I am fortunate to have a regular group of pals who undertake an annual weekend trip away in Europe, though our first post-apocalypse trip next year is a change of direction again to Belfast. The trips consist of a splash of culture, music, and lathering’s of ale!
There have been numerous incidents along the way, Uncle George’s Wallace and Gromit imitating ‘Wrong Trousers’ in Munich springs to mind, but that is another tale entirely.
Whilst I am referencing our visit to Munich, we did our usual Day 2 train trip, this time to the nearby chocolate box town of Freising. Upon arrival we climbed the hill out of town to Brewery Weihenstephan which is the oldest brewery in the world and is an independent profit-seeking enterprise owned by the Free State of Bavaria, where we proceeded to spend a leisurely couple of hours in the sunshine.
When we landed back at the small train station, we noticed it had a very thin platform. This fact became hugely relevant when a seemingly endless freight train sped through and the air pressure it created was extraordinary, perturbing enough for adults and I am sure it would have been terrifying for kids.
I recall there were a suite of large outdoor beer halls in Munich with a particularly huge site contained within the local park.
On another trip in Heidelberg, we passed a sleepy town called Bruschal and decided to jump off and have a peruse. A couple of the lads hunted down a bar whilst a group of us were peckish, so we headed to the Thai Restaurant across the road from the station. I was a tad dehydrated so I put in a simple request for some Jasmine Tea. They mistook the order and proceeded to brew six pots of tea for all of us, you could hear the kettle running for over half an hour, it must have displayed as a mysterious spike on the Karksruhe district electricity meters!
On a subsequent visit to Heidelberg, we took a break from the Christmas markets to head up into the hills on the funicular train. As we approached the apex there was a voluminous drop of snow from the heavens which caused some significant hindrance to the bemused looking driver on the return trip.
Returning to the musical spectrum, we visited Utrecht in 2012. After landing, we made a tactical error at Amsterdam station by catching the slow train, which stopped at every lamppost en route! The lesson was learned, and we ensured we caught the express train when returning back to Schipol airport. Whilst residing there, we undertook our day trip into the bright lights of Amsterdam.
Utrecht is an ancient city dating back to the Middle Ages, is the fourth largest city in the Netherlands and Utrecht University is the largest in the country. It is an eminently walkable city with a proliferation of barges and gobsmackingly enormous bike shelter storage areas that created in my mind the scenario of desperately trying to find your bike at the end of a long day. They also have miles of bike lanes that you absolutely do not cross unwittingly for the fear of being flattened!
One night we found Utrecht T’Oude Pothuys, residing on Oudegracht. It is situated in a grand old building that is over 400 years old and it has a canal side patio therein. It was an inviting place and had an olde world feel and have music on every evening of the week and is open until 3am at the weekends. On our visit a local act called De Avonduren were playing who had a jazzy trip hop vibe about them.
