Third day in Berlin started off with a proper breakfast and a visit to the Deutsches Historisches Museum. Then coffee at 19grams, a trip to the east end of the city, and a stuffed, oven baked potato at Patta, followed by beer, lots of beer… (Hops & Barley, Straßenbräu, Labor Berlin, and Protokoll)
Today we left Bologna early in the morning to spend the day in Firenze. Starting with another NannyBag drop off, in a hotel this time, where they even lent us an umbrella for the day when it started pouring down right when we were about to leave.
The tickets for the Galleria dell’Accademia we’re already sold out when I tried to book them two months ago, and the line at the ticket booth went all around the block, so we just had a look at the David in front of the Palazzo Vecchio instead.
After not even being able to sit down for coffee, and having our panino co i’ lampredotto standing up as well, we decided to visit BrewDog Firenze a bit earlier than planned, just to get out of the rain! After a couple of beers and a nice chat with the staff and other beer geeks, it stopped raining, so we could continue our tour of Firenze.
We also visited the Palazzo Pitti, were the lines were remarkably short for a museum with great interior decorations, and paintings from both Flemish and Italian masters.
To conclude the afternoon we went to Archea Brewery, which turned out to be more a nice bar, than an actual brewery.
For dinner we went to Osteria Del Cinghiale Bianco to try two other florentine specialties: papardelle al Cinghiale and bistecca alla Fiorentina. It tasted as good as it looks!
After the exchanging the umbrella for our bag again, we took the Frecciabianca train to Rome.
After arriving at our B’n’B Rhome86, we nipped out again for a nightcap at BrewDog Roma.
After having breakfast in the train, we arrived in Venice, with a slight delay, but not bad for a 14 hour train ride. The moment we left the train station, we were astonished by the crowds we immediately ran into! After we dropped our bag off at another NannyBag location, we made our way to the San Marco square the only way one should: by boat.
The lines at the Palazzo Ducale were already crazily long, and considering we didn’t have that much time left before lunch, we instead just strolled through the city, through tourist-free streets, where possible.
For lunch I had already booked a table at Taverna Scalinetto well in advance, and there on their backyard terrace amidst locals instead of tourists, we very much enjoyed local specialties bigoli in salsa and fegato alla veneziana con polenta.
In the afternoon we payed the Scuola Grande Di San Rocco a visit: no lines at all.
Our last port of call was beer bar Il Santo Bevitore, where we had some beers on the waterside.
It was then time to move on to the city we will spend the next two nights: Bologna.
After checking into our B’n’B, we tried some classics from the region in Trattoria Da Me: tortellini in brodo, and lasagna alla bolognese.
A quick visit to BrewDog Bologna, and then off to bed!
After having breakfast at Trade, we spent most of the day at the Tate, both the Tate Britain and the Tate Modern.
Another attraction of the bar is the full-size brewing installation, technically making this the only—at least for now—BrewDog brewpub. Since the beers brewed there are only available in that bar, we had to try some, even if it wasn’t even noon yet…
Since we didn’t want all of our trip to be about beer, we also visited the National Gallery. There were so many paintings there I had to learn about for an exam just a couple of weeks ago! For instance: these Bathers, the first by Paul Cézanne, the second by Georges Seurat.
We managed to have a look at Sigmund Freud the Hanging Man, before catching our train home. Again, we had three changes to make, but even the shortest one — eight minutes — was no problem.
Our third and last day in Prague, we visited the Galerie Rudolfinum, which meant — strangely enough — we spent most of the morning in the dark watching movies. After another taste of the Czech cuisine, and an espresso at Onesip Coffee, we continued our cultural day at the National Gallery.
After a quick visit to the Kafka head, we tried the last couple of craft beer bars.
As usual, we spent part of the first day on a tour bus. Halfway we got out to visit Prague Castle, which — not surprisingly, considering it’s one of the largest castles of Europe — took us a good part of the day.
Our last day in London, our last day of visits to museums, bars and breweries.
We started our day checking out the Old Spitalfields Market, having a pulled pork bagel for breakfast, followed by a last coffee at Nude Espresso.
After the lines at Dennis Severs’ House turned out to be a little too long, we went to the Guildhall Art Gallery, mostly to check out the remains of the Roman amphitheater, underneath the current building.
In the afternoon we visited one last brewery — Anspach & Hobday — and the last BrewDog bar of our trip — BrewDog Soho.
The last underground voyage took a bit longer than foreseen, when there were some problems on the direct line to St Pancras. We made it to our Eurostar well in time in the end, thus concluding this beer-filled London trip.
Another museum day today: Technikmuseum, Naturkundemuseum & Gemäldegalerie. In between we went to one of the best kebab places of Berlin: Mustafa’s Gemüse Kebab.