Being Bouncers in Prague

After my nightmare train journey, we arrived in Prague with excitement and expectation and although the weather was shocking, the city didn’t disappoint.

Being famous for the historic Old Town in the centre of the city, we spent a lot of time exploring this area, which is packed with restaurants, bars and various street performers and musicians. Nearby, there are many rooftop bars, where you can enjoy a drink while getting an unbelievable view of the city.

A simple walk along the Charles Bridge also provides great views of the city. There are also (again) many bars and restaurants next to the bridge which is another great place to sit down with a beer – after all, Prague is well-known for its cheap but delicious beer.

On top of our list of things to do was to visit the world-famous John Lennon wall, which is covered with John Lennon and the Beatles graffiti, lyrics and quotes since the 1980’s, The wall is a special sight to see, although is packed with tourists, like ourselves, taking photos. Just beside the wall are pubs to visit which are dedicated to the Beatles star himself.

Prague is also very well known for being a place of stag do’s and heavily drink-filled holidays, as we saw with many pub crawls (which you can sneak into easily) and other organised events being held across the city. Only being there for 3 nights, we only managed one event which was the traffic light boat party. For the price 25 euros, you’re given 2.5 hours to enjoy a free bar, where you then go on a two-hour midnight cruise along the river on a two floored boat, the bottom being the dancefloor and the top filled with benches which is a great place to meet and socialise with other tourists. Once the boat part ends, you are then given free entry into one of the many popular nightclubs in the centre of the city – although I should warn you – pretending to be bouncers outside these clubs does not go down well with the bouncers on shift at the other entrances (for some reason), and when approached by one of these bouncers, do not try and ask him for his own ID…

Next blog – our final stop: Budapest

How to delay an international train by 20 minutes

Our next stop on our travels was Berlin, where we stayed in our first AirBnB – something I suggest doing if you have a big enough group as it can work out cheaper than hostels and you can end up with a pretty nice flat.

Steeped in history, our time in Berlin was spent visiting famous attractions such as Checkpoint Charlie, Brandenburg Gate, the Berlin Wall, the Reichstag and the Jewish memorial.

The last two are the ones I recommend if you are tight for time; the Reichstag was hugely impressive, and it’s pretty surreal  knowing you are standing in the spot that members of the Nazi’s stood in while Hitler gave one of his speeches just metres away.

The memorial to the murdered Jews, with a museum underneath which is very easy to miss, is a very interesting but emotional attraction to visit. The museum includes many personal stories of those murdered, details and photos of concentration camps including Auschwitz, while also having some gruesome letters that those Jewish wrote after leaving or returning various concentration camps.

Now, if you yourself are interrailing, I suggest from first-hand experience to be careful and not lose your interrail pass. Travelling from Berlin to Prague, I explained to the conductor I’d lost my pass, showing all the confirmation documents in an attempt to not have to pay an extra €120 for a ticket. After the conductor left and thinking I’d won the battle, I was then an hour later greeted by three fully loaded German police standing outside our carriage. Also trying to make me pay the extra €120, the train was halted to a stop for 20 minutes at the station, therefore affecting further trains, all due to my ability to lose my pass. Delaying as long as possible by repeatedly emptying my bags, the police clearly got so fed up of me that they disappeared, not to be seen again.

Tune in next blog to find out how our jobs as bouncers in Prague went...

End of our Travels

Last but certainly not least was three days in the capital of Hungary, Budapest, and to our groups surprise, the best three days of the whole trip - you can't not have an amazing time with cheap food and the average pint costing £1.50...

Budapest is filled with unique landmarks, with great views (as shown below) especially where Buda and Pest meet - for those that didn't know (Me), the sides Buda and Pest were different places before becoming one big city in 1873.

Our favourite day consisted of us climbing a big hill/castle to get the scenes as shown above, although I'm afraid I've not got a clue what it's called. Big hill with a view. It may take a while to walk to and walk up,  but it's worth the climb. After taking our time to come down due to admiring the view, we finished the day with a burger and a pint right on the river before heading to a ruin bar - if you didn't know, Budapest has many unique bars that were built on the sites of abandoned buildings, which is again something I stress you should not miss if you are visiting the city. If you're making a night of it, I suggest finding the club 'Instant' - a massive club converted from old housing with a large outside area.

Our last full day of the trip was spent at the Széchenyi thermal bath, something that Budapest is known for with this specific bath holding a 'Spa Party' every Saturday night. Széchenyi baths is one of the largest bath complexes in Europe with its 21 pools, saunas, steam rooms, ice baths, lazy rivers, massage rooms and much, much more. Entrance for the day costs around £15 (5400 Huf) which is a bargain, although bring more to enjoy the food and drink they have to offer.

Well, that's the end of the trip and sadly the blogs, thanks for taking the time to read! I hope I entertained and if you do go interrailing, make sure to go to Budapest, otherwise you'll be left feeling like this:

Why did the toilet roll down the hill?

We passed our time on the train from Amsterdam to Koln (3.5 hours) by having a round of who could tell the best joke – with myself (not biased) coming out on top with ‘Why did the toilet roll down the hill… to get to the bottom'... classic. After more top class jokes and a tense £101,000 win on The Chase, we arrived in Koln.



With the visit being a mere two days and not too much to do in the city (other than constantly eat currywurst’s which are addictingly good), we visited the impressive Koln Cathedral, climbing 533 steps to reach the top and get the chance to have the best views of the city.

Both our nights were spent down by the river, soaking in the impressively lit up surroundings while socializing with the locals and other travellers over a beer.

Our next stop was a day in Dortmund to attend the first Borussia Dortmund game of the season. Being in Dortmund for just the one day and not much to do in terms of touristy things, we realized no matter where you went in the city you were never far from something related to the football team, so spent the afternoon in one of the many pubs completely revolved around Borussia Dortmund, soaking up the atmosphere before the game.



After getting the metro, where we did our best to come up with our own Dortmund chants to the somewhat amusement of the locals, we arrived at the incredible Signal Iduna Park, with a capacity of just under 82,000, which includes the world famous Yellow Wall - the largest free-standing grandstand in Europe with a capacity of 25,000 – a must see for any football fan, especially if you’re lucky enough to see a game with 5 goals, with the game ending 4-1…

Tune in next blog to find out about our trip to Berlin and learn how to delay an international train for 20 mins while having three German police called to deal with you......

Our Travels Begin

After back-to-back summers where our ‘lads’ holidays were spent away in Zante and Magaluf, we opted for a change of scene this summer and instead decided on travelling around Europe for 18 days by train.

The current and next four blogs will detail our activities and opinions of the trip, and will also include my special ability of delaying an international train for 20 minutes, our experience of being bouncers in Prague and my stand-off with three German police. I would appreciate your views over the next five blogs and hope to perhaps make you feel as though you travelled with us yourself (saving you £1,500 and the consequences of drinking for 18 days straight).

Starting with the unique city of Amsterdam, where I lost count the amount of times I was millimetres away from death by bike. A ‘cheap’ pint of beer will set you back around six euros albeit very tasty. As it was the beginning of the holiday and all of us fresh, the price of beer didn’t stop us enjoying ourselves. The third night we happened to stumble upon a certain famous district where loads of very (very) nice looking girls flirted with us, being the good looking bunch of lads we are…

Being able to aimlessly walk around and take in the surreal views of canals everywhere meant our ‘tourist’ activities were limited – we visited the Heineken Experience which I definitely recommend if you have an interest in beer, where you learn the history and process of making the famous drink, and has an impressive end where you are able to enjoy your two free drinks in the very cool looking Heineken bar. Being a huge football fan, our last day was spent touring the world-renowned Johan Cruijff Arena, AFC Ajax’s stadium.

Next Blog – our time in Koln and becoming Borussia Dortmund ultras...