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.

Having arrived in Stuttgart over an hour later than planned onboard an TGV service from Paris, I was immediately confronted by the giant building site that is Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof as is undergoes transformation through the ‘Stuttgart 21’ project. Unfortunately, this means that there is a very limited concourse area at the end of the platforms, and it is a 10 or so minute walk around the edge of the building site to reach the S-bahn station. Whilst it seems the works will greatly improve the station, both operationally and from the passenger point of view, the current arrangement really isn’t giving the greatest first impression of the city.

This blog covers the second half of our time staying in Munich back in November 2025. Part 1 ended with us having spent the morning of day two enjoying a couple of the City Sightseeing bus tours and so part 2 starts with us heading to find some lunch. Our destination had been somewhere we had spotted whilst on the Schwabing bus tour, the Park Café in Munich’s Old Botanical Gardens, which was about a five-minute walk from where the bus tours start and finish outside the Hauptbahnhof.

Having arrived in Munich late the night before, it was nice to be able to wake up in the city rather than at an airport hotel ready for an early flight. The first thing on our plan for our stay was to join a free walking tour, as these are a great way to see the sights and learn some of a city’s history. And so, after a bit of a lie in, we made the 15-minute walk into the city centre to Marienplatz to find some breakfast and join the tour we had booked.

With our base for the second half of our holiday in Germany being the town of Hildesheim, located around 30km to the south-east of Hannover, it would have been remiss of us to not spend at least one day exploring the capital of Lower Saxony. With two S-bahn lines and a regional train service connecting Hildesheim to Hannover, it’s a quick 30-minute train ride to the heart of Hannover city centre. From Hannover Hbf it’s easy to get around the city, with connections to the city’s U-bahn as well as being just a short walk from many of the sights.