Tag: hotel

Roman-ia!

Published on 22 October 2025

A new day, a new country! It’s absurd I hadn’t been to Romania yet, considering you can’t even spell the country’s name without “Roman”! Ready to discover which local dishes and beers Bucharest has to offer!

My Ister sleeper train wouldn’t even arrive until just before noon, so I had plenty of time to take in the views of the Carpathian Mountains and the Romanian countryside. Such a late arrival had the benefit I could check in straight away and have a shower at my ibis Styles Bucharest City Center. My room even has a balcony! Although judging by the presence of an ashtray there, it might have something to do with the prevalence of smoking in Romania…

Since I didn’t pack much of a breakfast for my train ride, I enjoyed The Pulled Pork Sandwich—and coffee of course—at Meron even more.

Time to delve into some Roman history at the Muzeul Național de Istorie a României. Here they have casts of all the reliefs of Trajan’s Column, and full-size replicas of the base and top of the column. With the Museo della Civiltà Romana now closed, this might very well be the only place where one can still see casts like this! There’s also a lot of gold in the museum, but I’m not much of a pirate…

The museum was smaller than I expected, so I already had some time to visit my first beer destination in Bucharest: the Ground Zero Beer Taproom.

Another coffee at Origo, and since I still had some time left before my dinner reservation, a couple of beers at Ironic Taproom.

Then it was time to start ticking off dishes of my Romanian cuisine list! Although it’s quite touristy, even experienced travellers and locals recommend Caru’ cu bere as the place to go for local food and a unique experience. Three checks in one go for me: zacuscă, tochitură muntenească, and papanași. While the main dish alone would have been enough to fill me up, they seemed to have given me a double portion of the dessert. So while every course was as tasty as I could hope for, it left me feeling quite stuffed. Maybe I should have joined the dancers when they asked me!

Then it was Beer O’Clock! No seriously, that was the name of the bar! They only serve their beer in half litres though, which is not ideal for tasting… At Tap Craft Beer next door everything was available in a much more reasonable 200ml, so I had a couple of beers there.

The last stop for the night was the NoRoom Taproom—serving Maktoob and OneTwo beers—a place so small I first couldn’t find it, an literally no room to sit inside.

FIRST time in Budapest!

FIRST time in Budapest!

Published on 19 October 2025

Five years after I originally planned my trip, I was finally there: Budapest! Run with the local hashers, drink the local beers, enjoy the local delicacies: lots of fun ahead!

Everything had to wait a little bit, though, because my rather dusty sleeper train arrived over twenty minutes late. On top of that, due to my accommodation downgrade, I hadn’t had the opportunity to change into my running kilt, so I had to sort that out first. Once that was taken care of, and I dropped off my bag at my hotel, it was time for coffee and breakfast, at Dorado.

Arrival of the Kálmán Imre sleeper train in Budapest Keleti

From there I headed to Nyugati railway station, since the hash run would start in Piliscsaba , a 38 minutes ride from the centre.

Over there, I joined the Budapest H3 for their Trail 1853 – The Jenga Farewell Run! The Jenga part referred to a recently torn down wooden viewpoint tower, on top of a hill. To get there, the hare picked the steepest way up, so even though we were only two kilometres from the start, the beer stop there was very welcome!

My train to the run ready to leave Budapest Nyugati train station

After the run I could finally check into my ibis Budapest City hotel for a much needed shower and a change.

As the restaurant I picked for dinner turned out to be closed, I had something to eat with my beers at FIRST Craft Beer. While tasty, it was not particularly Hungarian, something I’ll have to make up for tomorrow.

Then it was finally time for a visit to Mad Scientist’s Madhouse. Finally, because it was one of the first breweries on my to-visit list, although this actually isn’t the same taproom they had back then.

Last call was at the Hops Beer Bar: small—just seven beers on tap—but cosy.

Good beers, good food, good company, and good times: after a rocky start, a perfect end of my first day in Budapest!

The New Town

The New Town

Published on 25 June 2025

Wednesday was another travel day—although this time just the one train from Aberdeen to Edinburgh—but also another hashing day, with The New Town hash this evening.

The day started a bit earlier than expected: I had to go back to the NorthLink Ferries terminal to pick up some haberdashery (hashing gear) that didn’t make it to the event in time. Once back in my hotel with the loot, I enjoyed breakfast there, and then finished packing.

Well before my train was due to depart, I went to Aberdeen station to relax a bit in the First Class Lounge.

It would take the ScotRail train about 2h20 to take me from Aberdeen to Edinburgh Waverley, but I was well provided for, since on board too there was an unlimited supply of water and shortbread. And I did get some great sea views for a large part of the voyage!

After arrival, I went straight to my hotel—Hub by Premier Inn in Rose Street—and after a cup of tea in the lobby, I could already check myself in.

For my coffee I didn’t have to go too far, since it was just around the corner. I actually had even visited Wellington Coffee before!

Completely new to me, however, was BrewDog Edinburgh Waverley, a BrewDog franchise bar in the main train station. I took me a while to find it, but while The Shaw OG hot dog was really nice, the beer choice on the other hand was rather disappointing. It really is a bar where you’d only go to kill some time while waiting for your train, and definitely not a beer geek destination…

Time to change again, and hop on a bus to get to the start of this week’s The New Town H3 run. It was a nice turnout, and an even better trail! Somehow the TNT runs I join are always quite hilly, though…

Back in the centre—and freshened up and back in my MacLaren kilt—I had a couple of beers at the Edinburgh Fierce Bar.

After a quick late night dinner at Jollibee, my last stop of the evening was at Vessel, a restaurant and bar run by the Pilot brewery. Since it was almost closing time, I was their last and only customer, which gave the bar staff plenty of time to provide me with loads of recommendations of places to go in Edinburgh!

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!

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!