Day Twenty One - Munich

My final full day of the trip consists mainly of me languishing in front of the Olympics on Eurosport in the hostel.



Having no money in a foreign country is a slightly worrying prospect, especially when your phone is out of battery and the only way of communicating with the outside world is email, which itself costs one euro per twenty minutes.



Fortunately, the hostel lays on legitimately free tea and not so legitimate free bread and fruit (purloined from the open kitchen window) and so I wile away the best part of the day reading and scribbling some notes against a backdrop of basketball and weightlifting with German commentary. How Romantic.

i finally drag my sorry self out into the streets to be met by throngs of bustling tourists, clogging up the Marienplatz hoping to catch a glimpse of the Rathaus' clock striking the hour. The heretofore good weather was swiftly supplanted by a humid downpour and I am forced to take shelter in the colonnades of the Hofbrauhaus.

This was tantamount to Chinese water torture - listening to the grey rain spatter on to the cobblestones as I, dripping wet, stared through the window at at rotund Bavarian couple enjoying foaming litres of beer and a suspiciously large sausage.

Coming to the conclusion that I manage to get by without much money and with much temptation in London all the time, I wander back to the hostel and spend my last five euros on a couple of beers in front of Eurosport. That I've already watched Poland lose to China in the women's volleyball three times today does little to brighten my mood.

The final irony as I trudge to my night train is that tonight - the one night I can't be sociable and meet new people - appears to be the friendliest night so far. Three separate parties (several American men, two American women and an Australian couple) approach me offering to buy drinks and issuing invites for a night on the tile. There is, I hope, no discernible pity in their faces.

Where were all the nice young people yesterday, when I wandered the sedate Munich streets in the vain hope of meeting a drinking buddy, before giving up early and reading in bed?

My compartment is full, there is nowhere to put my feet owing to a large woman's even larger bag blocking the floor, and an eminently punchable Dutchman will not stop fidgeting.

Day Twenty - Munich

Or München, if we're concerned with semantics. München has far more echoism; as the Baverians certainly know how to eat. And drink.

The last time I came here the 2006 World Cup was in full flow. I went to the Allianz Arena to see Germany take on Sweeden and I am not ashamed to say that, at least for one gloriously treacherous day, I was an honorary Germany supporter.

I make no apologies for this. Speaking to an Irish ex-pat this evening confirmed by incling that German's outperform the English in almost every sphere. The one possible exception being humour.

"Nothing troublesome ever happens in this town," beams Morris, a graphic designer who followed a woman over here six years ago and sees no reason to go back to Ireland. "If there are a group of Germans following you, the most they're gonna get you with is shouts of "Bad example!". If they do want trouble, just cross the street on a red man sign and they'll wait until it turns green to chase you," he said.

They have better beer. This is non negotiable. I sat in the English Garden (more on that to come) with a stein (one litre of fresh Helles lager) and certainly didn't feel the need to fight my neighbour - the carry from the bar had worn out my biceps.

They have better culture, classically speaking of course. Think Kant, Nietzsche, Schoepenhauer, Marx and Engels etc. Then think Beethoven, Strauss, Wagner, Brahms, Bach and Handel. These are to name but a few. They have 100 nobel prize winners, second only to the US.

I shall relent, before my father cuts me clean out the will but you get the point. In England the beer garden and kiosk culture would be unsustainable. There would be fights, breakages and petty disputes galore. But not in die Motherland.

I arrive at Munich Hauptbahnhof insanely early and bang on time (thanks German efficiency) and after a badly needed shower at the hostel set off for a stroll, the streets still empty as the lemon sun begins to spread its light.

The cathedral, which I've been in before, never ceases to amaze me, particularly its 'devil footstep'. The story goes that when the church was completed, the devil wandered in for a nosy. Where he has standing, the sight of the footstep, was a unique position in the church as from there on windows at all are visible. The devil apparently muttered some jibe about there not being much use for a building with no windows before a no-doubt slightly embarrassed altar boy pointed out that, yes Your Evilness, there are in fact many windows and if you'd be so kind as to take one step forward, you'll see them.

Annoyed by his rashness and stupity, the devil stamped his foot and left in a huff. The diva.

As it was a glorious day I went for a walk in the English Garden, one of Europe's largest urban green spaces. It's beautiful, with shaded walkways of dappled light intersecting rolling green pastures dotted with, er, lots of naked people.

Apparently it's the rule rather than the exception to srip off entirely to sunbath in the Garden and this proved emphatically the case as I walked through, averting my gaze from leathery tanned men doing naked lunges next to piles of meticulously folded clothes.

I even saw a naked man riding a bike. This, I thought was brilliant because it must have been done for pure pleasure. You do not ride a bike in the nim to get from A to B, there is no reason for doing it, just sheer, unadulterated pleasure. If an alien landed on earth and asked my to explain the meaning of "leisure" I would point him in the direction of the tanned cowhide on wheels. Then advise him not to use the bike afterwards.

I trawl the area around the Hauptbahnhof in a vain search for the Charity shield match. Bloddy Setanta. Even places advertising the game didn't have a subscription. I watched the Olympics, but it wasn't the same, even if USA vs China basketball was probably a far better game.

I eat alone (boo hoo) at a small beerhall down a secluded alley and drink beer from a pewter-topped tankard under the shadows of a weepong willow. That should be something Göetherian to rouse the soul, but I find myself at a loss.

I always considered myself relatively at ease in my own company (God knows I spent enough days at home watching Diagnosis Murder reruns) but it's harder in a big city. I don't feelin inclined to communicate with the scores of drunken, high-fiving Americans ("Yo man, it's like Europe, we can do whatever we want?") so I climb into a stuffy bunkbed and listen to them through the paper-thin drywall instead as I try to sleep. The lesser of two evils, I think.

Day Nighteen - Belgrade to Zagreb

Belgrade train station must seem unforgiven at the best of times. Its concrete facades have the dinge of neglect and the pistachio green pillars bearing the 'Belgrade' sign can't have seen a lick of paint since the break up of Yugoslavia.



Today, however, it looks especially bleak, under siege as it is from a formless, slate grey sky and a steady streamy of arrow straight rain.



I run for the cover of the International ticket office (there are no apologies that our train was over three hours late arriving this morning) and soon wish I'd have stayed in the sopping wet.



The woman at the desk is simply not cut out for the service industry. I ask for the price for a couchette to Venice, and she simply shrugs moodily, as if I've asked her for advice on my premium bonds. I see a price guide closed on her desk and gesture to it. She snaps at me, claiming I should know. I'm tired and have nowhere to go in a hurry, so I decide to irritate her a little more.



It's like poking a starved pitbull as I stand there and continue to ask in different tones about the train to Bergamo (knowing full well there is no such route). She eventually relents, takes off her glasses and, with perfect straight face, confounds me with her heretofor unproven English grasp:

"Fuck off you."

She calmly draws the blind and there is to be no service whatsoever from the International ticket desk today, much to my amusement and fellow commuters' annoyance.

I wait for five hours with no money (as I've broken my card the smallest denomination of euros at my disposal is a 50 and I'm not about to change this all into Serbian. The rain continues to pour down and, just as I think the day can't get any more mundane and miserable, the announcement comes that there shall be no trains to Venice today. At all.

I board the night train to Munich which stops at Zagreb along the way and takes its sweet time doing. There are no sleeper carriages so I sit huffily as an unwashed Frenchman sits unceremoniously opposite. The Croatian lady next to him is cleary unimpressed and her impressions could hardly improved as said smelly Frenchman bites salaciously on an overripe tomato, sending pips and juice flying across her newly starched-white top. Sacre bleu.

The night is long in coming and stubborn in passing. I feign sleep with my feet arcoss the narrow gap between seats - after two of the rudest, avaricious Austrian girls woke us up because they had nowhere to lay down, so, instead of two people not sleeping, all four of us could now lay distainfully awake. Come back aeroplanes, all is forgiven!

Day Eighteen - Sofia

I share a draughty compartment with two Dutch guys who, for reasons that remain thankfully unknown, are content to talk loudly about sex in English for most of the night.

At Bulgarian passport control I am handed a form by a tired looking officer, belly straining at his belt-buckle, with instructions for visa control. Clause 2.1. states that, "You must presnt this fork whenever prompted by the autharities."

Fortunately, Bulgaria's cutlery centric immigration policy must have been relaxed, for soon we were scudding through the foothills of the Balkan Mountains as a spectacular electrical storm raged on in the distance. Windows, usually rammed open as far as possible in these hot and dusty trains, have to be wedged shut to stop the torrential rain from soaking our papery matresses.

I awake in Sofia, which is fine. The Dutch guys alight and I wait for the train to crank painstakingly into motion on its continuing path the Belgrade. Only it doesn't. My carriage attendent, a new best freind owing to my modelling of Fenerbahce's new away kit, informs me solemnly that there is engineering work taking place on the way to Serbia. It seems nowhere, not even 500 miles from the Euston-Rugby mainline, is immune to the dreaded replacement bus service.

I decide to make the best of the now ten hour delay by seeing a bit of Sofia. Sofia struggles against its mightir northern neighbours of Budapest and Prague, but this little and unlikely fourth capital of Bulgaria (when made capital in 1879, the town had a population of less than 12,000) is engaging and pleasantly strollable.

I have a look at the mosque, the synagogue and a Russian Orthodox church before stumbling, almost literally, across the impressive Alexsander Neksi Cathedral. As I walk pack across a scruffy park, pavement cracks beneath my feet I spy a soviet memorabilia market with soem true gems for sale.

I can't help thinking my friend of Taras 'Not all of Stalin's ideas were bad' Goat as I wander between stalls selling anything from reclaimed cigarette cases to a 1:4 scale broze bust of Stalin. I briefly entertain buying Uncle Joe but my bag is feeling heavy enough without 20kg of dictator weighing it down.

I eat a late lunch in the Sofia Gardens, an attractively quaint strip of lush, landscaped grass ringed by playful fountains, which the locals are not shy about derobing for in order to cool off. Most of Sofia's young are here talking, laughing and comparing mobile phone ringtones as the old men of the town look on disapprovingly over a game or ten of chess.

I trudge back toward the train station actually thankful for a ten hour delay. If something like this had happened in England I would most likely be either apoplectic or incarcerated by now, but Sofia is a worthy entertainer for a day. It's creamy Baroque parliament buildings have a naturally calming hue (even when some protesters sit on the outside steps playing 'Ride of the Valkyries' over an improbably loud PA all afternoon) and its boulevards are thronged with a mixture of shopping women and cafes populated with soothed locals.

Definitely worth a longer visit in the future not least due to the ridiculously low price of food and drink (think 20p a beer).

Back on the train I share my compartment with a longhaired German with one of those really shit, wispy goatees who is, in all seriousness, called Herman. I try to make myself scarce and listen to music as another almighty storm cracks its cheeks, but Herman is clearly not known for his subtlety.

I try to read for a good half an hour as he insists on explaining the inner workings of MP3 files and it takes even longer after I have obviously stopped even grunting a reply, turned off my light and got under the sheets before he relents.

"Do you like any German authors?" he says, spying a book of mine. I answer that I don't know as much as I#d like in terms of fiction, but all the philosophers have their moments.

"Yes, I really like Schoepenhauer."
"I think we'll leave Schopenhauer for another time, Herman," I reply and turn out the lights.

Day Seventeen - Istanbul

My last and Claire's penultimate day in this city and we still don't feel like we've scratched the surface of its vibrant cosmopolitanism and preserved heritage.

I'm not keen but Claire persuades me to take an unofficial tour down the Bosporus which, aside from costing more than the state-recognised trips, seems to take place in a vessel of far more dubious seafaring calibre.

The trip is a relaxed and effective way of seeing the parts of Istanbul that they won't bother showing you from land. As we drift toward the Black Sea we can see large, modern houses, men (never women) diving recklessly into the surly blue river from precipitous balconies and children playing boisterously in leafy parkland.

There are also Turkish flags everywhere you turn. There are more red flags than at the Indy 500 and they serve as an incandescent indicator of this country's fierce patriotism.

We eat fresh mackerel kebabs for just less than a pound and head back to the hotel for that most soul-destroying of tasks: packing.

As we sip our last Efes (the sweet taste of which, I recently found out, can be attributed to the amounts of sugar they add after fermentation) in a side-street bar, a news report comes on the TV.

There are hastily composed shots of wounded men and women and distressed men weeping into the arms of others in the street. The waiter says that four bombs have this morning exploded in the Asian part of town, place we drifted past no less than two hours previous. It's testament to Istanbul's vastness that we can be less than two miles away from an alleged terrorist attack and not have a clue.

I will miss Istanbul, especially as I wile away the uncomfortably warm nights on the trains. It truly is a place city of two worlds, not separate but intermingled to provide a unique atmosphere of extravagance, piety and (except, it seems for tonight) a celebratory tolerance.

Day Sixteen - Istanbul

Today we are in for a treat. The heralded Grand Bazaar, one of the world's leading trading centres since its original construction in the 15th century.

Again by prejudices are severely tested as my preconception of the bazaar's dark, oil-lamp lit alley ways and stalls burgeoning with rugs and hessian sack bound spices proves to be woefully antiquated.

The bazaar, owing to health and safety (yes, we're still in Europe) and taxation laws, is not compartmentalised into individually owned shops, with doors, windows and there own bazaar reference number. I am not a little disappointed that the first thing for sale I see upon entering beneath the east gate's facade is a replica Fenerbahce shirt.

As I am sure is apt for much of commercialsied Istanbul, the bazaar seems to have forgotten some of it's authentic lustre; the shops are clean and straight, too ordered to merit the connotations of a bazaar. It feels like an antiseptic version of the souk in Tangier - there are no smells, virtually no street sellers and, I feel, precious little intimacy.

With still a whiff of disappointment cloying to my as-yet untantalised nostrils, we enter the Aladdin's cave that is the Egyptian Spice Bazaar. Now that's a bazaar. Spices are piled high like multi-coloured snow drifts, huge wheels of Turkish delight and luridly coloured jellied confectionery jostle for space as they stretch towards the Bazaar's tarpaulin roof. And the smell.

The bazaar smells like every curry house, sweet shop and perfumery in Arabia rolled together into one tangy potpourri bomb. Through in some locals getting their weekly spices, sellers laughing and bartering with customers and fellow proprietors alike and you have the 'authentic - although I hate using that word, as it implies that tourism is not indelibly part of many country's present national identity - Istanbul we've been so keen to discover.

We have fresh fish in a restaurant tucked under the Galata bridge, a position that offers views of the ethereal, almost Gaudi-like New Mosque. The food is excellent but the service a little show, most likely due to Fenerbahce's Champions League Qualifier against MTK Budapest blazing out from an over sized television.

Fenerbahce win 5-0 and has no bearing whatsoever on me purchasing their away shirt immediately. I just like the colours, alright?

Day Fifteen - Istanbul

The morning heat comes hard and unrelenting through the hotel window. It's early, but it's impossible to sleep so we skip breakfast to get a peek at the monumental Hagia Sofia, just a short, sweat-soaked walk from our street.

We round the corner to see the queue stretching at least 100 yards back, packed with Japanese fortysomethings with cameras and a pack of bored looking French students dressed in identical orange t-shirts. Istanbul knows what it's like to be burdened by tourists; at the same time these hordes must boost Turkey's inflating economy. One Turkish student we met said that he had gone to the church four weeks ago and paid half of that currently required for admission.

We take the ferryboat across the Bosporus to Uskudan, in the Asian part of town. For some reason I am disappointed to find out that the part of Istanbul on another continent is - well, the same.

The main plaza is populated with old men seeking shade, gesticulating to one another and smoking every cigarette as if it's their last. Woman in headdresses push prams with brightly robed toddlers and hawkish street sellers approach you with everything from Handmade Ottoman rugs to miniature rubix cubes.

The mosques call for prayer as we catch the ferry to Besiktas, home of 'New Istanbul's' most bustling area, Taksim.

After asking for directions to the suicially piloted minitaxi to get us from the port, I am casually accosted by a man wanting to shine my shoes, which are white and made from canvas. I protest to little avail and he plants my foot atop his decorative shine box before massaging my scuffed, greying trainers with a toothbrush and whitening cream that smelt suspiciously of Colgate.

I laugh as it is being done, not so much due to the stupidity of polishing canvas shoes than the fact the whole process tickles me profoundly. Finished, feet wettened and having any prior knowledge of the shoe-shine industry turned on its head, I reluctantly pay what must have been well over the odds.

We spent the afternoon strolling in and around some of Galatasaray's main streets, with the best shops to be found just off the beaten track, wherein prices decrease by roughly a half. Throughout the trip, I had been banking on Istanbul being an inexpensive sanctuary from the exorbitant prices we've encountered in most of Europe's capital cities. So far, this hasn't proved to be the case an, as I helpfully earlier sat down with my buttocks plush on my only functioning card, I might find myself having to pay those Turkish waiters in kind.

Ended the night with shisha and baklava which, although extortionate, were lovely and served by possibly the best educated waiter I've ever met, him being a PhD student in statistics. It must have been him that set the prices.

Day Fourteen - Istanbul

The vıews of the Sea of Marmara comıng ınto Sırkeçı statıon have been assocıated wıth the exotıc ever sınce the fırst traın arrıved from Parıs ın 1885 on the Orıent Express.

Now rather sorry-lookıng and decıdedly smaller than I had hoped, the statıon stıll has an aır of excıtement and opulence. Thıs ıs Istanbul, the place where two rıvers, two seas and two contınents converge.

Havıng been at the cusp of dıverse cıvılızatıons for two and a half thousand years, Istanbul ıs every bıt as culturally and hıstorıcally rıch as I'd hoped. More ımportant, however ıs the fact that ıt really feels lıke a radıcally dıfferent cultural rıchness compared wıth the former Sovıet satellıte states we have prevıously passed through.

There are more people ın Istanbul than ın London, Manchester and Bırmıngham put together and the place sprawls away from the old town centre, Sultanahment (home of the eponymous mosque,) throughout the Golden Horn and north through Beyoglu dıstrıcts as well as east across the Bosphorus ınto Aısa.

The problem created by Istanbul's staggerıng cultural vırılıty ıs where to start explorıng. As you may have guessed from the blog's pıcture, I have been hankerıng after a trıp to the Blue Mosque.

It ıs every bıt as staggerıng as ıt looks ın pıctures, and more. We arrıved ın ıts marble courtyard, worn smooth over the centurıes by countless cıtızens and pılgrıms, just ın tıme for the one o'clock call to prayer.

An placid quıet descends as the Iman belts out in haunting tone, soundıng both melqancholıc and resoundıngly uplıftıng. The varıatıons of pıtch and nuanced tımıng - no doubt aggrevated by the over-amplıfıed speaker system adornıng the mınarets - makes the call sound inhuman, lıke a skıllfully played bow.

These calls are delıvered at 05:00, 07;00, 13:00, 17:00 and 22:00 and, ınspıte of the tangıbly tranquılıty on the streets durıng theır delıvery, lıfe very much coıntınues as normal ın thıs offıcıally secular republıc.

Lıfe as normal, ıt seems, for Istanbulıans ınvolves workıng every hour God sends. Shops hardly ever shut, market traders (even elderly women) shuffle languıdly wıth bags bıgger than themselves and restauranters ınsatıably accost passers-by wıth 'specıal dıscounts'.

ıf there ıs a mıllıon bars, cafes and restaurants ın Istanbul, I would not be at all surprısed. Down every cobbled alley and leafy staırway are hoards of waıters and barmen ready to fıshhook you ınto theır establıshment. The servıce sector works hard and ıt works long.

After a meze north of Sultanahmet, Claire and I got talkıng to a lovely but shıfty cafe owner, called Tan. Hıs Englısh ıs good (he lıved ın Dunstable, so he knows all about the fruıts of my country) and I ask hım about the crazy hours that all servıce sector staff seem bound by.

Hıs famıly owners a hotel ın Galatasaray, and after he has fınıshed helpıng hıs parents there, usually at around mıdnıght, he comes and works wıth hıs uncle at the coffee house.

"In Turkey, you work because you have the heart to work," he says. "Every Turk comes from a bıg, bıg famıly, so you help out the people you love. If I need a car, ıf I need 10,000 lıra, my famıly wıll provıde ıt. You work for love, not for money."

Untıl now I had consıdered workıng just for love somethıng you advertıse for wıth busıness cards ın phoneboxes, but after talkıng to Tan, I couldn't help wonderıng ıf the Brıtısh are too hasty to dıfferentıate between work and rest.

Rest I must though and I sleep lıke a dead cow ın a bed that ısn't travellıng at 50mph.

Day Thirteen Bucharest to Turkish Border

For the next 22 hours we will be sat in this fuggy, damp smelling compartment on the slowest train in the known world. It will stop at every station along the way, making a laborious process even more mundane. There is to be no getting off the train and no restaurant car.

We share our six bed sleeper compartment with an elderly Romanian couple (good thing too as the man has a bag of pears larger than the draw for the FA Cup 3rd round and I forgot to buy any fruit) and a lovely young Italian couple who keep themselves nobly to themselves.

We cross into Bulgaria through a nondiscript, industrialised abandoned town (a depressingly common sight on this trip) and stutter over the vast Danube on a rickety steel bridge.

Passing through Bulgaria the landscape changes from marshy delta plains to densely forested hills, via the now ubiquitous fields of dried up sunflowers.

We stop for a while at a namless station for the front half of the train to split on its way to the Agean Sea. I ask a rotund attendent if I have time to dash across the tracks to buy water and beer from a rundown kiosk. He looks nervously at his watch and says that the train leaves in three minutes and he will hold it if it starts to move prematurely.

Run for my life across several tracks only to find that, unsurpisingly, they don't take Romanian notes in Bulgarian paltform kiosks. Sprint back and dive in the door to detect a glint of mischief in the attendents watery eyes. The train's not leaving for another half hour, he chuckles to me.

We are forced to make friends with some terribly noisy Dutch students in the nearby carriage and we polish off the Hungarian wine Claire has been dutifully lugging along since Eger.

As the sky fades in a pale magenta sunset, the moon rises as a perfect crescent slither. Somehow fitting I think, as we head towards a 95% Islamic 'secular' country.

We have finally done it. We've got to Istanbul.

Photos - Eger, Brasov, Bran

The Romanıan flag flutters agaınst a broodıng sky

Me ın Europe's narrowest street. Apparently

Our Brasov 'Boulevard'

The raın comes down at Budapest Statıon

Claıre checks out some Eger street art wıth wıne ın resolute grasp

Bran Castle. Dracula was nowhere to be found

Claıre and I sample some Hungarıan wıne ın Alex's cavernous cellar

Day Twelve - Bran to Bucharest

The coach to Bran ıs hot and full. Its so hot that the plastıc seals on the wındows are begınnıng to relax and soften. It's so full that there ıs not a sıngle square ınch of ıts ınterıor that ısn't currently occupıed by human flesh. So how those fıfteen loud schoolchıldren are goıng to fıt on, I'm at a loss.

Arrıvıng at Bran, schoolchıldren and all, we see the ınfamous Bran Castle, allegedly the buıldıng upon whıch Bram Stoker based Count Dracula's castle.

(Pedants, before you say that Dracula never lıved there, two thıngs: Vlad Dracula ('Son of the Dragon' probably only vısıted breıfly at some poınt ın the fıfteenth century. Dracula the fıctıonal, undead character ıs an artıstıc ınventıon and so could have lıved wherever the hell he lıked. So ıt ıs Dracula's castle as far as we're concerned.)

It sıts atop a rocky precıpıce and casts a menacıng shadow over the town below. But ıt ısn't nearly as Gothıc, or as ıntımıdatıng as I'd ımagıned. The walls are light and clean, many of which adorned with ornate lettering. The turrets, far from being black and gargoyled, are in fact of an earthy terracotta, putting you more in mind of Tuscany than Transylvania/

The castle was still inhabited by Queen Marie of Romania until 1948 and there is a tasteful reconstruction of this time in the castle museum. From the evidence, it seems that the royalfamily were intent to live within the existing structure and tastes of the building/

As pleasant as the leafy veranda and shaded coutyards were, I couldn't help imagine how it might feel to spend a night there in the middle of winter, wind and rain buffetting the turrets. Quite Gothic indeed.

The town of Bran, lamentably but unsurpisingly is overrun with tacky tourist stalls, shops and sellers. As the disapproving castle looks down you can, among tour groups and jostling schoolchildren, find Dracula masks, Dracula mugs and vials of "Human Blood" which are actually bottles of pretty drinkable Pinot Noir.

Bran is of course touristy and uncouth, but the beautifully understated castle is well worth the sweaty bus trip. I urge people to come and, although you wont find any vampires, you can sure indulged your darker imagination.

We get the train to Bucharest, on which there are no spare seats and watch out the window as the Carpathians become far more pronounced, rising and plunging like a heartrate monitor graph.

Thickly forrested undulations eventually placate to rolling plains of withered sunflowers, millions of heads bowed, as if in mourning.

What with the pickpockets and some of the town's 100,000 stray dogs sniffing around, Bucharest Gara de Nord is not a pleasant place to spend the night. So we don't.

Instead we spend most of the night looking for a hostel which we have no idea how to find. We eventually fall prostrate before some good, Romanian and English speaking samaritans and check in before flaking out after a long and ridiculously hot day.

Photos - Prague, Bratıslava, Budapest

Men play chess at publıc baths ın Budapest

The vıew across the Danube from Bratıslava Castle

The sıde of Bratıslava Cathedral, a lıttle worse for wear

The Charles Brıdge at nıght, backgrounded by Prague Castle

Day Eleven - Brasov

I slept predicably poorly, partly due to the undulating mattress and unyielding pillow, which felt like a bag of flour, and partly because we were woken three times during the night for passport checks. Considering we only crossed one border, I either have to commend Romanian immigration for their thoroughness or berate them for their pedantry. Either way, the view that greeted my blearly eyes at dawn this morning made it more than worth the trouble.



A livid red sun bled slowly across the sky, transforming the air above the sweeping hills from gunmetal to azure to a pale lemon. Black fields scuttled by the window and every so often a farmer on a horse drawn cart would drift past, reminding me why I'd been so keen to get to Transylvania on this trip.

Brasov traın statıon typıfıes the Eastern European approach to customer servıce. They shout at you ıf you don't have the rıght change and bang theır flabby fısts on the desk ıf you accıdentally hold up other customers because your Romanıan ısn't upto a graduate level. And thıs ıs just the Informatıon desk.

Our accomodatıon ıs owned and loosely tended by an esoterıc Hungaraın couple, the woman of whıch proceeds to explaın to me, ın Hungarıan, the entıre lıfe story of her dodgy knee whılst apologısıng for the lack of runnıng water. That the whole of our street - presently dug up and so resemblıng a back alley ın Bogota - ıs also wıthout water comes as lıttle consolatıon after 16 hours on a stuffy traın.

Brasov ıs compact, tourısty and laıdback, wıth most of ıts bars and cafes clustered around the Old Town Square where the super Gothıc Black church looks dıstaınfully down upon the town. There are more pızza parlours than I,ve seen anywhere ın Italy, further proof that the Romanıans are a Latın people and apparently quıte proud of ıt.

We take a rıckety, alarmıngly fast cable-car up to the top of one of Brasov's steep, forrested foothılls and the vıews from the top are astoundıng. Lookıng down at the townhouses wıth theır terracotta slate rooves remınds me of the vıew you get from Florence's Duomo. Only dracula (probably) never vısıted there.

As we get back down to earth there are several TV vans parked on the srcuffy grass verge wıth a weary-lookıng polıce offıcer gıvıng patıent ıntervıews to swarthy reporters. Apparently Brasov has made the natıonal news. Yesterday, at just before fıve o'clock a few metres from where we had been amblıng, a 25 year old Romanıan man was eaten by a bear.

An Apology

Dear Reader(s)

I must apologise for the sporadic nature of my posts. Tracking down good connections once you get east of Prague is like foraging for truffles - search for ages and when you find one it smells suspiciously of wet socks.

I will also definitely get some pictures up on the blog as soon as I can. Not many of the computers I've seen have USB ports still functioning. Do stick around though, there are some good ones, even better than 'ClaireGreggsgate'.

Finally, after news of the bombings in Istanbul, and owing to the risk of potential death, we have reluctantly decided to....... go ahead anyway and take advange of the terror to nab a decent bed for once.

Sorry again and speak soon xx

Day Ten - Budapest

Up too early and my head lets me know about it. We have been asked (I think) by our hostess to vacate the room by 10am so we head into town to buy breakfast. Today will be one of those transition days, fun in parts but difficult to escape the amount of travel that needs doing.

Before we eat fruit and yoghurt and the ubiquitous cheese, bread and sausage, I take Claire to a building I had read about a while ago.

It's Eger's 17th century minaret, and supposed to be the northernmost remnant today of the Ottoman Empire and its architecture. At 40 metres high it's not exactly a leviathan of Eastern European architecture, but its 97 stairs are crammed so tightly into a miniscule spiral staircase that it makes climbing the thing pretty frightening.

I've never considered myself a vertigo or claustrophobia sufferer, but this ascent go my chest tight and my palms clammy. The views were worth it though, once I'd stopped feeling dizzy.

We wandered round Budapest for a while or, more specifically, Buda, the Roman side of the city to the west of the gushing Danube. It's comfortably twice as wide as the Thames in London, so wide in fact that the Roman's didn't even attempt to cross it. Buda was therefore the Easternmost point of their empire.

Castle hill offers breathtaking panoramas across the flatter land of Pest and, gazing down onto the clogged streets, busy river and majestic steeples and spires, the city bares a good resemblance to London.

Budapest, once the centre of Europe during the heady Austro-Hungarian days and the capital of a far larger landmass, still retains much of its grandeur and swagger. Some of its buildings are easily as impressive as you'd find in Milan or Paris. It is certainly a place I would like to dedicate more time to in the future. It has the pleasing air of a city that, although having falling wildly from its zenith of power and position, still thinks of itself as great.

As we walk to our last traditional Hungarian restaurant the heavens open once again and the noise of the rain hammering on the glass roof of Kelenti station is haunting.

We return, my belly full of the largest plate of fried potatoes ever constructed, to the station and wait for the 23:25 overnight Eurocity Express to Bucharest. 'Express' not being the operative word.

Day Nine - Eger

The train north east to Eger, after scudding out of Budapest's concrete suburbs, opens up to flat, golden plains of wheat and barley fields. Scruffs of ash trees cluster around the numerous rivers and steams, and the gound is flecked with splashes of wild flowers.

Eger is home to the so called "Valley of Beautiful Women" and is where most of Hungary's wine is grown and produced. Whether the sweeping hills are home to particularly attractive ladies, or that those ladies merely appear so after the locals' heroic intake of wine, I couldn't decipher.

We are staying with a middle aged lady with a large, round face and quick grey eyes. She speaks no English and so our conversation falls into farce, with each of us repeating the same phrase in our native tongue, slightly louder and slower each time. The room is lovely, in the northern suburbs of the town on a street lined either side with weeded piazzas. It is also staggering distance to the wine-making region.

It's late, so Claire and I decide to cut our losses and head direction to the valley of inebriation which, according to our guidebook, is populated by tightly packed rows of individual wineries, the occupants of which will fill any container you bring along for about one pound a litre.

If the first winery looks like someone's house, then that's because it is. We ring the bell and a man walks out of his back door rubbing his inflated belly as if it were a pet. His name is Alex, and he has a moustache that would make Stalin blush.

I stutter my other Hungarian word, voros meaning "red" and Alex nonchalantly lets us through the back gate before leading us down into his hidden, mercifully cool wine cellar. It is cavernous.

Either side of a brick-lined collonade are huge wooden barrels, each easily a metre in diameter, scrawled with numbers in white paint.

Using a decorative glass pump, operated by suction from his mouth, Alex draws some blood red liquid from a vat and fills up two glasses. These are 'tasters', and we have four large ones each before we decide that we liked the first one. Alex lets me have a go at operating the pump and filling our platic water bottles as he, assuming himself out of sight, quietly necks half a litre of fresh Reisling.

We pick up vegetables from the market and cook goulash (what else) as the ferdent valleys recieve a pounding of dark rain. Under a canopy we sip our newly aquired wine and enjoy a firework show of electical storms raging across the river. This is more like it.

After taking in nothing but capital cities - all of which have been delightful if a little sanitised - it's nice to finally see a bit of rural Eastern Europe, free from cosmopolitan crowds. I'd like to say its the feeling of tranuility taken from our village idyll that sends me so soundly to sleep but I'd only be kidding myself to not but this down to the excellent and ample Hungarian wine.

Day Eight - Budapest

Budapest Kelenti station resembles St Pancras, were it slightly smaller and had never recieved a lick of fresh paint since it was built.

Walk through the opulent dome of the main shed and notice the cracked yellow plaster and gold-leaf paint flaking from sturdy platform lamps. It has the air of a city past its once great peak.

The smell of paprika and tobacco smoke is mingled with spices and coffee - which men drink acrid from tiny plastic cups as they play chess - wafts through the bustling terminus. For the first time on the trip, a whiff of the Ottoman Empire is tangible.

Our hostel is located in a quiet, grass-fringed side street in Central Pest. Next door is a second-hand English bookshop with the smallest opening hours imaginable. Perhaps business is slow.

Budapest is famous for, among other things, its thermal springs, several of which are directed into one of the city's numerous public baths. We take the metro to Széchenyi Fürdő, one of Budapest's largest. It has nine pools ranging in temperature from 55 to an icy 18 degrees. As well as saunas and steam rooms galore the baths house medicinal pools which smell like old sea water and have an unfortunate sediment floating that looks like flakes of skin.

Refreshed and charmed by an old man in speedos and a gold medallion, bronzed belly straining at the elastic, we head back to Pest for some food.

Off the main streets are the best place to find traditional Hungarian fare which, according to the book, consists of far more than just goulash) although there is lots of that). We clamber down into a brick-lined wine cellar decoraded with homemade tablecloths and plump, decorative cushions adorning two rows of wooden benches. Four Hungarian men sit nursing beers, their slick black hair relfecting the bluish curls of cigarette smoke.

Without warning, a heavy set, braodly smiling woman charges towards us, her flabby arms open as if we are about to embrace. She looks like every other Hungarian grandmother I've so far seen. Our conversation goes breifly as follows:

"Hello, you like Hungarian food? Very good, chicken and vegetable. One chicken, one vegetable, very good? Yes?"

Before I have a chance to refuse she is off and, after some frantic stirring and suspicious sounding microwave pings, she is back with two plates of steaming Hungarian food, washed down with palinka, a homemade plum brandy of deceptive potency.

Two of the men amble over to the snugly hidden piano and began playing music. I assume it's for us, as we are the only two diners there. I raise my ears in the hope of hearing some genuine Hungarian folk music, to go with our authentic as you like food. Imagine my disappointment when the pair strike up "When You Fall In Love."

We cross the Danube to a venue that is, in the summer months at least, a 24 hour festival. Live acts and DJs bring out Budapest's young and energetic. Tonight seems to be a tribute to Sum 41 and other American Teenage Punk. It's amazing how dining to Audrey Heller can make even the direst music palatable.

Day Seven - Bratislava

The capital of Slovakia is somewhere I've never managed to imagine. Although I've never been to San Francisco or Miami, I can picture their tram-lined streets and beach side bars. But I really didn't know what to expect from Bratislava.

It's a town spliced by the mighty Danube, dividing inhabitants between the pretty little Old Town in the east and the sprawl of communist concrete blocks that race away westwards to form an alarmingly fragmented cityscape.

The Old Town has wholeheartedly embraced cosmopolitan cafe culture, albeit in a somewhat sedate manner. Through the winding, cobbled alleys and the leafy boulevards, you'd be hard pressed to travel more than ten metres without encountering a cafe.

The eminently strollable centre is overlooked by the mighty Bratislavsky Hrad, the sight of which has housed some sort of fortress since the end of Great Moravia, around 907.

The castle was completely burned to the ground in 1811, owing to "the carelessness of Austrian and Italian soldiers". How rude.

For various reasons (namely regime changes and the Slovakian administrations prevaricating) the rebuilding process wasn't started until 1953. Under Soviet guidance, with all the aesthetic subtlety of a challenger tank, Bratislava gradually regained its castle, at the price of losing any individualism.

The castle today comprises a squat concrete square, adorned on each corner with featureless pillars, turreted in red tile that resemble boring party hats. Mock stone has begun to be arranged on the characterless walls, but this is a laborious and time-consuming process. It could be some time before Bratislavans can once again look up at their castle with pride.

The views from the castle show the other half of Bratislava - homogeneous, high-rise and uninspiring. The best structure on the west side of the river is a bridge genuinely resembling a UFO. I am told a disco is held at the top of its pillar every Saturday.

Whatever else it is, Bratislava doesn't feel like a capital city, any more than it feels like it's in Eastern Europe. Pleasant but unforgettable, Bratislava's laid back feel is, I suspect, somewhat more down to its veneer of Mediterranean cafe culture, rather than its charming cobbled streets and archwayed courtyards.

I'm sure Bratislava has an identity but, in our twenty-four or so hours around the town, Claire and I are at a loss as to what it is.

Day Six - Prague

The sun streaming in through the window wakes us early, which is good, because there is a lot of Prague to see.

We start by picking our way between the throngs of tourists crawling over the Charles Bridge. As I pick my way carefully between sweating Americans and their pudgy, wheezing children, I can imagine what a spectacle the bridge would be when empty. I make a mental note to get up before dawn tomorrow, before immediately scribbling it out.

The Hlad, or Prague castle sits atop a vertiginous bank, occupying the highest point of the city. It is continually visible as you meander along Prague's cobbled alleys and serves as an oddly reassuring presence, as if casting an old and sagacious eye over the lugubrious goings-on of the townsfolk.

Midday sees the changing of the guards at the castle gates, performed by dour looking men in ill-fitting blue uniforms. They march to a tune astonishingly similar to the theme from Thunderbirds.

The Museum of Communism is underwhelming, the highlight of which is a video documenting the lead up to the Velvet Revolution. Narrated in Czech with English subtitles, it helped to add a human realist element to the story's of bravery I had heard so much about. These streets were, until very recently, swarming with baton-happy police and and dissent, even peaceful, would result in intimidation and often imprisonment.

That the museum of Communism is located next to one of the larger McDonald's I've seen provides some well-needed comic relief.

We head out to Prague III, where the 'real' Czech pubs are to be found, far away from tourist eyes. Up a steep incline to the east of the city centre are rows of houses and tower blocks, plaster crumbling and graffiti-tagged several times over. These suburbs sit under the watchful glare of the Communist TV Tower, so grey as to be almost indistinguishable from the clouds that had enveloped the city. Its alien hum provides a monotonous soundtrack for our walk up the hill.

We find some excellent, if a little frosty local bars and before long we are exchanging toasts with the barman in a blues pub, deserted but for a clutch of men playing an increasingly acrimonious card game.

We leave to Tina Turner's dulcet tones and decide on an early night. If the man in the bed next to me snores tonight, I decide, I shall smother him and hand myself in at the earliest opportunity.

Day Five - Berlin to Prague

It's a bit of a jerk to have to leave Berlin. The city is so clean, organised, laid-back, fun-loving and historically rich that in comparison to London, the English capital loses hands down.

Berlin has that unusual mixture of genuine cultural and historical artifacts and stories and solid and sustainable economic robustness. One could go and live in Prague and love its culture but find it difficult to make any headway in global marketplaces. I imagine. The closest I've had to a job recently is running the hoover across the lounge to placate my sister.

Anyway, Berlin is brilliant. So go.

Out of the Hauptbahnhof we cram onto a delayed train to Vienna. Every other moving shape is a backpack. The train is so packed with interailers that it begins to feel like one massive and very chaotically organised tour of Europe.

There are also at least two stag do parties, bedecked in generic matching tops documenting how the stag probably once raped a tramp when drunk. They are bound for the beautiful, inspiring and culturally deep city of Prague. And so are we.

The station of Praha Holcevice - a concrete slug manned by unrelenting female security guards - looks abandoned and, were it not for the scrambled English of the train's conductor, we would have attempted to stay on to Prague's main terminus. Which would have been a mistake, because the trains don't actually run there.

A dawning realisation sweeps our faces (and wallets) when all the prices are laid out in Czech crowns; in spite of the country's hurtling progress (of sorts) towards the Eurozone, the euro is not accepted in all but the swanikiest hotels. Which we had little intention in frequenting.

Prague itself is almost impossibly picturesque. Adimttedly, the first building you see as you surface from the Metro is a huge, American style shopping mall and the main boulevard leading upto Wenceslas Square is flanked with gawdy neon-spewing outlets - as if to reiterate the Czech Republic's embrace of retail economy since the Velvet Revolution.

But the rest of it is stunning. As you venture closer to the river, the soviet concrete blocks gradually begin to dissolve to a more antediluvian frontage with facades and trellises with aesthetically pleasing proportions.

From the Old Town Square where the horror-story Gothic steeples of Tyn Church (1256) jostle for your attention with the wedding-cake St. Nicholas Church and the sprouting Astronomical Clock, which entertains revellers on the hour with a mechanised play, to the soaring grandeur of the old castle set as the backdrop to the bustling Charles bridge, Prague is a comprehensive example of Baroque and Gothic intermingling to inspiring and tasteful effect.

As it's a Saturday night we decide to drink in some of Prague's more traditional bars, to good effect. Czech is a difficult language to get your tongue around, but even the smallest effort to communicate reaps full reward with bar staff who are used to braying stag-parties barking orders in an English with the volume turned up.

Czech cuisine is suspiciously close to German, but that doesn't stop Claire polishing off the biggest pork knuckle conceivable - tastefully advertised on a translated menu as "knee pig". They are big on meat; my dumplings had bacon in them despite being served with pork chops and vegetarian menus include such dishes as "fried cheese with bacon" and "mashed potatoes with fat". Yum.

With enough Czech beer inside us - which is some of the best and freshest in the world, and roughly 80p for 0.5l - we wandered south of the Old Town Square to find an 80's club.

If you do wander out of the nostaglic comfort blanket of the old town on a Saturday night, expect to be confronted by lots of drunken men shouting at one another. They will be British, and you will positively beam with national pride as you witness them urinate and vomit on the cobbled streets once pounded by the likes of Kafka and Dvorak.

Suddenly more than a little ashamed of our presence, Claire and I skulked off to a quiet sidestreet bar and talked in muted tones over the sounds of smashing bottles and laddish hawking.

Day Four - Berlin

Jonny's curtains are broken, so I wake early as the day's first light streams through the large, mucky windows.

Today were are to explore Berlin the way Berliners do: by bike. The cycle lanes are much wider, cleaner and flatter than any of London's and peddling alongside busy is a genuine pleasure instead of a death-dodging gauntlet.

We headed eventually to the Reichstag and Brandenburger Tor, but deliberately zigzagged through the old East Germany in between redbrick, abandoned factories, their morbid towers casting greasy shadows over the concrete high-rises.

Through the old Mitte quarter, we floated down Under van Linden to the imposing Brandenburger Tor, adorned on top by the golden and well traveled goddess 'Victory'. (She was claimed by Napoleon and moved to Paris before being reunited with the gate (albeit replicas) in 1815.)

We looked at the Reichstag, the German government administration since 1999 when Berlin was returned to being Germany's political capital, from Bonn since you asked. Although it retains its Baroque shell, British architect Sir Norman Foster was commissioned to transform the decrepit interior into a state of the art administrative centre. This is where the dome comes from. The Germans call it something that loosely translates as "English Eggcup".

We saw the Holocaust memorial, an unsettling and moving series of equally spaced concrete obelisks, some 2700 in total. They are all slightly different while retaining their uniformity, a testament to the individuals who perished during the homogenized persecution of a people.

Through the Tiergarten to the victory column where less than 24 hours earlier 250,000 people had gathered to euphorically hear an American presidential candidate delivering 30 minutes of nondescript platitudes to the world.

After seeing enough of Berlin's sights to start up a small postcard shop, I decided we needed some retail therapy. We headed straight to the KaDeWe, Germany's "department store of the West". It is huge.

After being gutted and suffering near total destruction during the War, it was rebuilt and stood as a sign of the West's prosperity to the East. It showed communist East Germans the benefits of capitalism, such as a foodhall that makes Fortnum and Mason's look like a Fox's biscuit tin.

It has 1800 varieties of sausage. Not meat, just sausage. It has nearly 2000 varieties of cheese. It has everything zou could ever want or need and far more beside - from canned sweetcorn to caviar.

We smugly enjozed two enormous slices of cake in its top-floor café with views out over all Berlin. We then cycled back to Kruetzberg, less smugly and certainly less effortlessly.

In Kreutzberg, after sipping pilsner with some achingly cool teenagers in a corner café, we stopped in at a shop which was essentially the remnants of someone's garage. There were no prices on its entirely second-hand and reclaimed stock. To buy something on needed to ask the chain-smoking owner before he plucked a derisorz figure out of thin air. I brought a waistcoat John Virgo would envy for one euro. Just as well really, as after just four dazs on the road, I've ran out of clean t-shirts.

We dine on fried chicken and potatoes washed down with sticky glasses of Portugese wine. A day cycling in 30 degree heat has taken its toll on all of us, and we flake off to bed, bidding Jonny good luck in his upcoming end of year exams for which he assures me he is prepared as he drains his third glass of rosé.

Photos Days One to Five

Claire at the Berlin Wall
The Holocaust Memorial

Me outside the Reichstag

A Kreutzberg commune
Cologne Cathedral

The view from the top of Cologne's Dom

Day Three - Cologne to Berlin

I awake to find what resembles a goblin, only much fatter and uglier, stomping in his hobnail boots around the dorm when five other innocents are trying to rest. At 5am. I pull the pillow wearily over my puffy eyes and roll over.

The banging continues for another 20 minutes, and I half expect to turn around to see him hunched on the bed, like a buck-toothed incubus, with a sound effects machine noisily drilling into the morning light.

After stumbling aimlessly around the Dom last night - and scaring the bejesus out of ourselves in the process as the Gothic organ struck up and almighty chord for midnight mass - we wanted to scale the thing, all 509 steps.

(I´ve since found out that there are two bigger Cathedrals in the world: one at Ulm, in Germany and one in New York on top of a skyscraper. Which is a bit like taping a cocktail stick to the end of your willy and claiming to be the best hung of all your mates.)

As we mounted the dripping spiral stairs we positively flew past old German and American ladies who were a few desperate gasps from cardiac arrest. Around three quarters into the climb, you can see the bell tower - apparently the biggest chimers in the world, but I just donť know anything anymore. Just as Claire had positioned herself nice and close to take a close-up shot of the copper inscriptions, the bells chimed half past and nearly sent her hurtling back down the 300 steps we had just ascended.

The views from the top were obviously spectacular, but my favourite part - owing to the shape and elongation of the adjacent tower - was being able to hear every conversation that was going on in the plaza below. I felt like shouting from the rooftops, but no suitable German came to mind, profanity or proclamation.

It is a four hour train ride to Berlin, stopping at seemingly ever town on the map. The rivers of the Cologne delta drifted by and gradually conceded ground to expanses of corn and barley fields, flecked occasionally with the odd emerald Ash collection.

Arriving into Berlin's Ostbahnhof takes you through the whole of what was once the divided capital of GDR and it is a veritable who's who of landmarks, both Soviet, Allied and German. The Reichstag, Brandenburger Tor served as grandiose reminders of German past and present unity whereas the massive soviet TV tower strained skywards like a hypodermic needle.

We were met by Jonny and taken straight to Kreutzberg, where he is lucky enough to live during his Erasmus year.

Kreutzberg is Berlin's 'hippest' district, a post-anarchist area in what used to be soviet controlled East Germany. Once the place for violent and aggressively partisan demonstrations, protests and ransackings, Kreutzberg has been populated by the cities artists, writers and dilettantes after reunification.

Bars and cafes mushroom out onto the street, often not much more complicated than a set of reclaimed plastic chairs and bottled beer. It's home to the anti-capitalist communes that sprung up as the no man's land either side of the Wall fell in 1989, thanks to the Hoff. They serve as bastions of subversive and intimidating counter-culture, refusing to comply with the perceived constraints of market economy. They are scary places.

We watched Obama's JFK impersonation on a German news channel which decided to interview every black person they saw in the crowd. It's weird to think that a mile away a quarter of a million people are chanting "yes we can" at a man regrettably destined to be an American political footnote.

We go to a newly and haphazardly built bar skirting the edge of the Spree, manufactured to look like a beach with the help of several hundred tonnes of sand and a swimming pool in the middle of the river, lit up like an aquamarine jewel amid the oily black Spree.

As we settle down on some reclaimed deck chairs a heavy set German man brushes past me, removing his pants before diving naked as a baby into the icy water. Germans seem to be a lot more comfortable with their flesh than I am. With theirs.

Day Two - Brussels to Cologne

The free breakfast included in the price of the hostel was never going to be worthy of a Michelin star.

One token got you:

1 x bowl of cornflakes resembling a collection of scabs
1 x UHT milk for said cornflakes
1 x cup of tea or coffee
1 x sachet of rubber cheese
5, that's 5 x slices of carpet sample bread

This was served with as much warm marge and Nutella as you could eat.

We packed away our plastic, compartmentalised trays and carried them, bellies full back to the kitchen where a woman wearing a shower cap was gratuitously hurling china into a vat of broiling washing up. I could discern a slight flicker of gleeful smile as a plate occasionally smashed in the soiled water.

Like an excited schoolboy rushing out of the refectory to go play roll down a hill and push over girls in the playground, I bounded out, very nearly falling into the hostel's tasteful water feature in the process.

As we only had three hours in Brussels, we decided to see as much of the architecture of the city centre as we could. Advised by a local to head for a carpark - which, by his instructions sounded like a dogging hangout - and take a lift to the top of its highrise.

Up at level 12, the view is stunning, enabling you to see the whole city perched on undulating plains, stretching scruffily all the way to the Atomium in the west.

The lift taking us back to solid ground screeched lividly and for a moment I contemplated the horrendous occurence of getting stuck in it for the rest of my life (another phobia of mine is getting stuck a lift, stemming from the time I sreamed a hotel down in Rennes). I glanced at the decrepit manufacturers plaque: Schindler. We were in Schindler's Lift.

Alive and not a bit persecuted, we headed for the main square of Brussels, which was nice. It had buildings. And cobbles. But not much else.

Pleased to be getting out of the blandest city south of Hull, we boarded the high speed Thalys train that would zip us effortlessly to Cologne. As we were getting on, a man stepped off the carriage and stood on the plaform, before lighting a cigarette. He wore a checked shirt in keeping with the train company's tasteful colour scheme and a card on a lanyard around his neck.

Assuming he worked on the train, everyone asked him where they were sitting. Assuming they were being stupid, he pointed them in any direction he fancied. General chaos ensued in which I ended up sat, albeit momentarily, on an elderly women's lap.

We got to a Cologne bathed in tepid sunshine and stepped out of the Hauptbahnhof into a plaza milling with cafes and young professionals, relaxing and doing whatever it is they do when they should be at work.

The Cathedral sits atop a stone square, reaching to the heavens with two brooding black spires. Looking up from the ground gives you a kind of vertigo, such is the awe-inspiring giddiness of its 196m.

An amazing feat of engineering and design, the Kölner Dom was started in 1248 and incredibly not finished for another 600 years, finally getting completed in 1880. It survived a heavy bombing in the war as it was so large that allied pilots used it for navigation.

In Cologne you drink Kölsch, slightly dry lager served in diddy 0.2l glasses, which makes for several rounds and deceptively large consumption. The headache I'm tenderly nursing this morning is testament to the beer's cruel tempations.

We had dinner (and beer) in a traditional brauhaus, Päffgen
much to the amusement of our waiter, who simply couldn't wait to try out his alcohol-related puns, "To beer or not to beer, zat is the qwestion," being the best of a terrible bunch.

We're off to meet up with my friend Jonny in Berlin tomorrow. I'll actually get up some pictures then, including one of a salacious-looking Claire staring lustfully at a Gregg's bakery steak bake. Not to be missed.

Day One - London to Brussels

Our journey got off to an inauspicious start, ill-timed as to commence on the first sunny day in England since the Queen's golden Jubliee.

Arriving at the spanking new St Pancras fills you with a disconcerting mixture of sentiments; modernity meeting nostalgia. Even though the glass-walled shops nestled in between the great brick buttresses of William Henry Barlow's shed are no more exotic than Thomas Pink and a cluster of WHSmiths, the terminus is undeniably grandiose. It fills you with pride that this - save for the graffitied concrete barriers of New Cross, which make the Gaza Strip look like Butlins - is the first structure of any significance that a foreigner will see upon entering London.

Starting the trip in style, we enjoy a glass of the Champagne Bar's second cheapest, amid business shirekers and ladies who are either going on or arriving from holiday and therefore feel comfortable quaffing bottles of fizz at 10.30 in the morning.

I've never been cowardly enough to take the eurostar before; my fear of flying having only recently precipitated, I used to gutsily board flying sarchophagi to risk my life in the name of two weeks of sunburn on a Spanish beach. I certainly have never taken the Eurostar from its swanky new home.

We were through check-in and security with the minimum of fuss or faff and as we boarded the train I was constantly expecting something to go awry. Being used to train travel in the UK, it's difficult to see the travel glass as half-full when you've had the whole thing poured over you in a flurry of penalty fares and replacement bus services.

Remarkably, the whole thing worked - from London to Brussels in under two hours. No delays, no crammed carriages and no rickey drinks trolley on which to bash your elbow.

Brussels is an odd place. It, like the constitution it is home to, cannot really make up its mind as to what it stands for. As the legislative capital of the EU, one would expect an amount of cosmopolitanism, if only to make the swarths of besuited diplomats feel fleetingly at home. Not at home of course; their wives live there and not the escorts they've picked up at the Hotel Metropole.

Upon every stree their is a clutch of English, Spanish, German and French brands as if to cement the ultimate realisation of the European Union's as having a Zara and H&M on every street corner. We even saw a Gregg's bakery, obviously wishing to expand beyond its 507 shops om Leeds. That's EU trade law for you.

Mulitfaceted culture is probably a good thing, but it shouldn't be at the detriment to national identity. Claire ''I don't think eight cardigans is excessive" Jones began the afternoon by firing off a number of hasty generalisations about the Belgians, including: "Belgians really do dress poorly," and "There's nothing that is typically Belgian." Save possibly for chocolate and waffles, she's probably right.

It's a short walk from our Van Gogh Hostel into the centre of town, which is flecked with nuggets of Flemish architectural grandeur scattered among building sites and high-rise car parks. The buildings of Brussels are the equivalent of someone throwing a handful of pearls into a bucket of sick.

I'd read about a bar called "Mort Subite", or 'Sudden Death' likely owing to the strength of the beer. We were accosted as we arrived by a brusque waitress, fag in one hand menu pressed beneath the other bingo-wing. She rather too forcefully recommended a 'Gueze' which tasted like a shandy made instead with vinegar.

One heartening thing about Belgian bars is their lax enforcement of the smoking ban. Officially outlawed inside buildings, smoking is encouraged by great dustbin-lids of ashtrays placed sometimes immediately aside non-smoking tables.

We wandered the streets in the waning light, vainly trying to get a feel for the place. Each decorative street was sporadically fissured with another building site or carpark. Along neon lit boulevards we saw hawkish waiters fishooking punters, trawling them into their overpriced seafood restaurants.

We tentatively entered a restaurant with book-lined walls and gingham tablecloths. As we waited an age to be shown a menu, I glanced over to the next table to see a small dog licking clean the plate of an effeminate and lonely man. We decided to head for pastures cleaner.

Eating mussels in Brussels, I for some reason was reminded of Jean Claude van Damme, and spent a large chunk of the night racking my brains for other famous Belgians. Didn't get much further than Kim Clijsters and Hercule Poirot.

We eventually stumbled upon a small cluster of cafes and bars to the south of the centre, full of unaffected youngsters gathering for stolen moments armed with cigarettes and urn-shaped beer glasses. Places like these were sorely missing across the rest of the city.

Still feeling like we were going on holiday in the morning (Brussels, it seems will forever remain little more than a transit hub for Europe's less convoluted cultural destinations) we opted for a little bar, "Booze and Blues" which had a jukebox to melt Henry Winkler's jacket - all 50's rock 'n' roll and skiffle.

Tomorrow we head to Cologne, home of Europe's biggest Cathedral and far too many opulent beer halls. Photos to follow.