Europe

This was my first backpacking trip. We were away for a month. I was travelling with my friend James, but we met friends of mine and James’ from home as we went and made new ones along the way too. We stayed in youth hostels and had three bags between us. I had my 25l backpack and a satchel for my camera gear and James had a single 20l bag.

We knew roughly where we wanted to go when we flew out but hadn’t really planned past that; past our first week we didn’t have anything booked. The most we stayed in any one place was four days (we did four days in Budapest, Vienna, Prague, Berlin and Verona) and the least amount of time we stayed in any one place was twenty three hours. We arrived in Munich at four in the afternoon on one day and left at three the next day. I didn’t really finish looking around Munich, going to have to go back there at some point.

Our route was a fairly good one, taking us to different places but not spending too much time on the road. We started out in Budapest, then got the train to Bratislava and then on to Vienna. From Vienna we got buses to Prague, Berlin, Munich and then Innsbruck in the Austrian alps. We stayed one night in Innsbruck itself and the next hiked to a mountain hut near(ish) to a town an hour away on the train from Innsbruck. The next day we hiked round and just made it back in time to get the train down to Verona. From Verona we did a day trip to Venice and then got the train across Italy to finish up in Genoa.

Vienna was definitely architecturally my favourite place. Most places bits of the city are nice, but Vienna the whole thing was nice. Really beautiful place. Berlin was probably culturally top; it just oozed cool vibes and seemed to be the “happening” place (for lack of a better way of putting it). Bratislava was our worst experience. I made a very poor call on the accommodation and it kinda ruined it.

Below is a very small (about ten percent) selection of the photos I took whilst we were away. They’re all taken on my Panasonic GF6 using the stock 14-42mm (at micro four thirds) lens (usually with a graduated natural density filter) or an Olympus 9mm bodycap fisheye. Apart from one photo — on a pedalo in Prague — taken on my GoPro.

The pictures are in chronological order. Please enjoy!