Planning a big European train adventure
I will be turning fifty next year. Half a century. And, because I fully intend to live until I’m a hundred1, I am treating this as the half-way marker on my journey through life. As such, it requires a big celebration of some kind.
For almost the last decade I have assumed that the big celebration for my fiftieth, would be a really big party. Maybe a shared party with one of my friends who are also turning fifty next year. But as it grew closer, I realised that I don’t actually want a big party. I’ll almost certainly have a few smaller celebrations with close friend groups and close family. But a big party where I’d need to mix multiple separate friend groups and different branches of family? Where I would get to spend at most ten minutes with each group, and still less with the most special people? Nah. That sounds more like my idea of hell (well, hell would probably also include a bunch of people I really really can’t stand, but purgatory at least).
What I wanted, I realised, was something big and memorable that would be something to look back on with joy and gratitude, but that could also be a starting point for what I want a lot of in the next few decades. And what jumped out at me was travel. I started really diving into travel in 2019 and the start of 2020, then this big global thing happened to stop it. And I haven’t left the country (the UK that is – I have made it to both Scotland and Wales) since. What I was doing then was a LOT OF flying (after more than a decade of no flying at all and as someone who doesn’t drive, so I didn’t feel TOO guilty about it), but the pandemic made me rethink that a bit – not just for the benefit of the environment, though that is definitely a big factor, but also in terms of slowing the heck down. I had already decided that my next trips would be by train, rather than super-quick, super-fast (though, actually, when you’re going to Europe, not that fast when you have to sit and wait in the airport for hours and queue for hours in passport lines) short-haul flights. I would save flying for the further afield trips.
So I decided that my big celebratory thing that I will do some time between this October (my 49th birthday) and next October (the big FIVE OH) will be to buy an interrail pass and run off for a month. The kids are (or will both be by then) teenagers and, while they MIGHT miss me a bit, they’re not going to be detrimentally affected by my absence. To be honest, they probably wouldn’t have been if I’d done it five years ago, or even ten, but it would have been unfair to Chris to leave him to hold the fort entirely on his own when they still needed walking to and from school and multiple activities and supervising constantly at home (and I’m pretty sure I would have been seriously miffed if he wanted to take off for a whole month back then!). Mostly these days, though, all we need to do is make sure the house has plenty of food in and their bank accounts and school/college lunch accounts are stocked and they sort themselves out the rest of the time. Family dinners still happen, though not every evening like they used to, and we do hang out and chat a bit, but a lot of the time they are off doing their own thing, in their rooms, or out with friends. What’s App, Skype, etc. mean we’ll still be in touch plenty and I frequently settle sibling disputes via What’s App rather than in person now, so could probably still do so from across the Channel, if it were needed. Though I would be leaving in the very capable hands of their other parent, and happily return the favour another time.
Planning a solo interrailing trip
I haven’t decided when exactly I’ll be taking this trip, other than some time between October 2022 and October 2023. I do know I probably want to be home for my actual fiftieth, so it would definitely be before then. I also know I don’t want to go during the school holidays, as I’d like to be available to do stuff with the kids then, and also because it’s likely to be busier in the holidays, especially the summer holidays. (I’m also quite into the idea of doing a shorter version with the rest of the family, or any of them who want to come along, at some point. Maybe I can wangle what I did with my travel in 2019/2020 and have a separate trip with each member of the family! That way I get to have multiple trips. Though that does sound a TAD selfish, plus excessive, and a little bit expensive! We’ll see.)
I’m also still very much in the research stages and need to decide what I want out of the trip and what sort of travelling I want to do. I am fairly certain that I don’t want this to be a super speedy rush around the whole of Europe spending a single night in all the big cities. I want to go slowly. Maybe taking a handful of the super-quick trains, but then using the small regional trains (that mostly don’t need extra seat reservations and other fees) and maybe even deciding to hop off a train in a town that looks interesting and seeing if I can find somewhere to stay there, rather than booking everything in advance.
I had thought I’d mostly go with AirBnB style accommodation, booking flats where I can cook for myself, but have since thought that I will probably go with rooms in (fairly cheap) hotels. I don’t need to eat at a restaurant every day, but can pick up snacks from street stalls or picnic food and then maybe have a restaurant lunch one day and dinner another day. I also don’t have to have three courses every meal, so it doesn’t have to be a super expensive thing to feed myself. Since it’s just me, I don’t have to worry about my snoring waking people up or having enough space for everyone to have privacy (which is why we’ve taken to booking AirBnB style accommodation when we go places together, rather than cramped hotel rooms).
So… I definitely can’t cover the whole of Europe in a month, if I’m slow travelling. I will need to decide where to narrow down my trip. Whether to concentrate on two or three countries very close together, or make one or two of those fast trains I include take me from one side of Europe to the other, or from North to South and have two or three separate chunks for the trip. I’m currently leaning toward concentrating on France, Spain, Portugal and Italy, and leaving the rest of Europe for another trip. But … I may well change my mind. What I’m definitely getting from all my research is the certainty that this won’t be the last trip of this kind, but rather the first of many.
I’m reading a lot of blog posts and articles about European train travel, solo travel, and solo travel particularly as an older woman. I have bought a copy of Europe by Rail [affiliate link], which is amazingly useful and an enjoyable read. And, of course, looking at The Man in Seat 61 a lot!
I think I’ll probably write a few posts about the planning and research (for example, to work or not to work, what to pack and what sort of bag(s) to take, how many books to take, how not to buy stuff while I’m travelling (I do have a tendency to come home with a lot of extra books, art supplies and pretty bits and bobs, which would obviously be difficult to carry on such a long trip) and there’s a fairly decent chance I’ll write some while I’m actually travelling, too. Hopefully, I’ll also get into travel illustration of some kind during the trip, which I’ve been awfully rubbish at so far (see below for some of the few pictures I’ve drawn while traveling), but I’m making no promises on that. Definitely will depend on whether I am taking work of any kind with me.
I’m hoping some of you will enjoy reading about this trip (before, during and after!). I know I love reading about this kind of thing myself, anyway, so I’m sure I can’t be the only one.
1 Yeah, I’m definitely going to need to step up my getting healthy and fit efforts to have a chance of achieving that. But I do think a positive attitude has a significant effect, too.
Travelling while vegetarian
And here’s Part 4 of my trip review. Part 1 was about holidaying with srprs.me, Part 2Part 2 was about holidaying alone and Part 3Part 3 was all about Malaga. This part is about travelling as a (lifelong) vegetarian.
This was by far the most challenging aspect of the trip and the single thing that concerns me most about doing another similar trip.
My first night, I ended up eating in the hotel bar, because I didn’t feel confident about heading into the centre when it was dark and I hadn’t yet found my bearings (would have been absolutely fine, especially with the help of the trusty maps on my phone, which got me around the city the rest of the time) and the restaurant had just shut.
There was a single vegetarian option on the menu, which was a starter – deep friend camembert with red berry coulis. I asked the waiter if there was anything else vegetarian and he suggested they could do me there speciality salad, but leave out the tuna. So I agreed to have the salad followed by the camembert. And a cold beer (that was very good – and I’m fortunately not too fussy about making sure beer and wine is vegetarian).
The salad was fine and came with a mini bottle of balsamic vinegar and mini bottle of olive oil to drizzle over. And salt. Until, that is, I came across the two pieces of tuna that I hadn’t quite managed to remove from what must have been a ready-prepared salad. I removed them and kept eating, but as soon as I’d seen them the rest of the salad started to taste of tuna. The camembert was lovely, but quite dry.
I missed out on pudding somehow, too. I thought I’d said yes the pudding menu and ordered another beer at the same time. The waiter looked surprised and then brought the beer. Pretty sure I’d said I wanted beer for pudding and to not see the menu. Ah well. I had some sweets in the room left over from the journey.
The next day, after a breakfast (which was absolutely fine and classic hotel breakfast) at the hotel (thank you to srprs.me who added that option in as an unbooked extra) I wandered into the centre. I really wanted a bocadillo de tortilla, which is one of my all-time favourite Spanish ‘meals’. (Spanish omelette, made from onion, potato and egg, in a sandwich.) Couldn’t find any anywhere. I had a waffle at the Picasso museum, along with a (far too strong for me) coffee, while relaxing in a very pleasant and cool courtyard.
The best I could manage, mid-afternoon, was a ‘pincho de tortilla’ with some bread on the side (and a cold beer, of course). It was lovely, but I would have liked more.
Somehow, I didn’t manage to have churros y chocolate (probably my second favourite Spanish ‘meal’) – I think this was because it was just too hot, but am very annoyed with myself that I didn’t.
Dinner the next two nights was a lot better, but took a fair bit of searching. I walked around and around and around the historical centre looking at all the menus and seeing pretty much nothing I could eat. I found an Italian restaurant, though, which is my continental Europe go-to because there are always vegetarian options of pizza or pasta. I had a lovely aubergine, tomato and mozzarella pasta dish (with linguine) and a cold beer. Again, I managed to miss out on pudding, though. I thought I’d asked for the pudding menu (and my Spanish isn’t awful – I lived in Spain for a year as a kid, have a GCSE in it and even ran a Spanish club at our primary school for a term) but the waitress brought me the bill instead. Ah well. I got an ice cream for pudding instead, which was delicious.
The second night, I looked stuff up on the internet before going into town. There were some vegetarian/vegan restaurants but they all sounded a bit too wholesome for me (I’m not an especially healthy vegetarian – I like a lot of carbs and am very very fond of cheese), so I decided to go to an Italian restaurant which looked really good. Except, after walking around the block about five times, I realised that it didn’t exist anymore. Another (posh-looking and with nothing much veggie on the menu) restaurant seemed to have expanded into its space. So I headed back into the historical centre again, determined not to go to the same Italian restaurant again. It was still far too early for dinner, really, but I was looking around trying to find somewhere to go. I spotted a sign that specifically mentioned vegetarian options.
I was determined to go there for dinner, after I’d had a beer and pudding (having done some more reading, it turned out that Spanish people – I have no recollection of this at all – tend to go out for a cake and a little drink in the late afternoon and then eat dinner (and not pudding) later in the evening, around 9 or so. So I had a beer (actually two small beers) while reading my book and watching the world pass by (probably one of my favourite things to do on holiday) and then got an ice cream and tried to find my way back. And failed completely. The street was too small to appear on my phone’s map. I walked around and around and took this turning and that turning and totally couldn’t find it.
So, I ended up back with my default option – an Italian restaurant, though a different one to the night before. Where I had to have Caprese, because it’s Rosemary’s favourite (it was a massive helping though, and I think probably meant to be shared between three or four people). And then I had another pasta, aubergine, tomato and mozzarella dish. Delicious, but I was far too full after my ice cream and two beers. Ah well.
What’s the lesson here? Maybe it’s to just embrace Italian restaurants and accept that those are where you’re going to be able to eat a proper meal without any meat or fish. Or maybe it’s to read up a bit on what traditional local dishes are generally OK and go order them. Or to look up the vegetarian restaurants (because most cities do have one or two) and go eat there, even if it’s too healthy! It’s definitely not to not go, just in case, however. If push comes to shove, you can just go grab some bread and cheese and leave the restaurants alone (in fact, that’s what I ended up doing for lunch on my second day)!
Visiting Malaga
Part 3 of my trip review. Part 1 was about holidaying via srprs.me and Part 2 was about holidaying solo. This one’s all about Malaga, and Part 4 is about travelling as a vegetarian.
Well, that was an eye-opener and a definite benefit of using srprs.me! I would never ever have a booked a holiday to Malaga. Never. It was always associated with the Costa del Sol and all the very worst aspects of Brits abroad. I thought of it as somewhere ‘young people’ (yeah, don’t count myself in that category anymore) go to club and get far too drunk. I thought of it as the place people fly to end up in all those Brit-overflowing sunny resorts. Not somewhere remotely appealing to me.
But, boy, was I wrong. (It’s quite possible all the above is still true, but I didn’t see a single iota of it, except perhaps in the queues for the planes, but even then most everyone I met was lovely – oh yes, apart from the two very well-dressed couples who were very rude, entitled and queue-jumpy; not sure what they were doing flying on a budget airline.)
Malaga is an amazing city!
It has a really beautiful historical area, with all the windy, narrow streets a girl could want (my top thing on any city break is wandering round old, narrow streets).
It has a very impressive beach, with lots of playgrounds and even some grown-up gym equipment alongside it (to be honest, I am not really a beach person, but I do love the sea and walking along next to it was gorgeous.
It has loads and loads of museums and galleries (I only managed to visit a handful of them).
And some beautiful architecture to admire.
It has some gorgeous parks (though I didn’t really find anywhere with patches of grass to sit on – just lots of benches).
It has lots and lots of bars and restaurants (though see my next post if you’re vegetarian).
It has some cool and quirky little shops, as well as a metric tonne of souvenir shops.
It has some quite impressive street art.
Oh, and ice cream. Didn’t take a picture of either of the ice creams I had, but they were delicious.
It’s a reasonably small city, so you can walk it without too much hassle (I walked everywhere, except for getting the bus from the airport and the train back to the airport), though there are buses and it looks like a small metro system, too.
I think it has good potential as somewhere to visit with children – spend the morning on the beach and then go museum or gallery browsing in the afternoon (in the cool of the air-conditioning) and then head into the centre for a pizza or paella or something in the evening. The centre was full of families – and lots of children eating out and hanging out with their family, even as late as 10pm (which is as late as I managed to stay out!).
I would happily go back again and there are some places I missed that I’d particularly like to visit – the Pompidou Centre (yes, related to the one in Paris), the Museum of Culture and Costumes (I think that’s what it was called – I walked passed it at night) and the market. But I’m sure there are lots more places of interest to visit, that I don’t know about.
Holidaying solo
Welcome to Part 2 of my trip review (and sorry it’s taking me so long to write it all up – somehow that vision of being a travel blogger jetting off to all corners (hmm, there aren’t actually any corners on a globe, are there?) of the Earth is fading slightly – probably should have written while I was there!). Part 1 dealt with the experience of travelling with srprs.me.
This may well be down to all the introspection I’ve been doing and the whole trying to work out Who am I? What do I want to be? What do I want to do? What makes me happy? and the answers to many other equally self-obsessed questions. But I really really wanted to go on holiday on my own.
I wanted to travel on my own, without the need to talk to other people all the time, or to worry about children annoying other passengers, or running off where I can’t see them. I wanted to stay in a hotel room on my own (that, I’ve done before a few times, to be fair – at conferences, for work, and one time I even booked myself into a cheap hotel in Cheltenham for a couple of nights in the run up to an Open University exam to get my revision done). I wanted to decide when to leave and how to travel. I wanted to be entirely responsible for everything – where to eat, what museums (if any) to visit, whether to walk or get buses or trains, whether to just sit down at the nearest bar to have a beer, whether to sit and draw or read. What time to go to sleep. What time to wake up… Mostly I didn’t want to have to talk to other people all the time – yes, even my family!
Lots of people (especially other mothers) kept saying how brave I was. And I’m really struggling with this. Would they say Chris was brave if he did it? I honestly don’t think so. So is it brave because I’m a woman? Should I be scared of travelling on my own? What should I be expecting to happen? Or is it brave because I’m a mother? And if so, is it because I’m leaving my children? I don’t get this. I’m leaving them with their father, who spends as much time as me being responsible for them. I’m leaving them during the week when they’ll be at school the majority of the time. Why is it brave to do that, but not for mothers who travel to work every day? Is it just because I’m going to be somewhere they’re not? Am I supposed to worry that something awful is going to happen and I’ll be too far to run back? I don’t think I can survive life if I’m constantly worrying about what awful things are going to happen (and as someone who has suffered from chronic stress and anxiety, I don’t need to add something else in there to worry about, thank you).
What I did feel was brave, though, was recognising that this was something I wanted and needed to do and getting it together and booking the trip. I didn’t think it was especially brave that it took me almost 6 months to do so from the moment I realised I needed to do it. I suppose it was brave to embrace the unknown and leave my destination in the hands of complete strangers, but actually that made it so much easier, so no that probably wasn’t brave. Yes, it is brave to recognise a need in yourself and to go ahead and make it happen. I hope I can manage more of that bravery in the next months and years and, well, really for the rest of my life.
So, how was it actually? Travelling and holidaying alone? Was it absolutely perfect? Was it everything I dreamed of and hoped for?
Probably not, to be honest. Loads of it was, though. I definitely appreciated being in charge of the pace of walking round museums – no-one ever ever wants to go at exactly the same pace as me, and that can be sooooo annoying. I also liked being able to just wander without having to worry about small feet or someone else wanting to do something different. I liked being able to change my mind about what I was doing because I saw a nice park, or an interesting looking gallery.
I missed having someone to talk to, though! All that itching for not having to talk people all the time, but it turns out I do need some interaction and conversation. So that’s an interesting bit of self-knowledge. Fortunately, my phone worked completely normally there, so I did speak to Chris quite a lot. But I would have appreciated having someone to sit down with at dinner time to chat about the different things we’d seen or done during the day. (Yes, this is where I should have got my Surface, or a notebook even, out and written it all down. Lesson for next time, perhaps.)
I didn’t ever feel unsafe or scared, except maybe the very first night when I didn’t feel up to going out to explore and ended up eating (not very well) in the hotel bar. If I’d only walked two minutes down the street, I would have been in a lively area near the station, and a bit further and I’d have been in among loads of people. Apart from that evening, I walked around the city in the day and the night without feeling at all worried or scared, even when I took wrong turnings and ended up walking through quieter areas.
I didn’t ever feel awkward asking for a table for one. I had a book with me and sketchbook (somehow never got the latter out in restaurants – maybe because I was so into the book) and my phone, of course, and would get one of them out as soon as I sat down, but then often look around instead of reading. I didn’t ever feel I shouldn’t be having a beer on my own (only drank beer, not wine, for some reason – actually, probably because it was really really hot).
I did enjoy having the hotel room to myself, though I did also miss cuddles with Chris and the girls. I think I spent too much time in the hotel room, though and should have got up earlier in the mornings and come home later (another lesson for next time).
I feel I need to do this again a few times to truly know whether it’s something I want to do (holidaying solo, I mean) as a regular thing. I feel like there are some things I’d do differently. I think I’d probably speak to other people more (I spoke to some lovely people on the train and in the airport queues). I think I’d know where to head in the airport to feel more comfortable. I think I’d walk taller and carry less stuff when walking round the city. I think I’d have more confidence to just sit down in a bar/restaurant and not wander round loads trying to find the right one. I think I’d get out my sketchbook more and also use the Surface or notebook to record my thoughts and impressions more immediately and regularly.
I think I can also take some lessons from this experience and port them to holidaying with the rest of the family, or friends. For example, making sure I get a bit of solitary time, but also making the most of having people there to talk to and laugh with – and doing so! And lots of cuddles.
The experience wasn’t absolute perfection, but it was enjoyable and rewarding and personality-building. And I will definitely do it again – hopefully in the not too distant future.
Travelling with Srprs.me
I’d decided around Easter time that I wanted to go away for a city break in Europe on my own some time soon. I’d been doing a lot of introspective thinking/searching/pondering, while and after reading Beth Kempton’s Freedom Seeker (highly recommend it, by the way). And I’d realised that I’d never gone on holiday on my own. Not that I’ve been on holiday loads of times, really. I’d travelled on my own, but not for holidays as such, or to meet up with/stay with someone at the other end of the journey. Mostly, in recent years, I’d only been on holiday with Chris and the girls (and, in fact, a few times with Chris’s parents, which has a lot of benefits!).
I’ve always thought of myself as a traveller and a soaker up of other cultures and languages – we lived in Spain for just over a year when I was 10, which was an amazing experience, my mum and I travelled a fair bit in Europe going to Esperanto congresses before that and I did some hitch-hiking round France with my then boyfriend just before starting uni, and then spent a year living in France as part of my degree. I also visited a friend in Madrid a few times and Chris and I honeymooned in Paris and spent a week in Copenhagen. Since the kids, understandably (money, time, complexities of travelling with small children, and the added complication of not driving which makes it more of a hassle to get to airports, and impossible to drive ourselves), we’ve not managed masses of travel, but have done a few week-long trips to France with Chris’s parents (all of which have been brilliant).
Anyway, one of the things that kept coming up when I was reading through Freedom Seeker, was the fact that I felt I missed travel, but especially spontaneous travel, where I just go with the flow, rather than plan everything. (Chris is a planner, so this isn’t the kind of travelling he embraces.) Since I’d not done this kind of travelling in decades, I realised that it might just be a case of searching back into the past for some kind of happiness that I wasn’t getting now and not necessarily something that would still appeal to me, so I needed to try it out, just once.
Only, I couldn’t settle on where to go! I looked at all the cheap flights from Bristol and Birmingham (the easiest airports for me to get to) and then I looked up hotel rooms in some of those cities and I’d settle on one and then read a bit more about it and find a reason to not go there (Perpignan sounded perfect but apparently is a hotbed of the Front National – almost certainly wouldn’t have affected me, but caused me concerns; Greece looked great but was it a positive or a negative thing to be going there as a tourist at the moment – I couldn’t quite be sure; Eastern Europe looked interesting, but would I be able to eat?).
Then I read this article in the Guardian and BAM! I had my answer. You can just pick your dates and say what type of holiday you want (city break or back-packing; hotel or hostel; with a few other small parameters) and they would book it for you. You find out where you’re going at the airport, and just get a weather report a week before and a time to arrive. (You do actually get a package with a scratchcard and an envelope in, the latter of which contains your boarding passes, so you could look before the airport.) I’d booked mine within a few weeks of reading the article. And then had about a month to wait to see where I would go.
I shared with friends and family on Facebook (and in person) that I was doing this and had an overwhelming positive response with many of them seemingly almost as excited as me! A few people didn’t understand my desire to go alone, which I get. It turns out that actually most people haven’t gone on holiday on their own and many thought it was a brave thing (and some a crazy thing) to do, but especially alone into the unknown. Oddly, I didn’t feel especially brave – though I did feel proud at making the decision to do it. It felt like something I really really needed to do, and therefore that negated the bravery element for me.
The weather report came and showed it would be pretty warm (low of 22°C and high of 33°C, and either sunny or cloudy), so I was able to pack very light. I wore one dress and packed another, plus underwear and a nightie (tip – if you’re going somewhere hot, pack twice as much underwear, if you don’t want to be washing it in the hotel sink!) and wore canvas shoes (another tip – sandals would be much better for hot weather) and a cardigan. I took an umbrella in case of rain and didn’t bother with a coat or jacket – which was right, though when I stepped off the plane on the way home I might have appreciated a jacket). I took one book, two small sketchbooks, my pencil case and travel watercolour set. And I took my Surface, as it doesn’t weight too much (probably didn’t need that, but it was handy for doing a bit of writing on, checking into an art class I’m currently doing that I can’t access from my phone, and watching Netflix when I got fed up of dubbed American sitcoms). All in a medium-sized rucksack that would fit in the overhead lockers on the plane and avoid waiting for (and paying extra for) a suitcase.
On the train I chatted to a lady I was sat next to about what I was doing and she also said she thought it was very brave (somewhat a consensus there, so maybe I’ll be persuaded that it was!). I was starting to get more excited, but I wasn’t going to feel it properly until I knew my destination.
I waited until I was at the airport to rub off the scratch card and find out where I was going (and I have to admit to hiding in the loos to do so, which is a bit ridiculous and I won’t do that next time!). When I found out where I was going a laughed out loud. I would never in a million years have booked it myself, though I love the country (I’m not mentioning where it was in this bit, because Srprs.me like to keep the destinations secret, to avoid too much guessing on the part of future travellers – you can scroll down and find out if you really want to). It’s in an area that I associate with the kind of British holidayer (and expat) that I disassociate myself with (the ones who spend lots of time not attempting to speak the language and eating in restaurants run by other Brits so they don’t have to eat the local food, and drinking in pubs run by other Brits, so they can get proper pints and who care mostly about the sun). To be honest I’m almost certainly jumping to far too many negative conclusions there, but that’s why I would never have booked a holiday in that area.
But then I looked it up a bit before I had to go into airplane mode and it looked perfect for me! Lots of museums and art galleries. An amazing historical section with lots and lots of teeny tiny streets (my absolute favourite thing to do in cities is to wander in those kinds of streets). And the sea for an added bonus. Plus, it had the benefit of being somewhere where I’m reasonably comfortable speaking the language (because I hate just going in with English first and acting superior enough to assume that everyone will of course speak English – I had a phrase book my mum leant me with multiple European languages in, and had downloaded the Translator app on my phone, ready to download a language as soon as I knew where I was going (and hoping there would be wifi in the airport), but I didn’t need it.
The flight was somewhat delayed so I didn’t get out of the airport until the early evening. Getting into town was easy enough – walked out of the airport to find a bus going into the city (and made the driver grumpy by giving him a 20 Euro note). My mobile service provider (GiffGaff) has total roaming parity in the EU (hmm, guessing that might not last), so I could use my data, minutes and texts (and calls and texts to Chris and Rosemary are free as they’re on GiffGaff too) and so I used the map app to make sure I was going the right way and manage to get off the bus almost exactly next to my hotel (on a parallel street). (Turns out there was also a train and the train station was about 2 minutes’ walk from the hotel, so I used that on the way back, but it was nice to get the bus in as you see different things that way.)
The hotel was great. It was a very big hotel, with a good sized (double) room and great bathroom, large TV, desk and table. Srprs.me had booked me in for breakfast as a special extra, which I think was probably a good thing, given the issues I had with finding food I could eat. The young lady (who I think was in training) who booked me in had the same name as me and we had a little chat about whether it was an English name, Spanish name or Russian name – it’s clearly a Russian name, but then she thought I spoke Russian, which I don’t. There were no issues whatsoever booking in (Srprs.me had emailed the hotel voucher as soon as I entered my scratchcard code) and everything worked brilliantly. Couldn’t fault it at all.
And now I’m going to leave this for another three blog posts about the whole journey, focusing on different elements – holidaying solo, visiting [the city where I went – Srprs.me like to keep this secret, so don’t read that post if you want to retain this secrecy] and travelling while vegetarian.