The Netherlands

The 2nd weekend of June was a long weekend in Sweden, and so I had planned a trip to Amsterdam and the surrounding area. 

 

Alkmaar

I started out with a quick visit to Alkmaar to visit my friend Kintija, who I had met in Latvia and Lithuania. We explored the town and enjoyed the old fashioned cheese market, before meeting some of her friends for ice cream.

 The cheese market

Funny running guys with cheese

 Me and a Windmill

That night I checked in to my hostel next to the Van Gough museum in Amsterdam, and headed out to wander the town.  Amsterdam is a really interesting city with attractions ranging from the red light district and pot cafes, to famous museums and parks.  The downtown core is divided by canals and small streets hiding lots of little bars and restaurants.  After a great wander through town avoiding being run down by crazy Amsterdamers on two wheels, I found an amazing little bar called Hansel and Gretal to enjoy a beer next to the canal.   From my safe vantage point in the bar I was able to enjoy watching all of the other pedestrians trying to avoid being hit by the cyclists. (Its far funner to watch when it isn't you!)  

People plotting how to run me over.

The next morning I headed off on the free walking tour where I met a new friend to go for a beer with.   We went back to the same pubs from the night before and did a little people watching before going past the I Amsterdam sign.

 The I Amsterdam Sign

That night I was staying with my buddy Vincent in Haarlem, so I headed off on the train and we met up.  Haarlem has a nice little brewery so we headed there, sat down, started working from one end of the taps to the other while enjoying some traditional dutch snacks.   After that we headed by the restaurant and had a great dinner before hitting the store and then moving on to a relaxing night of beer and snacks.

 Vincent in Haarlem

The next day I headed back to Amsterdam and my flight home with enough time for a relaxing lunch on a patio.

Macedonia

One of my buddies from my swedish class in Malmö is from Macedonia, so when he moved back I had a great excuse to visit.  It was also a good chance to try to fly from Malmö airport for a change, instead of Copenhagen airport, since Wizz Air offers direct flights from Malmö to Skopje. 

I had to renew my passport before I could go anywhere, and so I had planned 3 weeks of being in Malmö and Copenhagen prior to the trip.  I managed to get my passport 3 days before I flew. Talk about a great way to break in my new passport, an exit stamp from Sweden!

One of the many specular buildings in downtown Skopje.

After arriving in Skopje, my buddy Dule, picked me up from the airport and took me into town.  I had booked a hostel for the first two nights right in downtown Skopje.

Gate Macedonia, right next to my Hostel!

Skopje is a really interesting town, with quite a few really massive statues, and some "old" looking buildings that are actually quite new.  After checking into the hostel I met a British guy to wander around with.  We headed out to go look at all of the monuments and buildings.  I think I can safely say that Skopje is the most unique town I have ever visited, both in terms of the architecture and the monuments.  Only one block from a huge 25m statue, that looks suspiciously like Alexander the Great, is the same style architecture that you find all around the former eastern block.

Alexander the Great?

Up the hill through the old bazaars you will come across a centuries old church, and a castle.  The castle was really nice to wander through, and offered an amazing view of the city. 

The castle in the center of town.

After wandering around Skopje for the day and spending the next morning chatting with the staff in the hostel, Dule came back to Skopje to pick me up.  We headed south to Bitola with a coffee stop in Prilep first.  On the drive down we went through the mountains passes, and enjoyed the views.  We enjoyed a couple more cups of coffee in town, and I tried a delicious baked cheese dish at Dule's cousin's restaurant.

That night was Dule's birthday, so he had a few friends over and afterwards we went out to the bar. The night life in Bitola was fantastic, and the drinks are really cheap (around 1 euro each) .

The lake front in Ohrid.

The Saturday after was a recovery day, so we all headed to Ohrid, a town on the edge of the lake.   From here we enjoyed the fresh air and lovely views.   Dule and I made the walk up the hills to see the ancient fortress as well as the amazing churches.   From the top of the fortress the view was fantastic.

 A church on the edge of the lake.

I was flying back Sunday, so me and Dule just stayed in Bitola.  We walked around and enjoyed the coffee and the town before making the drive to the airport. 

Fantastic trip and I can't recommend Macedonia enough.   Just if you go, make sure you don't only stay in Skopje.  There are too many other amazing towns to visit.

Some more pictures from around Macedonia:

 

Down by the lakeside in Ohrid

 The castle in Skopje.

 Me enjoying the Castle.

 The Mother Teresa Memorial.

Yet another huge monument in Skopje.

Belgium

My friends Travis and Anh had planned a little Euro trip, it had started with a visit to Copenhagen and Malmö to visit me, and it was ending with a stop in Brussels before returning to Canada. As I had a red day (holiday) on Thursday,  I decided that I would fly to Brussels Wednesday after work.  The plan was to meet up with them Friday before returning to Sweden on Sunday night.   

 One of the many comic murals on the walls of Brussels.

After arriving in Brussels I checked into the same hostel I stayed in last time, and then met some friends in the common area, a couple of awesome Canadian girls and an Australian girl, all of whom are doing exchange in Europe.  We had a great night and ended up in Delirium enjoying a little absinth and I enjoyed a "Cookie Beer" .... which actually tasted like cookies.

The next morning I took off to Luxembourg (Blog Post Here), and after a night and most of the next day I headed back to Brussels to meet up with Anh and Travis.  They had booked us into a pretty nice hotel that they had a great deal on.  I met up with them in the afternoon and we headed out to have a couple drinks and chat about their Europe adventures. Afterwards we headed out for the night but ended up packing in fairly early, although we did manage to meet up with the french girls from Luxembourg.

 The Town Hall

The next day we did the free tour, ate lots of waffles, and a horrid burger, then went around town some before heading for a really nice dinner together.  I enjoyed the local mussels as well as some more of the tasty tasty Belgian beer.

A church on the edge of the canals.

Since Travis and Anh where leaving early I decided to go to Bruges for the day and explore the town.  It had an economic crash right at its peak.  As a result much of it was just left in the medieval style, as the money wasn't available to even demolish the old buildings.  The result is a medieval city that still exists today.  It also has some really nice canals.

Think I missed something?  Have suggestions where I should go next?  Sound off in the comments below!

More Pictures:

 Cathedral of St Micheal

 Anh, Travis, and I

 The view behind Anh, Travis, and I.

 Market in Bruges.

 The cloth market.

 One of the Canals in Bruges.

Luxembourg

I had planned to meet up Brussels with my friends Anh and Travis in before they went back to Canada.  Due to some poor planning on my part, I ended up with nowhere to stay in Brussels for a night.  I decided that the solution to this problem would be to go to Luxembourg and stay there for a night. (plus I could check off another country!)

The train goes from Brussels to Luxembourg every hour, so it is rather convenient.  There is only one hostel in Luxembourg, so it wasn't too hard to decide where to stay.   The hostel is a really big HI hostel and is in a great location, although the common area is perhaps not the best for meeting people.  The walk to the hostel took about 25 min from the train station, and is a lovely walk that winds along the bottom of the castle walls and the edge of the cliffs.  The views are really breathtaking, with a small river and a beautiful church as well.

After checking in at the hostel I went for a wander around the lower part of town.  The castle walls and the cliffs are really amazing, and offer a great vantage point to take pictures of the lower town.  After my wander I met two french girls, played a bit of pool, then we went out for dinner and some drinks.  We started out in search of some traditional food but eventually gave up and ate some "traditional" Luxembourgian Chinese food.  Unfortunately since it was May 1 most places seemed closed.  After dinner we ended in a really nice bar with live music called the liquid cafe.

The next morning at breakfast I met a Slovenian girl, and we spent the morning wandering and taking some pictures of the upper part of the town.  Luxembourg is really clean, and it's quite obvious that there is a lot of money spent on the city as all of the buildings are quite beautiful and expensive looking, despite it being a tiny little town.

After a final coffee, I wrote this while sitting on the train back Brussels!

Some pictures:(First ones with the new camera!)

 The Aqueduct next to my hostel (re purposed into a road)

 The view of the walls and the church.

 The Church and the little river.

 

The river with the footbridge and the castle walls.

 The amazing view from the castle walls.

 Proof I was in Luxembourg!

 Grand Dukes Palace (Guarded by day only)

The Flag!

Ireland

Me and my buddy Dominic had been discussing potential cities to meet up in ever since he had visited Malmö and Copenhagen.  We eventually decided that a trip to Dublin would be fun, so we bought tickets, and decided that his buddy Denis would be joining us.   I booked us into the same hostel that I had stayed in previously, when I had been in Dublin a few years ago, and we were good to go! 

I really love Dublin and just Ireland in general, the people are really friendly, the pubs are really good, and the beer is pretty cheap (especially compared with Scandinavia).  We all met up at the airport, because coincidentally all of our flights came in within about 15 min of each other.  After heading to town, we were immediately helped out by a nice guy who realized that we needed a point in the right direction, and helped us find our way.   After a quick check in at the hostel, we headed out for a few lovely pints of Guinness and to discuss our plans for the weekend.

We decided that we would do the usual free city tour, a pub crawl (me and Dominic had previously done the CPH pub crawl), a tour of the Guinness Storehouse, and a tour of the Jameson distillery, then we would finish up the weekend by watching Canada win gold in Olympic Men's hockey.  (I know we didn't know the outcome yet but I was sure!) 

The city tour was really great and we only got a couple of really light rains, for about 10 min each, which I'm always told to expect when in Dublin.  The city tour goes to a pub for lunch afterwards, and if you go I highly recommend going and getting a plate of food, it is 10 euros really well spent!  

The pub crawl featured lots of pubs with really good live bands and we thoroughly enjoyed it.  The next day was a bit of a recovery day so we took a walk down along the river to the Jameson distillery and did the tour before going across the river to the Guinness Storehouse.  The Storehouse features an amazing view of Dublin from their top floor where you can enjoy a pint of lovely Guinness.  While I was there some very nice Australian girl decided to give me her Guinness, and so I enjoyed two!  After all this we headed out, and decided that we would go to our favorite of the pubs from the pub crawl, wait for the pub crawlers and then join them for the last bar.  We had a chat with the barman, and he agreed that he would put the gold medal match on the TV's for us the next day.

The next day we were all heading home, so we packed our bags, headed to the bar that had agreed to show the gold medal game, and sat down to an Irish breakfast and a bit of hockey.  Dominic and Denis had to head out in the middle of the game for their flight, but I managed to catch our rather glorious win in an amazing pub in downtown Dublin before running for my bus, and then my flight home.

Some pictures from around Dublin:

 View from Dublin Castle. 

 One of the gates at Dublin Castle.

 View from Inside Dublin Castle.

 A cool sign in Temple Bar District.

 The Spire

 Dublin Castle

 Dublin Castle

Christ Church Cathedral

 Trinity College

 Keywest, an awesome band out playing music in the street.

 Denis, Dominic, and Me

Turkey

My next stop after Sofia was Istanbul.  Istanbul was one of the few places I knew for sure I would go to before leaving for my Christmas train trip.  As I had pre-booked my plane ticket home from Istanbul.

I ended up arriving in Istanbul a few days earlier then I expected (mostly because I had not had any luck with train connections to Romania) . As a result of arriving early I felt that I had enough time to see both Istanbul and perhaps one other area of Turkey. I decided that I would stay for a couple of days in Istanbul then I would go to Cappadocia to see that part of Turkey.

Istanbul is an amazing city and is very clean compared with the eastern European cities I had come from.   The only complaint I had about my arrival, was that the train tracks are currently under construction and so they are supposed to provide a bus to downtown from the edge of town. This bus didn't end up existing, but lucky for me a very nice Austrian girl paid for me to get a city bus to downtown.

After arriving downtown I met some really awesome people to explore Istanbul with, at what I'd say is probably the nicest hostel that I have ever stayed in.   If you are going to Istanbul you should definitely stay at the Cheers hostel the staff are amazing and the view from the hostel bar is unbelievable. It is right in the middle of the old town and really cheap too!

After a couple of days of wandering Istanbul, I had manged to avoid buying a carpet despite being in a few of the bazaars, so it was time for me to go to Cappadocia.   I tool the night bus which was quite nice and even had a steward to serve drinks and coffee! Cappadocia is famous for  its volcanic rock structures and the underground cities built by the ancient Hittites.  I had booked a tour of sorts through a travel place in Istanbul, (otherwise you'd need a car or motorbike to get to all of the locations in Cappadocia), included in this tour was the bus trip, a ride to all the local sites, and a room to stay in a "cave hostel".  The tour was supposed to also include a balloon ride but the weather ended up not being good enough.  The cave hostel was great though and the lava formations and the underground cities where like something out of a movie. 

The volcanic structures where formed by alternating ash and lava layers creating hard structures with soft easy to carve inside bits.  Ancient christians and others carved all sorts of churches, houses, and even hotels into these structures.  All of these are really amazing, especially the cathedrals that are carved and painted in the rocks.

After exploring the caves, the cave churches, the volcanic formations and the underground city I headed back to Istanbul.  I wandered through town and ended up finally finding myself a new backpack!  I had been looking for backpacks for a while, and had one in mind, as my big 70L bag was just way to big for most trips around Europe.  However my new 32L bag is perfect and can be carry on!

 The lighthouse from "The World is Not Enough" the James Bond movie.

 Great views from the Ferries.

Blue Mosque

 

 The Cisterns (Really Amazing)

 Entrance to the Sultans Palace.

 One of the many Mosques.

 

 The Spice Bazaar

 

 View from the Hostel Bar (the ring is a reflection from the bar lights)

 Cappadocia Landscape

 Enjoying the great landscape in Cappadocia.

 One of the underground tunnels that form part the underground cities.

 All of the holes in this are actually interconnected rooms in the lava structures.

 Me and the amazing structures carved into the lava formations.

 More of the amazing formations.

A really neat outdoor museum.