I like theme parks. I like trains. Last year, I promised myself a long interrailling holiday to combine two things I like, and this April, I’ve spent two and a half weeks doing exactly that. After months of planning, poring over timetables, putting together a route and booking tickets, I ended up with a final route:

I’ll put an appendix at the end of this post with some notes on Interrail, but generally it worked out pretty well for me.

The adventure begins! Due to leaving reservation bookings a bit late, I ended up needing an extra hostel the night before in London so I didn’t miss my 8am Eurostar. Dear Generator London: It would be lovely if every room had power outlets, you know, in case people had phones they needed to be charged.

Also, stop ripping off Virgin Trains branding that wasn’t funny in the first place

I’m going to spend the next few pages gushing over Mainland European architecture, so can I just point out that we have some pretty good stuff too.

Spoilers, this is not the first picture of a train station

Noble steed no. 1 (There will be lots of trains in this report and I do not apologise)

I’ve always loved the thought of travelling by Eurostar (FAST), and oh boy, in the one hour preceding this journey, they proceded to kill most of my excitement. Why do I need to check in half an hour before boarding? Why does a train need airport style security? These are the kinds of things I use trains to avoid.

Whatever, we sped through the English countryside at 180 mph, through the tunnel and popped out into Belgium.

Oh wait, nevermind. Brussels South still thinks it’s London

Brussels South Station, which is called Bruxelles-Midi in French because why not confuse all the tourists

Destination number one on my journey was Hasselt, a medium sized town near the Dutch border, requiring a short hop on a train that looked straight out of the 60s

I love the weird pattern of mirrors at the ends of the carriage

Who likes trains?

Hasselt is not a town you visit on holiday. In fact, it’s probably not a town many Belgians want to visit either. It feels a little like my hometown of Banbury: it’s made up of a central shopping area, which was active and full of variety (and even history), and then the rest of the town is mostly concrete.

Sure Bruges and Leuven have all the history, but do they have a grey, tree shaped office block?

One thing my hometown doesn’t have however, is a coaster. So, off to cred number one at Plopsa’s Belgian indoor park. Luckily, my Plopsa annual pass was still valid, so this one was free!

There’s always a moment around this point when I realise I’m a 25 year old man walking into a kid’s theme park and I wonder what I did wrong in life

The theme of day one is grey boxes

Plopsa Indoor is themed to the same high standard as the rest of Plopsa’s parks. Plenty of high quality scenery and character figures. It reminded me of Toverland’s indoor sections. Being a kiddie park meant that there wasn’t really anything for me here besides a +1, speaking of…

Nothing exciting as coasters go: just a newer Zierer Rumblebum, but the lighting, water and scenery lifted this from “forgettable kiddie ride” to “happy surprise.” Kids don’t deserve the “eh, that’ll do” attitude that some places go for, so I’m happy this exists.

Quack

Spent a couple of hours wandering around Hasselt, waiting for hostel check-in.

I joke about the grey buildings, but this is actually quite nice

Aside from trains, you will spend the next few pages becoming bored of pictures of European churches - sorrynotsorry

Dear HEMA, your rabbit mascots are scary

One shop dealt in collections of international and historic coins

Chocolate shop was shut - which is a shame because I WANT IT

Belgium reminding the world they have Tintin - decorated for Christmas or something

Time to check in to my hostel, which, not wanting to feel out of place in Hasselt, was made almost entirely out of concrete.

It’s a symphony in grey

It was also almost entirely empty. I nearly bagged a solo dorm, but an old French-Belgian guy turned up to make things awkward. The standard hostel routine of walking into a full room of people not making conversation felt much more appealing than attempting to find common ground with a single random stranger.

A short part one for a short day, so join in next time, when I go to a proper theme park - the ever exciting Bobbejaanland.

Interrailling, 2017 Edition

First things first, if you’re interested in doing train travel in Europe at all, the best resource in the world is Seat 61, written by one guy who has amassed a veritable encyclopedia of best ways to book and travel by rail.

Interrail passes are worth a look if you’re thinking of doing a lot of rail travel over a long holiday. I paid about €300 for “15 days in one month,” which allows unlimited travel over most of Europe’s railways, including one day’s travel in and out of your home country. Validity varies from country to country: in e.g. Germany, Scandinavia and Switzerland, you can jump on literally any train and just leave. In certain countries (notably France, Spain and Italy), passholders have to pay reservation fees on high speed trains. Night trains will always carry a reservation fee (usually cheap though: Cologne to Vienna was €34 for an eleven hour journey, with a bed and breakfast).

If you’re booking very far in advance, long distance train fares work like air fares, and it may be cheaper just to book these cheap fares instead.