How Seren spent their summer – Europe

This Summer I did the old rite of passage Interrail-around-Europe thing. Starting in Amsterdam and making my way round to Paris via Brussels, Berlin, Prague, Slovenia, Venice, Milan, Switzerland, and Nice. As you can guess my Summer involved a lot of pizza, pasta, wine and peach flavoured ice-cream. I also did Switzerland proud and ate copious amounts of their speciality cheese fondue. It was faultless. My sunbathing days were unfortunately few and far between – Nice however was dedicated to acquiring the brown skin that had become the aim of our summer. Nice’s beaches were rocky – which can work as a back massage if you close your eyes very tight and do a lot of imagining – but to avoid that get a train towards Monaco and get off at any stop en route where you spot the white sand beaches. Hostel wise, I recommend the Generator in Paris (great food) and the Pfefferbett in Berlin (great atmosphere). I also recommend the ‘free’ walking tours all over Europe (although they guilt trip you into paying them after) and the pub crawls – great ways to see the City, meet new people and get a lot of free shots. A couple of things really stood out for me: the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, views from the top of the Eiffel Tower (walk up, it’s a lot cheaper) and watching the sunrise by the Charles Bridge after a great night in Prague’s 5 storey nightclub. It was an amazing summer – I thoroughly recommend exploring Europe whilst you get full access to the discounted rail pass. If none of the above swayed you, think: jumping into waterfalls in Slovenia, hiking mountains (& mountain parties) in Switzerland, visiting the Louvre in Paris & being woken up by singing Gondoliers in Venice. You can’t go wrong really.