So the plan was ...

to spend a few weeks meandering from Amsterdam to Brussels via Haarlem then Maastricht to visit friends, and from there to Cologne via Aachen. Then head to Munich and from there to Vienna, on to Budapest and then end up in Prague. From there I was planning to fly back to London, and then to Paris, train down to Besancon again to catch up with friends. And in between I was hoping to visit Bordeaux where a friend's sister and her husband own a vineyard.

I ended up coming in to Brussels, then going to Ghent, from there to Brugge, and out to Maastricht. From Maastricht I took the train to Amsterdam and then onward to Haarlem, from where I got back to Schipol and flew back to Toronto cutting the trip short by about fifteen days. Not a bad trip but not enough to satisfy all those cravings for eurocentric cultural experiences ... y'know dancing on cobbled streets, playing hide and seek in catacombs, drinking beers made using a six hundred year old recipe (Remember the Stella Artois ad ... Time demands change - We politely refuse, since 1300), climbing turrets of castles that were old when Richard the Lionheart was leading crusades to the holy land, and drinking the kind of wine that warms the cockles of your heart and enjoying the sundrenched medittaranean vistas, and the unique ambience of a live your life to the full attitude that Europeans seem to have a corner on more than any other region on the planet. Plus let us not forget the bargain Armanis, the post modern swiss watches, the costly as hell but style to burn man purses that Germans toss off seemingly effortlessly and other shopping delights not possible anywhere else. Of course paying in Euros is a bit of a heartburn for my North American soul used as we are to cheap prices this side of the pond but something has to give and it's certainly not going to be my good taste heh.

Well, for the September trip I plan now to fly to London, go up north via Edinboro to Inverness to say hi to Nessy heh, and from there to Glasgow and from there via Stanfarer for the ferry to Belfast through to Galway, again ferry to Aran Islands and end up in Dublin.

From Dublin I might either go to Wales or go to Paris directly via one of those superbly low Ryan Air flights and then head south of France, via stopover in Bordeaux of course, and practice my winedrinking and french cussing skills all along the way until I cross the border over to Barcelona. From here I hope to catch a cheap flight out to Rome, go over to Bologna to visit a friend and then head out to Munich for the Oktoberfest which should start up around the 15'th to the 20'th of September. Yeah not sure why it's called the Oktoberfest myself :)

And that does mean that this time as well I give the old iron curtain side of Europe a miss, as I do the Scandinavian side of things as well as Portugal, but that's another trip waiting to happen next year, hopefully with things kicking off in Belgrade and then just going on an on until I end up in Riga or St. Petersburgh.

And now for my top ten tips:

a. Always carry tissue. You never know which toilets are out of paper.

b. If you plan to stay in hostels, invest in a good set of earplugs and eyeshades. Also padlocks (for lockers), flashlight (to navigate the dorms in the dark without waking up the sleepers), some plastic bags (for dirty laundry/slippers), towel, a bath soap (and a laundry soap if you want to do some hand laundry), a basic first aid kit, power adapters to recharge your mobile phones, a reliable pocket alarm clock (for those early morning flights just in case your mobile phone stops working etc). Pack light (my recipe for backpacking trips is 2 shirts, 3 t shirts, one swimming trunk that can double as a pair of shorts, one track pants that can double as sleepwear, six underwears one black pant, one windcheater + one scarf (if it's not summer) and one set of slippers. If it's cold one can always buy a sweater locally and just layer the T-Shirts inside.

c. Get a travelling partner. Really helps cut down costs as most deals are for twos.

d. Use overnight train journeys to go from point A to B. Saves a night's rent.

e. Keep euro coins and cash handy. Most places / machines are not geared towards North American plastic.

f. When using low cost airlines make sure to factor in the costs of getting from your hotel/friend's pad to the airport as well. Also remember to not pack more than 7Kgs, as there are significant overweight charges.

g. Get copies of Knopf Mapguides for the cities you plan to visit. Very handy, very lightweight, and the maps with sights/restaurants is very useful if you just want to randomly explore using buses/bicycles etc.

h. Get Lonely Planet Guides but use it for your research prior to your trip and make plans using it. Carrying it around is not advisable as it can get pretty heavy. In fact do what I do, get a Kindle and get the Kindle edition. Amazingly practical and well worth the money invested when you are lugging your bag around every day up and down places for a month and every extra bit starts to weigh you down.

i. Pack a light camera. Those fancy digital SLRs can take amazing pictures but the weight also kills you. I use a small Olympus XA film camera. Yeah it's a pain to pay so much money to process your shots (costs about 15$ for a set of prints and to scan a 36 exposure roll to a CD here plus another four to eight dollars to buy the actual roll so don't do this unless you know what you're doing in terms of metering your shots on film and can afford the risk of a shot not panning out as you expect). I plan to save money and buy a Leica M9 as I already have a few thousand invested in Leica lenses and this way I get a lightweight camera that can take superbly professional looking wideangle shots of landscapes as well as unforgettable portraits.

j. Plan alternative routes/food places/transportation means etc. Also be prepared to meet new friends and change itineraries on the drop of a hat. This can lead to all sorts of greet adventures, but you also need to know what you're doing if you don't want to blow your budget :) Spending time before you travel to lookup train routes, bus options, accomodation options, low cost airlines, Eurail passes, day/week passes for local transit, bicycle rent options etc can really pay off when you change plans midstream.

And if you have any other trips or suggestions on routes, festivals, places to eat and drink, or even if you just know somebody who wouldn't mind letting me crash in their place do tell ... I can always return these favors in spades :)