So a combination of the Belgian railways Happy Ticket offer, and a poster advertising the Dacia Felix exhibit in the Gallo-Roman museum of Tongeren, lead to me heading to Limburg—both the Belgian and the Dutch version—this Sunday.
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)
Our last day in Italy turned out to be the hottest as well, ironically in the most northern Italian city we’re visiting: Milano. From our B’n’B on the Piazza Leonardo da Vinci, we went to the Leonardo da Vinci exhibit in the technology museum: Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia “Leonardo da Vinci”.
The Piazza del Duomo was even busier than usual, because there was a big stage for the Festa della Repubblica celebrations, so we quickly headed to the Porta Ticinese and Naviglio Grande area for some beers at Tutti Fritti and Al Coccio.
When all other bars we were interested in turned out to be closed, we went to the Hops Beer Shop, before going south again for our own last supper—ossobuco and cotoletta alla milanese—at Osteria del Binari.
After two more beer stops at Bere Buona Birra and Hop, an antique tram brought us back to our B’n’B for our last night in Italy…
Today we visited the Museo Archeologico di Napoli, to see all the stuff they moved out of Pompeii. As a future archaeologist, learning about the importance of the correct recording of all finds, it is quite frustrating to see that for many of the finds from Pompeii, they now have to guess where exactly it was actually found… Still, nice to see so many famous mosaics and frescoes for real at last!
For lunch we had a real pizza napoletana, and a pizza fritta. Indeed, my Scottish friends: “We’re gonna deep fry your pizzas”, is no threat at all, for the Neapolitans!
After lunch, we did a bit more sightseeing, since we hadn’t seen much of Napoli in daylight yet. Ugly apartment blocks and quadracycles immediately reminded us of Oostende, but we have to admit, the sea view was quite a bit nicer!
Our last stop was NaBeer, one of the newest—and probably smallest—craft beer places in Napoli, serving beers from local brewery VentiTré on draught.
After that it was time to catch our Italo train to Milano. Since the price difference at the time of booking was negligible, we even even had the pleasure of enjoying this almost five hour trip in Prima class!
Once checked in in our Milanese accommodation, we briefly popped out again to visit one of the Birrificio Lambrate bars.
On the second and last day in Rome, we first visited the Palazzo Massimo Alle Terme to see their nice collection of Roman statues, mosaics, and frescoes.
After some pizza al taglio, we then went to see the Ara Pacis, and the Claudius exhibition in the same museum.
West of the Tiber, we checked out coffee place Pergamino and beer bar Be.Re., that strangely enough seemed to be two parts of the same business…
A last visit to BrewDog Roma to have our beer visas stamped, and we had a couple of beers as well of course.
After a excruciatingly slowly served dinner, we quickly picked up our bag at our B’n’B, and eventually still managed to catch our train to Napoli.
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.
On our day in Bologna we had our first real Italian breakfast: caffè and some sweet pastry standing at the bar.
After that we headed into town, but we seemed to have forgotten to account for Monday being a closing day for some museums… Still, we enjoyed visiting the Biblioteca Comunale dell’Archiginnasio and it’s Teatro Anatomico and the part of the Museo Civico Archeologico that was still open.
For lunch, we had to have a piadina at La Tua Piadina, and we didn’t regret that decision at all!
After spending some time in the student neighbourhood and the farmers’ market that happened to be there, we went to one of the two Zapap TapRooms.
For dinner we went to Ranzani 13, a name we knew from events at Moeder Lambic and BXLBeerFest. We were quite—positively—surprised to be served something quite different from the pizzas usually served at those events!
In the evening we went to beer bar Il Punto—they surely love Belgian beers there—and BrewDog Bologna again. We didn’t understand much of the stand-up comedians performing, but the atmosphere and beers were great!
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!
A last museum: the Postal Museum.
We then visited the Mikkeller bar, to get a taste of their sour Baghaven beers. I can totally see a collab with OverWorks happening someday!
After having breakfast at Trade, we spent most of the day at the Tate, both the Tate Britain and the Tate Modern.
The places we usually go for our daily dose of caffein tend to be on the smaller side, but Host is something else: it’s in a church!
After coffee, we quickly visited another place of worship: a mid-3rd century mithraeum, nicely reconstructed underneath the Bloomberg headquarters.
Finally it was time to worship our own god—beer—at BrewDog Outpost Tower Hill. We had only been there for breakfast before, so today we finally have the opportunity to see it when it’s beer-o-clock!
It’s going to be a long day, so we started with a hearty lunch at MEAT Liquor. Their restaurants had been on our list for quite some time, but the proximity to St. Pancras station and the weekday lunch deal, made this the perfect opportunity to finally try them! It turned out to be great value for money, and the fast service meant we were back on the street in no time, ready to continue our day in London.
We visited quite a few museums in London already, but until today, the Museum of London escaped our attention. Unrightfully so, because it is the perfect place to learn about the history of London, providing context for a lot of other museums and monuments we did visit before.
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.
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.
Second day: Museum of Prague City, coffee at EMA Espresso Bar, leisurely strolling in the city centre, and a visit to the Apple museum. Some beers as well of course, at BeerGeek, although there didn’t seem to be a lot of Czech people there…
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 full day in Cardiff started in museums again. First we visited the National Museum, then — after coffee at Uncommon Ground — The Cardiff Story. In the afternoon we finally made it to the Tiny Rebel bar, and the weather even allowed us to sit on the terrace! Our last dinner was at the Cosy Club, where it was a whole lot quieter than last time we tried to get in.
After breakfast at Servini’s, we spent a drizzly Saturday morning at St Fagans National History Museum. An American lunch at The New York Deli and a coffee at Outpost Coffee & Vinyl were to prepare us for the main event of the day: a visit to the Tiny Rebel brewery!
In the Castle Arcade we quickly found what we were looking for: Madame Fromage, for a Welsh rarebit and some cheese soup.
After lunch we visited the best known landmark of the city, often used as a filming location: Cardiff Castle.
To conclude the afternoon, we went to BrewDog Cardiff again.
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.