A Brief Introduction
Well hello there! For my first post I thought I would reminisce about better times, before dialling back to my usual cynically sarcastic self. So I’m going to throw back to a European trip that my friends and I went on two years ago.
For this I’ve got to cast my mind back to August 2017 – I’ve just stripped out of the cap and gown, made my way back down from Lancaster to London and had my entire future ahead of me. Time to get a job perhaps? Perhaps not! Time to put off the future, pause the student-to-working-adult transformation and have a bloody good time whilst we still could.
First things first though I think now would be a good time for brief introductions:
- Karl – Me. I’d describe myself as a laid-back, decent person with a brilliantly bad sense of humour. World leader in slow eating.
- Annie – Skilled filmstress, keen gamer and queen of all things make-up and cosplay. Excels in pushing herself out of her comfort zone, being an absolute bae and supreme empathy. Weakness: Lactose.
- Jake – Proud Yorkshireman, keen gamer and one of the first people I met at uni. Extremely reliable, organised and all-round good guy. Also a master of engineering and all things vroom.
- Laura – My girlfriend, keen gamer (Do I sense a theme?) and the most patient woman in the world. Favourite foods include ‘I don’t mind’ and ‘You choose’. Special talents: rotating the duvet mid-sleep.
- Quentin – Keen gamer and beer wizard. Otherwise unknown.
We had planned this trip for a long time before graduating with a fair few meetings, dodgy takeaways, shared documents and spreadsheets (ALL HAIL THE SPREADSHEETS). Jake, being the proud son of Yorkshire that he is, pointed out that to get the best value for money with the interrail pass we could use all seven of our travel days travelling to different countries and we could just fly home from our last destination. So we did, and this is how the route panned out:
- Lyon, France [2 Days]
- Milan, Italy [3 Days]
- Vienna, Austria [3 Days]
- Zagreb, Croatia [3 Days]
- Budapest, Hungary [3 Days]
- Prague, Czech Republic [4 Days]
- Munich, Germany [4 Days]
Before I get stuck in, just a little disclaimer – this trip happened around two years ago and my memory well…it’s going to be hazy.
Stop 1: Lyon – The Gastronomic Capital of France
As this is the gastronomic capital of France where better to start than the food we indulged in whilst we were there? We treated ourselves at all the local favourites, Le McDo, Domino’s Pizza and the kebab shop down the road. In all honesty we probably overlooked the food side of Lyon but we instead got to grips with the city itself through a LOT of walking, public transport (once we figured out how to use it) and a late evening river cruise on our final day – for the full ‘Treat yo’self’ experience.
As this was our first stop we were understandably in awe of it all and spent the start of our trip aimlessly walking around to points of interest on the map. This turned out to be quite a good way of discovering what the city had to offer but we did tire quite easily after a day in the scorching French sunshine, so we decided to look up cheap free activities that Lyon had to offer which led us to a museum. For the life of me I can’t recall a single exhibit but I do remember all of it being housed in what looked like the picturebook definition of modern architecture – a strange marriage of steel and glass and more angles than A-level geometry.
My personal favourite aspect of this stop was the Parc de la tête d’Or (Park of the Golden Head) – a lovely green space to walk around with floral gardens, a central lake and a zoo. Walking around in that park in perfect weather truly drove home the meaning of this trip to me: wandering around Europe without a care in the world alongside some of my closest friends.
We ended our time with an evening cruise along one of two rivers found in Lyon, which gave us an alternate perspective on the city we had just spent the last couple days exploring. It was particularly interesting seeing the transition downstream from the old historic French city – with all of its forts, churches and old architecture – to the more global, modern hub of the city – where you can find shopping centres and a building designed to look like a cheese grate, and the Eiffel Tower’s neglected little brother.
Looking back at it now Lyon proved to be an ideal starting point for our trip. It was pedestrian friendly, the public transport was easy enough to understand and the city itself was absolutely gorgeous with enough home comforts so we didn’t feel too overwhelmed.
Side notes:
- Although I loved the Parc de la tête d’Or, I was slightly disappointed there wasn’t a Rick-and-Morty-esque giant golden head in the middle.
- French McDonalds > English McDonalds. Le McChicken actually has seasoning on it and the fries aren’t constantly undercooked.
K-Logs 