say "thanks"), and I wandered the gloriously preserved cobbled streets agape.

I soon discovered that the buildings were not the only stunning attractions of Vilnius. It also had the largest proportion of naturally attractive women I have ever seen. Free wifi was also prevalent across town in modern, classy restaurants and cafes. I think I might have just found my heaven.

On the evening of which had been a long, long day I visited the Presidential Palace and Cathedral at night - both were dramatically floodlit and awe inspiring to the eyes, if not in my photos - and polished off the day with a cheap late night thali meal in a cavernous underground Balti restaurant.

I really felt like lingering in Vilnius, but I had already done more than my fair share of lingering in Prague and Berlin, so I couldn't justify it, particularly as I had to get to Japan overland by the end of March, which was near in time for a place so far away.

I booked a train north to the smaller Lithuanian city of Siauliai. Such a provincial place was only on my itinerary for one reason: to see the supposedly spectacular 'Hill of Crosses'.

The train was hot and packed, and I squeezed into a tiny compartment already occupied by five others. I was not looking forward to the two and a half hour ride one bit.

Studying the torn-out sheet from my guidebook which covered Siauliai in all of a few sentences, a voice spoke out next to me in English. "You going to Siauliai?" Luckily, it wasn't the voices in my head again; rather, it belonged to the chap next to me, who turned out to be a Lithuanian student of ecology at a university in Vilnius. His English was great and for the duration of the journey we nattered away about our countries, travel (he had recently come back from a hitchiking trip around Spain). The girl opposite him got involved as well, speaking a little English and so did the immpressively-moustached chap next to her, who couldn't speak any English with his moustache but who instead contented himself with looking through our photos and asking questions in Lithuanian to the others. The journey flew by, and it was with some regret I waved goodbye to my three new Lithuanian buddies.

Finding the hostel without a map was a challenge, but luckily it was on a main street and I had the address. It turned out to be an university ex-hall of residence, so for one night only, I was back as a student.

I took a local bus the next morning along the A12 to a point 10 kilometres north of Siauliai to an unremarkable stop in farmland out in the middle of nowhere, and headed for an equally unremarkable track save for the solitary cross that marked it. Two kilometres down the trail a mound started to appear - a mound which housed thousands upon thousands of crosses.

Apparently during Soviet times the site was regularly destroyed by troops, but people would defiantly creep past the guards at night and plant more. Even as an atheist I could appreciate such stubborn and strong-willed defiance in the face of oppression.

I wandered up and through the crosses - the mound was absolutely thick with them and many were surprisingly ornate and sizeable - noting that a number came from tourists on pilgrimages. I had myself once dressed up as Brian of Nazareth from the film Life of Brian, and I kicked myself for not bringing my cross with me on this trip. I think it would've looked great on the Hill of Crosses.

Week 11: Invading Poland

worldnomad — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:00:00 GMT

All the work I'd got behind me had given me the taste for travel again, so I started my Winter invasion eastwards, jumping a train heading to the German border town of Frankfurt-an-der Oder, also known as "the even shitter Frankfurt". When I had visited eight years ago with two friends and a tent we had found it to be a grey, featureless and generally deprived place. The highlight of our visit - for two of us, anyway - was when a random crazed local on the street attempted to strangle the third one of us. It was that bad. When I arrived I wandered out of the vaguely familiar station and approached a stranger to ask directions to the river, taking care to cover my neck just in case. She was pleasant and helpful. Could things have changed? Indeed yes. Whilst still not high on any tourist's list, the town seemed to have improved. It was still Soviet style, but had been dolled up a bit. The public spaces had definitely been given a makeover thanks no doubt primarily to West German taxes. I strolled down the main shopping street, the scene of the aformentioned attempted strangulation, and over the bridge into Poland. Back then the bridge had been manned by moustachioed German border guards; now the positions were abandoned and had been so for several years, with Poland having joined the European Union family in 2004, so I walked unhindered into a new country. Frankfurt-an-der-Oder's Polish counterpart was ever duller save for a few prettied-up buildings on the riverfront, and so I didn't linger, instead boarding a train eastwards to Poznan. I knew precious little about the place except it was popular for trade fairs, which general is a coded message for "a fairly shit place" (see: Hannover). It took a while to grab accommodation. The first place was far too pricey; the hostel, further out, was closed; and my third choice full. Luckily, the helpful receptionist there recommended some guest rooms above a restuarant which were small but modern and clean, with telly and en-suite. Next day I struck out to visit Poznan's main square in the daylight. It had pleasantly old buildings, although whether they were restored or original was hard to tell. Travelling had taken a step up since I crossed into Poland and it took me a while to catch up and adjust. In all my previous destinations I could speak English, French or German to get my point across. Here English was spoken, but less so. So when I obtained my onward ticket to the unpronouncable town of Wroclaw (apparently something like "Vrotswahf") from the provincial and very Polish train station in Poznan I relied on the old favourite "write down your destination, the date, a one-way arrow and no. of tickets along with a sensible amount of cash" and hoped no Polish questions were asked. They weren't, and so I had my ticket to ride. Easy peasy! Polish trains are of the "cheap and slow" variety. I had plenty of time to put my feet up, read and watch the Polish countryside pass at a snail's pace on my journey down to Wroclaw. It turned out to be a nice city, sprinkled with pretty buildings and churches. The centrally located hostel had a nice vibe and I was chucked in a room with a friendly Irish bird, over here to get her nashers fixed up on the cheap. One of the many great things about Poland - to add to its friendly, reliable people - is that free wifi is everywhere. This tempted me out of the hostel and into the pubs and restaurants. Working and drinking? What a great idea! You can't do *that* back in the office... From Wroclaw I headed on to the Polish jewel that is Krakow. At only a few hundred miles from Prague, I had gone the long way round somewhat to get there. The train - apparently an "express" - took its time, stopping everywhere. At the hostel I met a chap called Roy, the only other occupant of the dorm. He was a friendly British chap who was easy to talk to; we were both old farts and very much on the same wavelength. We headed out that evening for a few beers, a chat and a kebab - how typically British - and popped into a nightclub for the highlight of the evening, seeing three old Polish guys in shirts and ties dancing to house music and loving it! Krakow was gorgeous, I discovered as I toured its sights the next day. It had a huge town square, seemingly a church on every corner and a regal castle high up on an embankment. Like most Polish cities, though, it does suffer from appalling driving and a severe shortage of parking. As I headed to the train station today I tried not to laugh as I saw one driver reversing straight off a high curb, pulling their car's front bumper clean off in the process. I took an IC train to Warsaw, probably double the cost of a normal train, but it was quicker and comfier. I arrived at rush hour, which is never the best time to form a good opinion about a place. I dodged the hassled commuters as I passed ugly grey concrete block after block and navigated traffic jams sprawled over crossings to the hostel. Still, I found a convivial German-style brewhouse to relax in for the evening, sipping home-brewed beer and tapping away on my laptop. Warsaw had a nicer side. The road stretching up from the hostel to the university was lovely, decked out in Christmas lights (the Orthodox Church celebrates the festive season way past December - most, er, unorthodox to us). The road had been pulled up for reconstruction so the building-site vibe took away some of its grandeur, but the Town Square it led to (presumably rebuilt after the levelling Warsaw got in the Second World War) was a delight with ornate buildings, quiet little side alleys and a hushed, relaxed feel. Tourist-free, i sat near a couple of homeless chaps, blending in quite well, until I pulled out my laptop and added "Warsaw Town Square" to my list of office locations so far.

Week 10: Ich bin ein Berliner

worldnomad — Tue, 5 Feb 2008 12:00:00 GMT

Berlin isn't picture-postcard perfect by any means. It has graffitti on its graffitti, and the Soviets joylessly left their funtional concrete, grey mark on the eastern side of the city. And yet it is Number 1 on my list of places in which I could settle outside of my hometown. There's something about the city that you can't quite quantify: an electrifying vibe and a feeling of potential that after all its upheaval this unified city's time has come.

As I arrived into the sparkling new Hauptbahnhof, a temple of gleaming chrome, I passed the Reichstag, the German seat of Parliament complete with Norman Foster's crowining glass dome, and dived onto the highly efficient S-Bahn to the familiar stop of Warschauer Strasse, home to the hostel at which I had stayed four times previously and which I count as my home in Berlin. The Sunflower Hostel is a laid back place, wirh a great social area to meet people and colourful murals everywhere. I grabbed a bed with the intention of using the free wifi to the hilt to carry on my web work.

Yet again, I didn't particularly stray far, but I did manage to hunt down an exhibition in Potsdamer Platz station which I had read about on the BBC News website. It detailed the role of Deutsche Bahn - the German rail company - in transporting Jews during the Holocaust. The Government had insisted it be presented not in a museum, but free in a Deutsche Bahn station where it would obtain full exposure. Germans are incredible at facing up to their demons of sixty years ago; they have no choice really given the heinous things that happened.

The exhibition showed pictures of then major Deutsche Bahn figures posing with swastika armbands side-by-side with party leaders and ministers. It detailed - albeit in German - how the organisation fed into the Government of the time and laid out how it aided and abetted in shipping Jews out of their German hometowns and off to camps; tragic journeys they commonly had to pay for themselves. The exhibition finished with a simple yet gut-punching list of Jewish children from the local area - complete with smiling photographs - who went to their deaths on the trains. Powerful indeed.

Week 9: Sleeping in the Office

worldnomad — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 12:00:00 GMT

I continued to be based in Prague, working out of my hostel bed and feeling comfortable. Having got the majority of my work done I allowed myself a few trips out. I explored the old town, amazed at how packed it was out of season - no doubt the British Invasion taking advantage of cheap Easyjet flights for a weekend break (and who can blame them). Prague castle, which apparently I had visited eight years previously but had no recollection of, offered a great panorama over the city. I trawled the grounds with my fellow tourists but started to get annoyed by their sheer numbers. It took the biscuit when I entered the castle cathedral and found people chatting at normal volume. Despite being an atheist, I maintain that a certain level of respect is required in places of worship and the lack of it shown disgusted me.

Later in the week, as a celebration of the site I had just completed, I went out for a slap-up meal at the Staropramen Brewery, within walking distance of the hostel (and stumbling distance back). The food was pricey but sublime; I went for a gorgeous Argentinian steak followed up by the best cheesecake I have tasted in recent memory (and I eat a lot of cheesecake). It was all washed down with a few jars of deliciously cheap (50p / US $1) fresh Staropramen beer.

The "working from hostel bed" idea had proven incredibly productive, so I decided to repeat it in my next destination north: Berlin.

Week 8: Czeching In

worldnomad — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 12:00:00 GMT

My friend Yan kindly sent me on my way with a bumper packed lunch for the train, including a few surprises, such as some great chilli chocolate and a non-edible but distinctly useful German-made padlock. It had been great to meet up again, and I feel that even if it's in a few years we will do so again.

We said our goodbyes and I took off on the train to Regensburg. I'd never been there before and didn't know quite what to expect, apart the fact the people would speak German and wouldn't have two heads or anything (you have to go nearer Liechtenstein to see stuff like that). The main reason I was calling was that it was a hany overnight stop for my jaunt into the Czech Republic.

I arrived at nightfall and had to creep through the gorgeous old town to get to the hostel, which was located on the far side of the river. Evidently this corner of Germany had been spared Allied bombing. The hostel had only just reopened that day from their Winter break, and again I was the only guest. I made the dorm room home and left the exploration until tomorrow.

The exploring I did in Regensburg was mainly unintentional, leaving as I did for the train station south of the river, and getting thoroughly lost in the <i>Altstadt</i> to end up at... the river again. Bugger. Still, the circle I'd done was one of the most asthetically pleasing times I have ever been lost - and there have been many such occasions.

To get to the Czech Republic it appeared I had to go around the houses; I passed into Austria and had to change at Linz, which gave me a few hours to check out the city. It looked pretty uninspiring from what I saw of it apart from the main shopping street which had some grand old architecture.

Finally I boarded a train that lumbered into the southern Czech Republic to arrive at Ceske Budjovice, which to you and me is Budweiser, the home of the original beautiful <i>Budvar</i> brew which the Americans watered down and gave a flavour of piss. I had to change to a local train - a tiny two-car affair - to reach my destination of Cesky Krumlov, a backpacker-friendly town and UNESCO heritage site.

I'd spotted some other backpackers on the service and tagged along with them, as I had no map of the town. They were four guys from Texas and a girl from Los Angeles. They were, for the most part, open-minded, down-to-earth people. On arrival at the hostel we found there was no dorm space available, so we had to pair up. I ended up bunking in with the girl from LA, which is probably the only occasion in my life I'll be able to say I shared a room with an American model.

Next day I chipped out bright and early to explore the town on my tod. It was a gorgeous setting, with red-rooved houses and churches built up on the hills surrounding a particularly exotic meander in the river. To top it all off there was a castle overlooking the town, to which I headed.

It was cold - and icy - and on the way I decided to do an involuntary ice dance for a couple of passing locals, falling flat on my arse on the slippery cobbles. The castle was closed but the grounds were open - and free - and made for a lovely walk.

Even though the town was tourist-wise, the beer was still cheap and beautiful: 50p (US $1) a pint, not to be moaned at. The Yanks and I made the most for it that evening in the hostel bar. It was a good farewell, as we were all off in different directions the next day. They headed south to Vienna, and I carried on north to Prague, with the intention of settling for a few days.

I'd done precious little work on my websites since travelling and needed to catch up, so I felt a destination like Prague would fit the bill, being relatively cheap still and comfortable. The hostel I had chosen was a fair bit out but on the metro and most importantly had that work essential, free wifi. I barely left the hostel for the rest of the week as I busied myself with creating a new website, the idea of which I had had for months but never had found the time to write. The idea was that it would help pay some of the hostel bills for the months of travelling to come.

Week 7: New Day Rising

worldnomad — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 12:00:00 GMT

Being home for Christmas had invigorated me a great deal. After cycling through (parts of!) France, Germany, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany, The Netherlands and Belgium, I felt a fair bit burnt out. I used Christmas to kick back, spend time with my family and friends, and come up with several new ideas for websites which I could write once I was back on the road.

By the time New Year had come and gone, though, I was itching to get back on the road again, so on 6th January I set off for the second phase of my unplanned odyssey - once again overland. I travelled by train to London, calling on an old university friend to catch up, and then took the bus from Liverpool Street to Harwich International Terminal - a rather grand name for a seaside shack, if you ask me - to board the overnight Stenaline ferry to Holland.

I was too exhausted to explore the ferry's bar and cinema, choosing instead to go directly to the cabin I was forced to purchase a night's stay in (the ferry didn't have any lounges with sleep seats unlike my ferry to St Malo). Still, I didn't begrudge it when I saw it, as it was immaculate; I had a bunk, a sofa seat and a small en-suite with toilet and bath. The ferry was obviously very new and had yet to be destroyed by British tourists.

And so at 7:30am the next morning I emerged as a foot passenger from the Stenaline ferry into The Netherlands once more. There was something distinctly exciting about being in a port in another country before dawn. I felt that crackle of excitement and freedom that travelling sometimes brings, and grabbed a ticket to Rotterdam.

Rotterdam was supposed to have a crackle all of its own, but I can't say I felt it whilst I was there. It was destroyed during the Second World War, and so had been rebuilt in a hotch-potch of styles, many of them functional and ugly, but also many of them pleasingly experimental and architectural. I didn't get up to much during my time there, preferring to work on the ideas I had developed over Christmas, and so moved on, somehow having obtained a large, framed canvas print of an old map of the United Kingdom (well, it was only 40 euros... I couldn't say no!)... for the house I didn't have.

I decided the next day to head up to Utrecht, with framed picture in tow. Apparently it was one of the oldest cities in the Netherlands. Once I had fought my way out of the shopping centre encasing the station, I emerged into more shops, at which I bought a protective case for my new laptop. I had accidentally broken my last laptop from it getting a knock whilst being in my bag, and so I didn't want to make the same mistake with this one.

Further on from the shops, I hit the canals. Utrecht was like a mini Amsterdam, with ancient waterways running through the city. The streets were built up higher, with the waterways down below, alongside which outdoor cafes, bars and restaurants were situated, although sparsely populated in the Winter.

The rest of the pubs, however, seemed packed. Tuesday was student night, and the town had a really youthful vibe thanks to the tens of thousands of students who lived here and occasionally attended the university. The place reminded me of Heidelberg - it had the same kind of enjoyable buzz.

I like to travel light, preferring a 40 litre carry-on rucksack as my backpacking luggage, so I needed to ditch my new-found framed art companion immediately. I considered sending it back home, but it was very heavy and would no doubt cost a packet to send, with the likelihood of it getting damaged on the way. So it was lucky that I had another option only forty minutes down the railway track.

On my last RTW trip I had met a Dutch traveller on a slow boat to Laos and we had ended up travelling nigh-on three months together. We had kept in touch regularly via email and messenger, even seeing each other maybe once every six months or so, and had developed a sort-of Free Trade Agreement between us. What this Agreement consisted of was me sending her Topshop (a UK High Street clothes shop) goods that she had ordered online to my address. Since I had never called my side of the Agreement in, I figure she owed me a favour.

So I travelled to Tilburg to meet up with her. We had an enjoyable day, catching up in the cafe by the train station and heading on to take her out for a Thai meal, by way of a thank-you for her looking after my framed picture for an indeterminate period of time whilst I travelled further eastwards.

The next day I headed on out of the Netherlands by way of a six hour train journey to Hamburg. It allowed me to catch up on a lot of work on the way, and as the sky was darkening I emerged from the station and made my way to my accommodation of choice.

I had read about a Rock'n'Roll pub near the water which offered cheap, colourful themed rooms, and it seemed right up my street. Luckily, they had a room available, so I checked in, being assigned the "St Pauli" room (seafaring district with the symbol of the skull and crossbones). The music was excellent, and it didn't matter that I could hear it from my room until the wee hours, as they also kindly provided fresh earplugs :)

Hamburg was Germany's richest city, apparently, but it didn't do much for me. As Germany's second largest, it's always going to be compared to Berlin, and sadly it just didn't live up to the electrifying capital. Nevertheless, Hamburg had its quirks, and that evening I wandered the port and the "notorious" Red Light District known as the Reeperbahn. It was pretty tame by all accounts, at least when compared with that of Amsterdam.

The Schanzenviertel area of Hamburg was a bit more full of character, consisting of little independent shops, cafes, restaurants and bars that were a little bit off the mainstream. The youthful vibe recalled Friedrichshain or Kreuzberg in Berlin a little. But I hadn't warmed to Hamburg greatly, and so I moved on south at the weekend.

German trains are fabulous, but you pay for such impeccable service. However, several years ago, in order to persuade people to use trains at the weekend more, Deutsche Bahn introduced a ticket that allowed you to travel all over Germany on regional (non-high speed) trains with up to four people for only a few Marks each. I had used this ticket with my mates extensively when I studied in Mainz, seeing most corners of Germany with it, and was glad to see it still in existence. Although much more expensive (and priced now in Euros of course), it allowed me to get to Frankfurt - via three trains and six to seven hours of travel - by the evening.

Frankfurt, which I always remembered as exceedingly dull and doesn't seem to have evolved a great deal, was just a waypoint for my destination of Ulm, where I had passed through before Christmas. More importantly, this time a friend of mine - who I had met in a hostel in New Zealand - was around, and she put me up for a night, making me feel right at home with a home-cooked meal. I might have only been on the road for a week, but home comforts are always gratefully appreciated whenever you can get them.

Week 6: Full Circle

worldnomad — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 12:00:00 GMT

All nostalgia'd up from my time in Mainz, I took off down the Rhine by bike. I started off following the banks of the river, but pretty soon I came up against a slight issue. The river, which I had thought had looked rather swollen, was lapping over the path in front of me, so I had to double back a short way and choose another route to my destination. I struck upon a cyclepath indicating signs to Bingen, the next town along, and cycled there.

I'd been cultivating a headcold over the tail-end of last week which unleashed itself in its full glory today, and as a result I didn't have the legs to continue after Bingen. So sheepishly I nipped on a train for the ten minute or so journey along to my chosen stopover of Bacharach.

Bacharach was one of many quaint little German towns hugging the steeped banks of the Rhine, but for me it stood out amongst the others for a single reason: its Youth Hostel was situated high on a hill in a 13th Century castle. Since it's not every day you get to stay in such a place, I hiked up the vertical distance to its gateway and hoped it would be open.

It was thankfully, albeit rather quiet. I checked in and took a moment to savour the beautiful views over the Rhine from the battlements, with the constant stream of river traffic, trains rattling by on both sides, and the glinting lights of Bacharach and other communities below. The hostel's rather Germanic 9pm curfew - "zere vil be no haffing fun in zis taun!" - forced me to have an early night and try to recover from my illness.

I carried on through the gorgeous scenery of the Rhine valley, with embattled castles lining every meander of the river and rows of neat vines lining every hill, passing through St. Goar and St. Goarshausen, two half-timbered house-filled settlements, and up through to Boppard, where I stopped for lunch. The town was in full Christmas cheer - the first time I had noticed Christmas in Germany be as overdone as it normally is in my home country - with speakers on every corner of the main shopping street blaring out Christmas carols and other cheesy Christmas songs. Yuck!

From Boppard, which I had reached with relative ease, I switched to the trains and journeyed via Koblenz on to Cologne. Cologne is all about its cathedral; as you stumble out of the station, you can't miss it - it's right next door. It looks nightmarish - a huge, knobbly, blackened, gargoyle-ladened Gothic masterpiece.

My first hostel of choice was full, so I headed over the bridge to the YHA, in which I managed to score a four-bed dorm to myself, with en-suite and all. The was immaculately clean, which was surprising, given the number of ungrown adults running about. YHAs in Germany do tend to be popular choices for school trip accommodation, unfortunately.

I tend to get Cologne mixed up with Munich, because they both love their beer and like to frequent beer halls. The four halls I visited in the station/central area that evening were all packed out, with people queuing or the door barred, so I headed to the Belgian quarter to try my luck with a fifth. It was open, and had space right at the back, and so I treated myself to the best meal I have had in Germany so far, a sumptuous meal of goose breast with roasted apple, stodgy mashed potato, red cabbage, onions and a token tiny leaf of lettuce. It was all washed down with the enjoyable local brew, called Koelsch, which is a fresh, bitter tasting beer served in special long, thin 200ml glasses.

From Cologne, I trained it to the border town of Aachen to buy gingerbread, for which it is particularly reknowned. They also seemed to be fond of fountains here, as there were many elaborate examples. The main thing they had in common was that none of them were doing any, er, fountaining. Perhaps their prevalence had to do with its own natural fountain, the hot spring on which the settlement was founded and which was drinkable, although why anyone would I don't know, given that the area all around smelt of eggy farts.

The area eastwards from Aachen is something like the Twilight Zone, as no-one is entirely sure where they live. A southern sliver of The Netherlands starts there, which I headed towards, but Belgium is lurking there also and it all gets a bit confusing. The only way I could detect I had entered The Netherlands was that the names on the signs suddenly had ma lot more j's and k's in them.

I headed for Maastricht, which was thankfully downhill nearly all the way. Whilst the majority of the North of The Netherlands was as flat as a pancake, it is a myth that Holland does not have any hills whatsoever, so I thought as I puffed up the hill just west of Maastricht.

Maastricht was a little gem, and no doubt one that gets overlooked on traveller's itineraries which understandably focus on Amsterdam. The centre was all cobbled streets lined by immaculate red-bricked, flat-fronted houses with lots of windows, and was a pleasure to walk around. Although there were hostels, for a change I stayed on a place called the Botel, which - you've guessed it! - was a boat moored on the river. The cabins were a little tatty, but bigger than I had expected, and I slept well.

Christmas was nearly upon me, and before I had left home I had made plans to return home from my trip for the festive season. I had spent one Christmas away before, whilst on my last Round the World Trip. I was in Chicago and whilst I had kept myself busy there, going for a Chrimbo meal and seeing a fabulous showing of It's A Wonderful Life, it wasn't the same as being at home. So this time, being only a few hundred miles away rather than a few thousand, it was easy for me to get back.

I was leaving from Brussels, which was my next - and final - destination for 2007. I was expecting a stuffy, concrete, bureaucratic capital, so imagine my surprise when I found the opposite. Brussels was a thriving multicultural hub with a real edge about it. It had quirky sights, like the building you could text to display your messages of love and greetings by flashing them vertically up its side by lighting up the windows (each of which was a "pixel" of a letter). It had old fashioned sights, like the Grand Place, a square of delicately carved buildings and a musical clock. And it had a mini-red light district like that in Amsterdam, with women standing in windows, or so I found as I unknowing (honest!) stumbled through it on the way to my hostel.

I set my bike on the train a day in advance, so that it would be guaranteed to be waiting for me in London. The night before my journey back to the UK on the Eurostar, I felt I had had enough of hostels for a while so I booked myself in at the Brussels Hilton (via lastminute.com, of course - it cost a paltry £48) for a good night's sleep, as I was due to rise at 5:30am the next morning.

I managed to meet my 7am train with ease, and we sped through into France and innocuously through the Channel Tunnel to pop out into a rather frosty Kent. After picking the bike up, I had a sketchy 15 minute bicycle journey to undertake from St Pancras to Paddington at rush hour. What a difference to cycling in Paris! I feared for my life with the traffic and buses hassling me, and I was glad to see familiar old Paddington and dismount for the train to Bath.

And after waking up in Brussels that morning, that lunchtime I was pedalling back from Bath past Kelston Roundtop to my one-horse hometown of Keynsham, having completed a whirlwind tour of a part of Western Europe by bike and train, feeling paradoxically that I had done and seen so much, and yet it only seemed like the other day I was walking the other way up over Kelston on the first day of my journey on which I went out the door and turned left.

Week 5: Deutschland über Bierhalles

worldnomad — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 12:00:00 GMT

Although Switzerland's landscape consists of roughly 75% mountains, it was a fabulous place to cycle if you kept to the valleys, with plenty of feasts for the ol' peepers. On my journey from Zürich to the Swiss border today I followed Lake Zürich's southern shore, admiring the city's buildings stacked up the sloping hill on the far shore and pedalled slowly but surely into cuckoo-clock land. Luscious green hills dotted with classic Swiss chalets gave way to craggy, snowy peaks.

It wasn't all picture-postcard perfect, though: I was at first surprised to see industrial zones nestled amongst the picturesque valleys, with plenty of factories belching out smoke. Then it dawned on me... if your country consists of nothing but picturesque valleys and mountains, then you have little choice where to stick your factories. Picturesque valley it is.

The border was a good 60 miles from Zürich, and I had decided I would push myself to get as far as possible by bike, then hop on the train. I managed as far as Ziegelbrücke, which seemed to be a tiny town but a major transport hub, and then jumped onto a train to the border.

At the border town of Sargans I transferred to a bus to take me to one of the smallest capitals in Europe: Vaduz, in Liechtenstein.

On paper Liechtenstein is utterly compelling. A tiny nation nestled in a Swiss valley surrounded by mountains, formed by a powerful family several hundred years ago from which it got its name, its capital is overlooked by a castle in which the Head of State and Prince (not the singer) lives. Sounds like he's a right bastard, too - apparently he succeeded in changing the consitution recently to give himself more powers. Quite what powers he could want over a community of a few thousand people is beyond me - perhaps priority service at the Post Office or something? - but he wanted them and got them.

Sadly, Liechtenstein is best read about from a book with a hot cup of cocoa before going to bed in a country anywhere else but Liechtenstein. There really is little to write home about the place once seen. Vaduz, which I had naively pictured as a twee, fairytale town full of gingerbread houses, was actually a horrid strip of ugly concrete buildings. Sure, it's nestled against a mountain and there's the ever-present castle looming overhead, but even that is pretty umimpressive - just a big house, really. So I didn't linger long in Liechtenstein, staying just the one night then making a break for Germany.

It's not often you can say you've cycled in three countries in a single day, but that's what happened on the way to Germany. It could have even been four. I crossed Liechtenstein and entered Austria, the first town Feldkirch being being everything Vaduz could've been, with a colourful clock tower and pretty half-timbered buildings. I continued northwards, roughly following the Swiss-Austrian border before reaching Germany, signified by the sight of the Bodensee aka Lake Constance.

I based myself at the island city of Lindau, grabbing a bargainous guesthouse room (thanks to the helpful tourst info people) run by a kindly old lady, who seemed over the moon to see me. Such a different welcome from when I first arrived in France, I noted.

The next morning at breakfast I had ample chance to practise my German as I nattered away with seemingly the only other guest, an older lady with a yellow, waxy complexion. She was just as friendly as the landlady and seemed very interested in my travels. Her children were apparently equally gripped by wanderlust.

From Lindau I trained it to the capital of Bavaria, and in many ways the heart of Germany: Munich. Bavaria - known as Bayern - was the place to see Germans wearing felt hats with feathers in them and lederhosen without a hint of irony.

The first night in Munich I hit the town by, er, going to the cinema. The Golden Compass was out and I couldn't wait to see it. It was in German, but I managed to follow most of it, and the effects needed no translation anyway.

The second day I spent there, on which my laptop decided to die horribly, I decided to check out a popular beer hall. It would be rude not to in Munich. I joined hundreds of other people in the Bavarian art of munching down huge slabs of dead animal and quaffing down pure German suds as accompaniment: heaven!

I decided to head west to an area of Germany I had never visited, the Black Forest. I iomagined fresh forest paths smelling of pine to cycle along, but what I got was an area dusted with snow. Picturesque indeed, but a bugger to cycle through.

I spent a single night at Titisee, a Black Forest lake town, being the only guest in the Youth Hostel - slightly weird. Overnight snow had fallen heavily and I had caught a cold with an irritating cough, yet stubbornly and foolishly I set off northwards through the forest to Triberg.

"Berg" means mountain in German, and I climbed a small but steady incline through hail rain and snow to get there. The descent, when it came, was madness: the snow was razorlike on my face and eyes and I had to squint one-eyed to see where I was going. With red face, sopping wet - and cold - trousers and still coughing, I threw my hat in the ring and turned off for Furtwangen, where I cheated by taking a bus the rest of the way.

I decided to push straight on north to somewhere where it wasn't snowing and reached Heidelberg. Home to Germany's oldest university, the youthful vibe there is inseparable from the city's soul. I roamed around the beautiful old town and found a blatantly tourist-oriented watering hole, which normally I would steer clear of, but I was starving, there was space and the atmosphere seemed really happy, with a kooky German piano player doing renditions of modern pop songs and shouting "That's life!" at random intervals. The muse infected me that evening, as I swayed home along the Rhein singing a looping chrous of "#O Du wunderschöner deutscher Rhein...#"

I woke up in Heidelberg to elephants trumpeting, which made a change from waking up due to someone's snoring. I dawned on me thent hat the hostel was next to the zoo, and I watched the animals for a bit - elephants, zebras, deer and peacocks - before leaving for Mainz.

I had lived in Mainz for a year in 1999-2000, "studying" Physics there. (OK, I did some work, but mostly travelled around). That was seven years ago now and I was keen to see how it has changed.

My first impression was that it was a bit grubbier than I remembered, but the mind is perhaps the best polisher. I set myself up at the Youth Hostel and headed back into town to visit the Best Pub in Germany^TM - it's official (according to me).

Eisgrub in Mainz is an old-fashioned microbrewery that makes the best beer I have ever tasted. It is smooth, not bitter and eminently drinkable. Coupled with hearty German fare, it made for a fabulous evening.

Zum wohl!

Week 4: Heidi-Hi

worldnomad — Wed, 5 Dec 2007 12:00:00 GMT

However much I loved Paris, I was itching to get somewhere German-speaking. I had studied German at school and also attended a year of my university course at a German university. However, that was seven years ago and I had hardly spoken any German since, so I was keen to get back in the saddle - or, perhaps more aptly, the lederhosen.

I boarded a rather shabby but very nippy train for three and a half hours to emerge in a new country: Switzerland. Granted, it was still officially French-speaking, but Geneva (Geneve, Genf, whatever) was an international breath of fresh air. All sorts of languages floated past as I wandered out of the station and saddled up for the ride along the yellow-lined roads to the hostel.

Geneva was immaculate - in the main areas, at least - and its setting on Lake, er Geneva was a sight to behold under the blue skies. Sailboats bobbed gently in the incredibly clear water and advert-lined buildings framed the water's edge. I wandered over the bridge into the again immaculately-kept old part of town, with steep, bricked alleys winding around leaning buildings lit by pretty lights and looping round a hum-dinger of a church. It almost looked too immaculate.

I had planned to follow the shore of Lake Geneva on the bike, as last time I checked lakes were generally flat and therefore an easy cycle, so I set off early the next day as it was a forty mile ride, the most I had attempted in one day so far. The first fifteen were a doddle, and at that point I broke for breakfast on a lakeside bench by a mooring of boats. About two-thirds of the way there, unfortunately, I started to flag, and my breaks became closer and closer together. I had hit a metaphorical wall and I had to limp into Lausanne pushing my bike.

I was gutted to find the interesting parts of Lausanne were up a huge hill, so I had to walk even further at granny pace to get to the hostel, yet another organised and clean affair.

Lausanne didn't capture my imagination as much as Geneva, so I pushed on - by train this time, to let my screaming muscles heal - to the mini Swiss capital and reassuringly German-speaking Bern.

The change was more surprising that I had expected it to be, one country, one train ride and suddenly it went from French signs and French speakers to German signs and German speakers, no halfway house, and very little dual-language signs. It made me wonder how such a country could have a unity with such a language divide.

Bern was delightful, with an ancient, cobbled old town tastefully housed by little shops. It was obvious that being politically neutral had its benefits, your cities didn't get bombed to shit. There was a Christmas Market on in one of the squares, so I made a beeline for the mulled wine stall; pricey but the best I have ever tasted.

Switzerland was painful on the old wallet, so I intended to skip through as quick as possible. I set off the next day, after another circuit of the old town, to Interlaken, the most "backpacker-friendly" destination in Switzerland. My saddle-soreness had abated somewhat so I was back on the bike, although the mountains seemed to be getting nearer and nearer and I was getting concerned about the gradients that might soon be involved.

Luckily, the route wound through the valleys, alongside the mountain-lined Thunsee lake, reminiscent of New Zealand but not as nice, and between that and another lake further along Interlaken was nestled (hence the name... "between lakes").

The popularity of the town amongst backpackers meant the hostel offered a ton of free stuff to woo you there. The town seemed to be incredibly popular with Asian tourists, and I shared a room with four Korean backpackers. They spoke little English and I spoke even less Korean (hello, thank you and... CHEERS!), but they communicated by the Art of the Orange - by handing me a spare satsuma one of them had. Very friendly chaps indeed.

Interlaken was the jump-off point for the Alps in Switzerland, including the Jungfrau region that I was keen on seeing, around 4000 metres and supposedly jawdropping views. Unfortunately, you couldn't see much with a ton of cloud blocking the way, so I had to linger another day in Interlaken in the hope that the weather would improve. Sadly, it didn't, and with snow and cloud forecast for the next few days I had no choice but to push on - but I certainly hope to be back to this region sometime in the future. With the plentiful availability of free flights from the UK on Sleazyjet et al, it looks to be on the cards.

My last stop in Switzerland was the large city of Zuerich, which surprisingly is not the capital. I imagine Bern was chosen due to its central geographic location. I had expected a dull, grey Frankfurt-esque, soulless wanker-banker city, but Zuerich had a certain charm, with an old town, a lake (albeit not as pretty as Geneva's) and plenty of life to itself in the evenings. And hardly a suit in sight. I can think of worse places in the world to make millions...

Switzerland, which was to me just a "may as well, it's on the way" destination, had really impressed me. What bowled me over more than anything was the feeling of absolute contentment that seemed to bubble about when in the cities: everyone seemed really happy.

And I suppose you would be, if you lived in a rich, beautiful country without any enemies.

Week 3: Under Paris Skies

worldnomad — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 00:00:00 GMT

I never in a million years thought I would become addicted to French Teletext, but every morning without fail I was looking up the French news pages on the telly to find out progress on the strike. And success! It seemed as if today, the start of my third week, that more trains were going to be running; as many as up to 1 in 3. I bolted down to the train station at Granville to see my options.

There was a train to Paris, and I was sorely tempted to delay my jaunt through Normandy and head for the bright lights of the capital. But if I am anything it is stubborn, and so I stuck to my guns and picked a train going North to Coutances, from which I would be able to pick up a later connection to Bayeux, where the real French adventure would start.

Only it turned out not to be a train, but a replacement bus. Luckily, the driver let me stow my bike in the hold under the vehicle and soon I was flying off to Coutances. I took a further bus to Lison and finally a train to arrive in the very pretty town of Bayeux.

The YHA there was a fabulous stone-stepped old building, and I had a dorm room all to myself and a massive continental breakfast with fresh pastries and filter coffee for €19. I knew I had found something good, so I stretched out my time and stayed two nights.

If everything seemed to be going wrong for me last week, then this week Lady Luck was positively grinning down on me. Not only for the hostel, but also for my visit to see the Bayeux Tapestry - a thousand year-old embroidery depicting the events of and leading up to the Battle of Hastings in 1066, when the French gave us a beating. I was the first one in on a weekday in off-season, and as a result I had the Tapestry all to myself. No screaming kids, no North Asian toursts taking non-stop pictures... just me and a thousand year old work of art. I felt privileged.

Later I took to the bike again and visited the D-Day landing beaches North of Bayeux. My destination was Gold beach, where 63 years ago my Grandfather disembarked as part of the York & Lancaster "Hallamshires", moving to the front line of battle four days later. I roughly followed the route he had taken down to Fontenay-le-Pesnel, now a quiet French village with a pretty duck pond at which I ate my sarnies, but which for my Grandfather was taking cover in a hastily-dug slit trench during days of constant shelling, hoping pot-luck that you wouldn't be hit, followed by a fierce battle against the 26th Panzers Regiment. I just couldn't begin to imagine what it must have been like.

I stopped at a number of cemeteries at which the British D-Day fallen were laid to rest, most notably that at Saint Manvieu, where a number of my Grandfather's comrades were buried. I passed on his respects. It was a very moving day, and words fail me to describe what I felt.

I continued my tour of D-Day sights by biking to Caen and visiting the Pegasus Bridge Memorial Museum. It described in great detail a daring mission whereby members of the British 6th Airborne flew in and took two bridges undamaged which were vital for D-Day to proceed, as it allowed Regiments like my Grandfather's to push to the left and liberate Holland. The museum was superbly done, being packed with exhibits, and the curator, a British man, had a real passion for the operation and knew it in great detail, giving us amusing anecdotes he'd heard from the veterans of the raid. We saw the bridge itself - complete with bullet holes! - and a replica of one of the gliders used in the raid.

Caen was a pleasant enough city - it was refreshing to be in a vibrant city rather than the dead provinces of Normandy (even Bayeux had pretty much shut down at 9pm or so) - but I decided to save my urban wandering for the big one: Paris. I had to take two trains to get there, since I couldn't take my bike on a direct train, and as a result I arrived late and splashed out by spending a night in the Novotel near Paris Montmatre station. I slept wondrously and got to nick all the soaps and shampoos from the room, so it wasn't too much of a splurge.

The next day I picked a hostel. One of the YHAs was further out from the centre but boasted a bar, cinema and restaurant, so I plumped for that. It turned out to be a good decision; I pottered over there, at first fearing the Paris traffic but soon finding out that the city is kind to cyclists, with cycle lanes everywhere and fairly respectful drivers. Not something you would get in London, where you would be nuts to cycle.

After a night in the bar meeting some interesting characters - including a Norwegian, blues-singing barman and a French-speaking Japanese chap (you don't meet many of either of them!) I decided it was about time for some culture, and spent three hours in the Louvre in two sessions either side of lunch (the ticket is valid all day, so it's a good idea to break up a visit since there's so much to see else your head will explode from all the culture). It is easily the most varied art museum I had been to, featuring Egyptian, Roman, Greek, Arab and European works of art from sculpture to pottery, paintings to metalwork and everything else in between; the collection is immense. Not to forget featuring a famous picture of some plain Jane bint called Lisa and an equally well-known sculpture of a woman with no arms, of course...

After the Louvre, I needed to balance my culture-o-meter, so paid a visit to McDonald's to balance the scales again. It was on the Champs-Elysees though (free wifi as well in that branch!). I marched up the rest of the road to say hello to the Arc de Triomphe and swung by the Eiffel Tower to complete the Obligatory Tourist Circuit, but found the summit was closed so I decided to leave it til tomorrow.

I was the 30th person to the summit that day, and I crapped myself all the way. The lift is cunningly glass, so you can see Paris falling away from you slowly, and since the tower is also full of gaps it gave a not-altogether safe feeling. I hate heights anyway, so this was good training for me, but I was glad to reach the solid safety of the observation level. The views were rather hazy - the morning mist hadn't yet cleared - but where the sun was on the city, the mist had been evaporated away and the building were more visible.

Paris had surprised me - in a good way. My opinions of France were rather low after my experiences in Normandy, but Paris was a wonderful place: elegant but with an edge as well, and vibrant without the clamour and crush of London. I had rather fallen for the place.

Now... if only they didn't speak French there... it'd be perfect :)

Week 2: I like to ride my bicycle

worldnomad — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Whilst on the train bound for the southern British city of Portsmouth - the only British island city, fact fans - I received some great news that kick-started the second phase of my Lack of Plan, which was to cycle and train it to Berlin. The day before I left, I had ordered a mountain bike at a Portsmouth cycle store, and according to the chap on the other end of the phone it was now ready for me to pick up. The timing was perfect: I could swing by the store and make the evening ferry crossing to France.

Leaving Portsmouth & Southsea train station like a man possessed, and with A-Team-like efficiency, I hiked to the ferry terminal and bought a ticket (£45 for me and the bike - not bad for a 10 hour crossing, I thought) then went shopping for the essentials: puncture repair kit, tyre levers, spare inner tubes, stupid looking helmet, before picking up my steed on the other side of town.

I had stopped riding bikes at the age of eleven when I fell off and broke my arm; since then, I had only done a few hours of cycling in Thailand on my last RTW. I hadn't done any training. I didn't even know how to fix a puncture. In short, it was going to be a challenge.

I successfully boarded the ferry via a certain amount of dicing with death in Portsmouth's rush-hour traffic and settled in to my new environment, clocking where the important things were - bar, cinema, where to sleep - and thoroughly enjoyed the crossing, sleeping very well even though I only had a reclining seat, to burst onto the streets of St. Malo, Brittany, France the following morning.

St. Malo was a quaint port, apparently all freshly restored as it got reduced to rubble in the war, but tastefully done. I pedalled out a circuit of the town, old men and children passing me with ease, and by lunchtime my thighs were burning from the exertion, so I checked into the YHA and put my feet up a bit, chatting with my roommate, an older, retired chap who was motorbiking around France. He shared the opinion of my friends and family, which was to cycle Continental Europe in Winter was just a tiny bit nuts.

Later that day I got my first puncture. I put off the job of repairing it until the next morning, and it took me a good hour and several inventive swearwords to fix it, but by mid-morning I was ready to ride again.

I followed the Brittany coast - stick to the coast, I thought, it'll be nice and flat - passing into Normandy and slowly seeing the island citadel of Mont St. Michel unveiling itself from the haze. I based myself in the largest nearby town, Pontorson, and grabbed a room in a rundown hotel, the type with peeling paint, rattling pipes and worn carpets.

That evening I dined in my tumbledown room on fresh baguette, duck pate and brie, washed down with a few glasses of French red wine. It was perfect.

The next day, somewhat aching from my 40km ride, I pedalled out to the coast and across the causeway to Mont St. Michel. It was an immense sight, built up like a fortress with the Abbey sat on top, pride of place. The lower levels had the usual tourist tripe shops - to be expected - and I look a long time examining some of the cushions they had on sale in one shop, since there just happened to be a warm air vent nearby: it was blimmin' cold outside.

I roamed over the battlements and enjoyed the views back to Pontorson and out over the English Channel, or la Manche as it is called here. It cost money to go in the Abbey at the top, and since I was both incredibly tight and not the greatest fan of Christianity I decided to give it a miss, pedalling back to Pontorson with the intention of getting the hell out of it, since it was rather small and uninteresting.

Having been largely separated from the news for over a week I hadn't realised there was a national train strike in France. At the station I found were no trains running from Pontorson; I was stranded.

I had to stay an extra day in Pontorson, which was pretty miserable, both because of the frustration of wanting to push on and because it pissed down with cold rain, which put cycling out of the question. Eventually, the next day I braved some drizzly rain and cycled to the next large town along, Avranches, such was my desire to get out of Pontorson.

There were still no trains, and from Avranches, which was only mildly more diverting than Pontorson, I cycled on again north to Granville, a seaside town, which had more going for it but still seemed to close at around 9pm at night. The only place I could find open was the trusty kebab shop, so I dined in with a kebab and a beer and mulled over the week.

I had enjoyed St. Malo and Mont St. Michel, and also the French food - exquisite, and fully available to those on a budget; there were simple three course meals for only €10. (Oh, and I had also enjoyed the kebabs). The language had been a struggle at first, with me not having spoken any French in 14 years since learning it at school, but I was determined not to use English. Despite this, I still found many French people to be rather unfriendly to me, even rude in some circumstances. It wasn't my fault I was a stupid rosbif; I was as polite and respectful as I could be, and yet I still got a distinctly frosty reception in some places.

All in all, it had been a frustrating week; with the national train strike entering into its seventh consecutive day, I could only get up to Bayeaux with pedal power alone, and given my paltry maximum daily cycling range of 40km that would take days and force me to stop in deadbeat towns such as Pontorson and Avranches - or worse.

I hoped the next week would see an end to the strike, as I was not particularly enjoying my trip at the moment.

Week 1: Walk this way

worldnomad — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 00:00:00 GMT

At 10:45 am on 7th November 2007 I said goodbye to my folks, walked out of my house and turned left. And so my travels started.

I'd been planning to head off on another long stint for a while, and now the time was right: I'd just finished my contracted period at work, I had plenty of savings, and had no commitments: no house, no pets, no kids and no girlfriend. I had just turned 29 and wanted the last year of my twenties to be memorable before the Dark Ages of the thirties - containing such horrors as receeding hairlines, wrinkles and pot bellies - took hold.

I had implied to my folks that I would be catching the bus into the nearest big city east, Bath, but that was too easy, I felt. So I walked there: nine miles of ambling through English villages and countryside. I had never seen my home country through the eyes of a traveller before, and I was eager to see how it looked.

From Bath, at which I met up with a few ex-workmates for a final meal and drink or five, I headed east to Lacock. This charming medieval village was apparently used for a number of locations in the Harry Potter films, or so I learned from the landlady of the local pub. She confided in me that they were only filming the other week for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. However, I didn't linger to take in the sights, as the emphasis for this part of my voyage was more about the walking than the sightseeing. Besides, there were plenty of sights along the way: birds of prey hunting, wild grouse scattering at my approach, and the beautiful rolling landscapes of Wiltshire.

The twenty miles between Lacock and the World Heritage site of Avebury took me over six hours to cover, a lot of it trudging along the grass verge of a busy road. Not the most enjoyable of walks, and I was glad to dive into the nearest Bed & Breakfast to rest. My shoes had started to rub, and I had a blister on my little toe the size of, er, my little toe. (I'll spare you the pictures).

Avebury was located in an extremely historically-important area of the UK. It's most famous for its stone circle (or circles, as there are in fact a few of them). Whilst not as high and mighty as Stonehenge, they are still impressive structures that date back thousands of years, and as a bonus you can wander around and touch the stones, which you can't at Stonehenge. I had a few beers in the local pub that very modestly claims only in small print on the menu that it is the only pub in the world to be located inside a stone circle, and took in the man-made hill, Silbury, and an ancient communal burial site known as a longbarrow dating back 5500 years. That's almost back to the beginning of the creation of the Earth if you happen to be a Creationist...

From Avebury I followed the River Avon downstream, heading South now instead of East as I had been doing so previously, and in doing so cutting across Salibury Plain, where the British Army like to play wargames now and then. As a result you get to see some funny signs that you wouldn't necessarily see in urban areas (other than, perhaps, Moss Side in Manchester).

I based myself at Amesbury, the largest town in the area, and an easy walk to Stonehenge (40 miles down the road from my house and I had never been there), unfortunately part of which required me to traverse the dual carriageway A303. Only in England could a thundering commuter road be built within a site of such historical import as Stonehenge - such shortsightedness. Luckily, when you are on site (having paid your £6.30... I think there is a discount for YHA members), the road is mainly hidden and you don't really notice it that much.

I was extremely lucky with my visit, as it was the off-season but with blue, sunny skies, so the stones sparkled and it wasn't too busy (but still popular). The audio guide was informative at dispelling myths but generally concluded that "...we don't know" what the site was for. Whatever, it looks majestic, even with trucks rattling past in the background.

My final day of walking was to the southern city of Salisbury, full of higgledy-piggledy half-timbered buildings and a towering cathedral. I stayed in the YHA there and met a good few other travellers, pretty much the first I had met since I left a week ago.

So, thoughts on the first week? Bloody tired, having averaged 15 miles a day, but rewarding: my potbelly had definitely gone down a bit. Still, I felt glad to hang up my boots... for a few days at least.