Interrail Europa

My first stop in France was Strasbourg. I met a couple of people I had previously met in Vancouver and had a great time being shown around in the city and going to a small local festival, which I would have never gotten too, had I been by myself. 

From Strasbourg I went straight to Paris. Alone arriving to Paris was exciting, since it is one of the cities I, like probably many other people, wanted to go to for a VERY long time. I was lucky enough to be able to stay with a friend there, and of course hit most of the 'must see's' that Paris has. I was lucky enough to also get to some places I would not have seen myself with my friend, and taste some authentic french cuisine - pretty awesome (no snails though - thank you very much!)

While I always tried to speak a bit of French, it seemed that most people didn't want to be bothered with it. Mostly it seemed like people thought I was stupid for even bothering, because why even try if you don't speak it perfectly. After about ten tries, I gave up and communicated the rest of my stay in English. (I did try again in Lyon and Marseilles though).

The travelling around was actually pretty enjoyable, obviously the trains are spectaculary fast, and not to be compared with a certain austrian train system.

My third stop in France was Lyon. Most of my time there, I ended up renting a bike and cycling around town, which turns out was a pretty great way to see Lyon. I quite liked the cultural side of the town, while I did not have the best weather, it was still a great place to see for a couple of days.

The last place in France I went to was Marseilles. Marseilles sort of tore me apart. While I found the town itself to be a bit dirty at that time (since I have not been back I cannot say how it is now!), I loved the beaches and the harbour, and i found the architecture to be quite amazing, the churches were pretty impressive (and I saw a looooot of churches etc in these three weeks).

Alltogether, I really liked France, even though I sadly, as mentionned, was not able to talk French as much as I had planned to. I had not really spoken that much for a while, so when I actually tried to speak, I also ended up throwing some Italian in the mix, and that overall left everybody thinking I had no clue. I did understand most things though, and when in France the next time, I won't give up as easy as I did then...

 My trip from France to Spain was all sorts of memorable. Due to a delay on the first train, the next part on the journey was done with bus, and I almost missed the last metro going out in Barcelona as a consequence. Due to my sprint, I did manage to catch it though, and therefor managed to arrive and find my hostel at some point at 1am.

I got a good nights sleep before I went to the airport the next day, where my friend would join me. Even before arriving, I had the feeling that I would really like Barcelona, and the city did not disappoint. It is still in my Top 10 (which is constantly changing).

We were very fortunate with the weather, and add some wine, great food, great company and the general vibe of the city to it, and you get a satisfied me out of the mix. Wheter it was the beaches, the people or the architecture (Sagrada Familia, need I say more?), sooner or later, I'll be back!

Our next stop was Sevilla. We arrived in the afternoon, it was around 40 degrees (or at least felt like it) and of course, nobody was out on the streets. Siesta-Time. Again, it took us a while to find the hostel (I swear, my orientation was a bit off in Spain), and the Hostel also had managed to loose my friends reservation, but when we had that figured out, we signed up for the next pub crawl and had a general good time in Sevilla. While the heat sometimes was too much for me (even at two in the morning, it was way over 30 degrees still!) the city itself was just really picturesque and generally very enjoyable. 

Our last stop in Spain (already!) was Madrid. Of course, we had to visit the capital city as well. After visiting cathedrals and churches everywhere, in Madrid, we decided to go look for trees. (yes, we did see some)  We also had some Churros, did some shopping, went to a market with amaaazing food and hit some flee markets out of the city. Otherwise, we did what every tourist does in Madrid, went to Plaza Mayor, got a picture with Indian Hello Kitty and went out way too early for spanish standards. 

All in all, I'd now say I spent not enough time in Spain, so there's definitly need to go back in the near or far future. Especially since I love the language and am very keen on speaking it fluently. What better way would there be to practice?

On my way to Lissabon, I learned to hate A/C. While the night train was VERY temperature regulated, the outside temperature the next day (obviously, since, well, obviously?!) was not. I learned in in a hard way, sitting in a sightseeing bus for most of the day and almost fainting due to the heat - I have no idea about most of the things I heard there, but I do remember the VERY depressing music they played when they were not talking, and they were not talking a lot.

Lissabon was actually the first time where I went on a Sightseeing bus. I had been in New York before, but I had my metro card, did a couple of walking tours, and just wasn't into the idea of the bus. In Lissabon, we gave it a try. While at that time, I certainly said, NEVER ever, I have to admit that I have since then done it again, but I researched it better. I feel like we picked the worst company, and we were waiting forever until on of the buses of this company came by, and in the meantime, 5 or 6 buses of other companys stopped. At the end of the day, I was sunburned, exhausted and did not really feel like I had seen all too much. Obviously, we had covered a bit of ground, but had it been under different circumstances, I probably would have enjoyed the city much more than I did. I have to say I really liked Lissabon though, once I wasn't sleep deprived anymore, I could really start to enjoy it.

Our last stop in Portugal, and generally in the whole trip was Porto. Unfortunatly, the weather wasn't as nice as it could've been when we arrived, but the city just had such a charm, that I'd always come back there. While we were way past seeing churches at that point, we still did visit some. We also walked by a school where students just got out, and their school uniforms reminded us a lot of Harry Potter, so we had a good laugh about that. Generally speaking though, the buildings, built so close together, with sometimes really tiny doors were just really beautiful and we found a nice ending of our trip, in a lovely restaurant, where we ended up to an American couple about Macchu Picchu, over a bottle of wine.