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London Trip – Day 3

Published on 28 January 2023 
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More Hashing & Hammerton

Another day starting with a breakfast buffet! Not to fuel me for a morning of museums this time, but for a mid-day run. Today I ran with another kennel: the OG London Hash House Harriers. I packed all my stuff, put on my running gear, checked out, and headed to The Golden Fleece, where the run would start at one. More nice hashers—and some familiar faces from Thursday—a lot of banter, again a really nice, touristy trail, and of course some beer at the end…

After the run I still had some time—although less than planned—to check off a few more beery places on my list. Caps and Taps and Indiebeer are primarily beer shops, so an excellent opportunity to buy a couple of cans to take home. Of course I also had to taste a some of the beers they had on draught…

My last stop this trip was the Hammerton Brewery, a microbrewery in Islington. Unfortunately the kitchen was closed, so I had to forego the pizza I was hoping for… The beers and cracklings were nice, though!

Eventually I made it back to St. Pancras International in time for my Eurostar back home.

So long London, is has been a blast, and see you again in a couple of months!

Done reading about this trip? Resume reading my blog in the usual order!

London Trip – Day 1

Published on 27 January 2023

Waterloo & West London H3

The last time I was in London for more than a couple of hours, is almost four years ago! About time to visit it again, so today I finally found myself once again on a Eurostar under the English Channel. Lots of queueing—the train was full—but at least the biometric gates now worked with my Belgian comic strip passport.

Since I didn’t have time for a coffee before my departure in Brussels, and because I had a bit of time to kill before I could check-in in my hotel, my first stop in London was at Redemption Roasters for some—apparently—prison-roasted coffee, and a piece of banana bread.

My hotel for this trip is again the very conveniently located—right next to the station—hub by Premier Inn King’s Cross. I’ve stayed there once before, returning from one of my Scotland trips. A swift check-in, change into my kilt, and it was time to hit the town!

First up was Mother Kelly’s Bottle Shop & Taproom in Vauxhall. Their taprooms had been on my to-do list for years, but somehow I never made it… This one has 33 beers on tap, so it wasn’t hard to find some beers I liked! The music I didn’t like that much, so after two beers I moved on.

The second stop was the Waterloo Tap. The bar is part of the same family as the Euston Tap, my usual last stop before boarding the Caledonian Sleeper, so I kind of knew what to expect: a nice selection of keg and cask beers. I wasn’t wrong about that, but the venue itself was so much more open than the Euston Tap: it was basically a rather narrow railway arch with windows put in on both sides!

Then it was time to visit BrewDog Waterloo. At that moment it was still the newest London BrewDog bar, but that would soon, very soon, change… I’ve visited BrewDog bars of all sizes, but this one is just ridiculously large: apart from the bar space itself—with 60 taps—and a micro-brewery like we’ve seen in other Outposts, this location also has a separate coffee bar, an indoor ice cream van, a hidden cocktail bar, a podcast recording studio, duckpin bowling, and a slide! My stomach was still on Belgian time, so I seized the opportunity to give the Vegan Allstars menu a try, and had a portion of Loaded Skins.

I didn’t want to eat too much, because the next activity on the schedule was a run, with the West London Hash House Harriers. In The Old Star pub I quickly changed into my running kilt and shoes, and off we went! As usual when hashing, I met a lot of nice people, and as luck would have it, it turned out to be a very tourist friendly trail!

The last stop of the evening was BrewDog Wandsworth, for its Equity Punk (pre-opening) night, that just happened to be during my visit to London. So yes, from now on until the next one opens, that is the newest BrewDog bar in London! I managed to chat to some people I’ve been reading on the EFP forum for years, and some I had met before. It was a really nice way to end my first evening in London.

Wien, Bayern & Berlin Reise – 10

Published on 4 October 2022 
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Back to Brussels

So the last day of my trip—the voyage home—went a little bit different than I originally planned. I actually knew that it would a couple of days ago, when Deutsche Bahn sent me an e-mail telling me the one of the trains I booked was cancelled, but I could use my ticket for other DB trains to get me home.

So I looked up another convenient combination of ICE trains, and booked seats on those, since my original seat reservations did no longer apply, of course. However, those were considerably later than my original trains, so I decided to add a late checkout to my easyHotel booking. That way I could sleep in a little, and leave my bags in the room while I went out for brunch.

For that, I went to Codos this time, where I had a very tasty breakfast burrito.
By then it was time to do a last bit of packing, and actually check out.

I did well reserving a seat on the train I planned taking, since it was absolutely packed, even in first class! Add to that the fact that about an hour before departure, they had to switch trains, so everyone with a reservation was assigned a new carriage and seat. As you can imagine, quite a few people didn’t see that e-mail before they boarded, so where clueless about where to sit…

I didn’t manage to book a solo seat, but since someone though you could reserve a seat for luggage as well, and used the seat next to me for that purpose, I kind of sat solo after all. I did have to suffer quite a few dirty looks from people who thought that those were my suitcases! Anyway, I was seated quite comfortably until at least Frankfurt Flughafen train station, and got started on watching Die Kaiserin, which seemed quite apt to finish this trip with.

In Frankfurt I had to change onto another ICE, and even had a seat in the compartment with the see-through wall behind the driver’s seat, but unfortunately it was set to opaque.. On this train I didn’t have a solo seat either, but the person that reserved the seat next to me between Köln and Aachen, never showed up.

By the time I arrived in Brussels—quite tired, after ten full days, and with a delay of over forty minutes—I had finished watching Die Kaiserin, and was ready to take the last few metros home, unpack, and organise my virtual and real souvenirs of this trip.

Done reading about this trip? Resume reading my blog in the usual order!

Wien, Bayern & Berlin Reise – 6

Published on 30 September 2022

Breakfast in Bamberg, Beer in Berlin

Time to travel again! To avoid a half standing breakfast again—yesterday’s bakery had quite peculiar ‘seating’ arrangements—I booked a breakfast in my hotel, saving some time in the process.

I still had time for one museum before my train, so I went to the Diözesanmuseum. I originally just planned it as a ‘filler’ museum, just to kill some time and check off another activity on my Bamberg Card, but as I had learned about the importance of Bamberg as an episcopal city, I’m glad I included it. When I was an altar boy, we didn’t have a handy “A” for “aqua” and “V” for “vinum” on the little jugs for water and wine, as far as I can remember!

After a Portuguese coffee at Zuckerstück, it was time to check out, and I headed to the station for my ICE to Berlin.

In Berlin, I headed straight for my familiar easyHotel to check in and drop off my baggage, and then off to Populus Coffee for a proper third wave coffee. Then it was time to go to Lager Lager, and boy, was it nice to taste an IPA again, after days of lagers…

The next stop was Markthalle Neun, for some beers at Heidenpeters, and some empanadas from one of the Street Food Thursday stands.

Then it was time to revisit some classics—Biererei, Hopfenreich, and Muted Horn—before turning in for the night.

Wien, Bayern & Berlin Reise – 4

Published on 28 September 2022

Oktoberfest, the OG

After a couple of days in Wien, it was time to move on to Bamberg, but with a very important stop along the way… It’s the end of September, so it isn’t hard to guess where I went: Oktoberfest in München!

I put on my brand new Lederhose—I shrunk out of the pair I bought a couple of years ago—and headed to Wien Hbf for my four hour ÖBB Regiojet trip to München. It was a bit too early to have breakfast before boarding—apart from a croissant in the first class lounge—so I had my last Austrian breakfast on the train.

After arriving in München and storing my bag for the day, I first went for lunch, to line my stomach for what was to come. Although I didn’t really have time to play tourist today, there was one place I had sung about many times before—🎶In München steht ein Hofbräuhaus🎶—so I simply had to visit it! Of course I already had a first Maß—of Dunkles—with my Obazda there.

A quick coffee at Man versus Machine Coffee Roasters, and I was ready for the main event.

As I’m quite a traditionalist—even if it comes to traditions I’m not really a part of—I went straight for the Oide Wiesn, and its Festzelt Tradition. They had a Blaskapelle playing there, and even served the beer—Augustiner Edelstoff—in stoneware Keferloher, instead of glass.

Since I would be on the train for two hours just around dinner time, I decided to have an early dinner—Knuspriger Spanferkelbraten mit Kartoffelknödel und Speckkrautsalat—at the Augustiner-Keller, right next to the station.

On a weekday, a lot of places in Bamberg seem to close quite early, so even before checking into my Ibis Bamberg hotel, I stopped at Brauerei Spezial for a Märzen.

To conclude the day, I went to Stillbruch, one of the rare interesting bars still open late.