Skip to content

Category: Travel

Day 2 – Muffins, Money, and More…

Day 2 – Muffins, Money, and More…

Published on 18 September 2024

My second day in London started with a full English Muffin Man breakfast, to prepare me for a day full of activities, ranging from ‘House’ visits, to meeting more Hash House Harriers…

In a place called Muffin Man, I had to have a muffin of course, so I ordered a toasted buttered English muffin in addition to the already more than filling breakfast…

The house I visited, was Leighton House, the former home and studio of the leading Victorian artist, Frederic, Lord Leighton (1830-1896), on the edge of Holland Park. I hadn’t heard of him before this trip, but it must have been quite a character, and he left us a beautiful house!

Back in the centre, I visited the Bank of England Museum. A nice little exhibition, but most importantly: I got to touch and lift a real gold bar!

My selected coffee bar of the day was Rosslyn Coffee. Standing place only, baking in the sun, but what a location!

From there it was just a short walk to Pelt Trader, where I enjoyed a couple of beers, and their Sussex Hot pizza. By the time I finished it, I realised I was actually quite far ahead on schedule, which meant the next bar I planned to go to wasn’t open yet…

Luckily The Rake—the bar I finally went to in June—was only a London Bridge away, so I decided to cross the Thames and spend some time there. As expected, they once again had a great selection of beers!

After that The Bolter was open, so I had a last couple of beers there, before heading back to the hotel to change into my running kilt. 

The Piccadilly line was acting up a bit today, so I had to leave a little bit earlier to make it to Enfield in time to run with the Enfield Hash. By the time I arrived at The Cricketers pub, they had already almost finished chalk talk, so I gave my bag to Mick Mac—one of the Brussels hashers, but an Enfield native—and we took off! 

After returning in the pub, I managed to wolf down a steak and ale pie before circle started, so I was ready for a last beer stop before going back to the hotel. 

That last stop was in BrewDog Soho, a bar I hadn’t been in six years! I arrived just fifteen minutes before last call, so after two beers, I was on my way to a shower and my bed…

Day 1 – A Proper Visit to London

Day 1 – A Proper Visit to London

Published on 17 September 2024

Time for a proper revisit of London! While I did manage to squeeze in a new bar on my day trip in June, this week I’m actually staying for a couple of nights. That means I should be able to visit a whole lot more new—for me—bars, taprooms, museums, coffee shops, and even two hashes I didn’t run with yet!

The day before my trip I tried to change my seat on the Eurostar, so I wouldn’t have anyone next to me. However, when scanning my ticket upon entering the Eurostar terminal, I was reallocated a new seat and coach… It turned out to be one of four seats around a table! Luckily nobody showed up to sit across from me, so I could stretch my legs, and the guy next to me left soon after departure to find another seat. 

To find an affordable hotel in London, I had to venture a bit from the city centre, so after arrival in St. Pancras International I took the Piccadilly line all the way to Earl’s Court, to check in at easyHotel South Kensington to check in and drop off my bag. 

It was then time for my daily coffee, at HJEM Kensington this time, serving coffee from kiss the hippo roasters. 

For my first beers of the trip I went to The Queens Arms, one of the pubs listed in my book An Opinionated Guide to London Pubs, by Matthew Curtis. The first time I actually made it to one! I had a couple of halves and some miso chicken skewers, before heading back to the hotel to get changed for tonight’s run. 

After taking the District line to Putney Bridge, I arrived at The Bricklayer’s Arms to meet up with the City Hash House Harriers. Head torch at the ready, and off we went! It was a lovely trail, but rather dark, so I wasn’t able to take many useable photos…

After trail, I rushed to BrewDog Shepherd’s Bush, hoping to get there before the kitchen closed. I actually made it in time to enjoy The Feast, and some beers from their German Craft Beer Showcase! The last time I had been in this bar was in 2018, but it’s still definitely one of the nicer, small ones! 

A Short Trail and a Long Trip

A Short Trail and a Long Trip

Published on 28 July 2024 
Reached this post by just scrolling through my blog? 
If you want to read about this trip from start to finish, instead of in reverse order, click here!

The last day of a hash event is usually a short one, to give participants enough time for the voyage home. On the programme: the Hangover Trail!

The Hangover Trail was as usual quite short—just 4,5 km sightseeing through Hamburg today—and followed by a circle to close off the whole weekend.

While the trail only lasted an hour, the voyage home, which should only take 6,5 hours including transfers, would take me 9 hours in the end! Just as well I didn’t book the latest trains, since I would then probably have had to spend the night in Köln! The extended transfer times of 45 minutes in Hannover and of 1,5 hours in Köln did mean I could take my time for a coffee—although just not enough time to go to a specialty coffee place—and a proper meal in Köln: Leberkäse mit Spiegelei, Bratkartoffeln, Krautsalat und süßem Senf (meat loaf with fried egg, fried potatoes, coleslaw, and sweet mustard) at Gaffel am Dom. And I had some Kölsch… I didn’t plan to, but when their first question is “Ein Kölsch?”, it’s hard to say no!

Then, again in true Deutsche Bahn style, the departure of my last train was about 35 minutes delayed… It did do the job of taking me home though, so this is where my story ends!

More Interscandi!

More Interscandi!

Published on 27 July 2024

The first and only full day of Interscandi continues to follow the usual schedule: breakfast, run, lunch on the way, circle, and dinner and a themed party. Considering we were based in the second largest city of Germany, we had a surprisingly green run!

After last night’s pub crawl, the hot dorm room, and the loud music from the venues on the Reeperbahn, not everyone made it in time for breakfast, but luckily I did!

After an U-Bahn and an S-Bahh to Hoheneichen, we were ready to run the trail. My choice was the long trail, good for 14,3 km of running, including some ‘checking’ (running in the wrong direction to find out where the trail actually continues).

So, a note about the party and dinner: the theme was ‘vikings in drag or flip flops’, although the formulation changed over time, and mermaids were squeezed in there somehow as well… I decided to just go for a viking in a viking dress.

Since I’m not much of a party goer, I snuck out early to put my battle axe safely away, change into my usual kilt, and go back to Craft Bier Bar Hamburg, probably the bar with the most interesting taplist at the moment!

Interscandi!

Interscandi!

Published on 27 July 2024

After the hashy intermezzo on Thursday, it was back to normality for a couple of hours, before the main event of this trip would really start: Interscandi. What supposedly started as a joint hash event for/by the Scandinavian hashes, now extends to anywhere the vikings have been, hence the choice for Hamburg this year…

Normality usually starts with breakfast and coffee, so after a breakfast buffet at the ibis budget hotel, I headed to Milch for that coveted coffee. Unfortunately they were inexplicably closed, so I walked on for my only cultural stop today: the Kramer-Witwen-Wohnung, the ‘shopkeeper’s widow’s home’, built in the 17th century—so widows could move out of their husbands’ shops, so other shopkeepers could move in—and in use for this purpose until the 19th century. Reading this explanation probably took longer than the visit, because it was tiny!

To be fair: I limited myself to one cultural stop to be able to squeeze in one last beer stop before the less predictable part of the weekend would start… On the way there was the Elbgold coffee roastery though, so I could have my espresso macchiato after all!

But just a little after lunch time I found myself already at the Beyond Beer shop, tasting their draught beers…

I still had some time left, and I decided to kill it at BrewDog St. Pauli. I actually already dropped by there on my first night in Hamburg, but I just missed last call then…

Interscandi is with accommodation included, so I had to change venues on the day it started. So my home for the next two nights would be the Pyjama Park Hostel, completely filled with other hashers… The checkin was a happy reunion with people I met at other hash events, and of course a a substantial delegation of BMPH3 members. Let the mayhem begin! Well, as it turned out, the mayhem was too much for the people behind the bar of the hostel, so I fled to The Baby Goat Barn, and had some pizza while I was there.

After that, it was already time to start the pub crawl, no running involved this time. To my delight they had set a “beer nerds” trail as well! It brought me back to The Baby Goat Barn, BrewDog, and Bar Oorlam, but I was so happy to be drinking craft beer on a Nash Hash pub crawl!