Inter Rail Trip in May-June 2011

We wanted to travel a bit,

• since we still could,
• since we wouldn't be able to hike in the summer,
• since many people invited us to their places, and
• since it was great fun the last time.

Tiiti was 6-7 months pregnant during the trip, fit enough to travel, sit in the trains, and carry at bit of backpack as well. It helped a lot to have an HQ place at the friends'. Later on, the trip would have been too exhausting, so the timing was perfect.

We chose that the topic of the trip would be architecture, and conducted a bit of research beforehand to find interesting places. Especially the Bauhaus style buildings pleased our eye. In Dessau we got to see the Bauhaus school main building, the professors' apartments, and a large semi-experimental suburb. Stuttgart provided us with some interesting buildings suggested as the solution for the housing shortage in the 1920s. The suburb in Dessau consists of a couple of different buildings multiplied over the large area, whereas in Stuttgart all the buildings are unique. Speaking of other architecture, we got to see Ghent where old and new buildings coexist without any trouble, and some really traditional German wood building style in the Rhine valley.

Many historic places in Central Europe have been taken on the Unesco world heritage list. We visited at least nine, some of them without even knowing beforehand. The churches were obviously the most magnificent sights, but many of the historic places felt like there once was something remarkable but now it's gone. The cathedral in Roskilde was an exception to this: many kings and queens of Denmark have been buried there, and a scale model of the future coffin of the present queen is on display. The place made us realise that we really are just another instant in the course of history.

We ate good food. The German ice-cream was insanely cheap compared to Finland, and all the better, it comes in a variety of great flavours. We tested all kinds of local specialities, the most memorable being the sour roast in the Sauerbratenpalast in Aachen, followed by the Czech sauerkraut. Timo studied the local beers and liked the darks the best. It seems that the Czech like it more bitter than the western people, but due to limited data we cannot draw any statistical conclusions.

It was hot nearly every day. A couple of times we were blessed with rain, though once the thunder didn't feel like a blessing since it broke something and hindered our journey in Sweden. We didn't catch the EHEC or anything else. Everything was as smooth as it gets.

Want to read more?

• Photo gallery
• The story in chapters:
  • Aachen
  • Belgium
  • West Germany
  • Nuremberg
  • Prague
  • East Germany
  • Denmark
• Facts about countries
• Host awards
• The blog we wrote during the trip and the original plans