Whilst the main purpose of my trip was to visit and tick off Andorra, for practicality I was staying in Barcelona, Spain’s second largest city and the capital of Catalonia. Whilst the bulk of my full day would be taken up with my trip across the border to Europe’s sixth smallest country, I had chosen flights that would allow me time to explore some of the city on my arrival and departure days, given the last time I visited Barcelona was over nine years earlier in Feb 2017. And so, having arrived in Barcelona mid-afternoon, I made my way to Plaza Espanya to check into my hotel, have a rest and then head out to explore some of the city.

Having arrived in the capital of Catalonia on a British Airways flight from Heathrow, I had two nights in Barcelona before returning to the UK. However, whilst I would be spending plenty of time exploring the city, the main purpose of my trip was to leave the city, and in fact the country, to visit the one remaining European mainland microstate that I needed to tick off. That country, nestled in the Pyrenees between Spain and France, is Andorra. Without a car, the best way to reach the country and its capital, Andorra la Vella, is to take a coach from Barcelona and so, at a slightly too early time in the morning, I was at Barcelona Sants Coach Station, ready to head to another new country.

Having completed the final train journey of my Meander to Moldova, I had arrived at Chișinău’s railway station onboard an overnight sleeper service from Bucharest. With two nights in the city, I had plenty of time to explore what is a relatively small capital city, but before I did any exploring, I needed to head into town and drop my bag off at my hotel. Whilst there is a bus stop near to the station, from my online research it seemed they didn’t accept card and, with no Moldovan Lei yet in my wallet, I booked a Bolt for the 15-minute ride to the city centre.

My arrival in Bucharest had come in the form of the slightly late ‘Ister’ sleeper train from Budapest-Keleti, with my first impression of the Romanian capital coming in the form of the imposing architecture of Bucharesti-Nord railway station. Unfortunately, I hadn’t had a great night’s sleeper onboard the ‘Ister’ meaning I wasn’t quite raring to go and so my first stop upon arriving was the station Starbucks to grab some breakfast and get my bearings. Then, having dropped my bag at the staffed luggage storage for the bargain price of 17RON (£2.91) it was out into the city to begin exploring.

With a slightly later than planned arrival into Budapest onboard the Kalman Imre sleeper train from Stuttgart, I had stored my bag in one of the luggage lockers at Keleti station and headed to the metro to start my exploration of the city. I had visited the Hungarian capital before, on my first trip following the Covid pandemic but I’ve always thought that I hadn’t really done the city justice as the travel bug didn’t seem to reignite until I reached the second city on that trip, Bratislava. So, as I made my way to St. Stephen's Basilica where the walking tour I had booked onto would start, I was looking forward to giving Budapest the second chance it deserved.