This weekend began with me asking Eva if she had a bike. She said she used to but it’s gone now, she thinks the people who keep horses in her pasture opposite might have it. I eagerly waited for them to arrive that morning to check on the horses and I trotted up to ask about the bike. The dad, Vernard, said he did have a bike I could use! He said to come and get it after lunch, from their house which is the red one. So, following the instructions, after lunch I walked to the little village down the road and looked out for the red house. I found it and, to my absolute joy, Vernard said I could use the electric bike. The journey to literally anywhere from Eva’s is completely downhill so I was very relieved I wouldn’t have to push myself to almost death on the cycle home from wherever. I really wanted to go and see Bern, but as I was a bit tight for time (it was already 1:30pm) I decided I’d only cycle to the train station and catch the train to the city. I also didn’t really fancy cycling on main roads whilst trying to figure out which way to go.

Bern

And so that takes us to Bern. I’ll preface this by saying that the weather was absolutely glorious for my visit, and that might have affected my view.

I LOVED Bern. It’s very small, with the old town being the only interesting bit I gather, but it really follows quality over quantity. Every building is beautiful, often in a pastel olive green colour. There are decadent water fountains on literally every corner, with chilled drinking water flowing from them. I saw people sat in these fountains with boards holding wine. The main street features a covered arcade on both sides (the longest covered shopping street in Europe). It also features cellar openings with further lovely boutique stores or bars down the dark stairs. The central clock tower is gorgeous. The entire old town is surrounded by the river Aare, with it’s almost aggressive turquoise colour visible at every turn. The bridges are even pretty. And that’s just the bricks and mortar of the city, then came the surprises.
The first was a fashion show. Just on the street, in front of the parliament building. The second was the bears that live in a big enclosure between the road and the river, that you can peer into from the road and see them sleeping and playing. The third is that, and this was definitely my favourite and most probably the reason I love Bern so much, people float down the river Aare. You’ll be walking along the river, in the middle of the capital city of Switzerland, and a person will just float on by you. Often clutching a dry bag filled with their belongings. Apparently it’s quite common for this to be your daily commute in the summer. Business people remove their business suit and pop it in their dry bag, donning their bathing suit instead as they plop into the river and float back home. It’s so popular and integral to Bern it’s actually a UNESCO protected activity (I didn’t even know they protected activities). Can you imagine how lovely that would be? Floating home from work? I genuinely can’t think of anything more wonderful. Is it too early in this trip to decide that Bern is my favourite city ever? Perhaps, but for now it’s number one. (I also had the best ice cream ever here, homemade gelato from Gelateria di Berna, one scoop peanut butter and one scoop rhubarb). Oh, and it’s the city where Einstein came up with the Theory of Relativity.

And a bike ride

Something that easily could’ve been eclipsed by wonderful Bern was the cycle ride back from the train station, but it wasn’t. The sun was setting, I had an electric bike, what more could you want when zooming up huge hills? I enjoyed it so much that I decided the following day would be spent cycling. I’d already visited Thun, albeit very briefly, but it seemed the ideal destination. It would mean cycling along cycle trails through the valley all the way to the lake and the mountains. And there was a lido I wanted to try out by the lake. So I packed a sandwich and off I went. It’s around 30km to Thun, so a fair distance but very manageable with an electric bike. It took me about 2.5 hours to get there, I didn’t use the electric bit much as it’s literally all down hill or flat, and I was very worried about the bike running out of charge for the way back. And I kept getting lost (oops). But it really was a lovely way to spend a day. Beautiful scenery, as is a given in Switzerland it seems, more beautiful weather and no great physical exertion needed. The lido was also lovely, although not my favourite spot, there were a lot of families and children and there was a water polo match going on in one of the pools which was a bit odd. After I’d eaten my sandwich, swam and read my book I’d had my fill and started to cycle back. A thunderstorm was forecasted for the late afternoon so I was very aware of that. One thing about the wonderful electric bike I should mention, it did not have one of those nice cushiony seats. It had a rock hard little thing. And my bum was killing me. How people ride bikes for days or weeks is beyond me, it hurts so much! Perhaps this is the reason that when I cycled past a bit of the Aare river which had a little sunbathing area next to it with people swimming I was very keen to stop and take a look. Or perhaps because I hadn’t taken my bikini to Bern and felt like I’d really missed out on floating down the river (next time…). But either way, I got back into my damp bikini, walked up the river a bit and plopped in, floating down to the steps by the grassy sunbathing area. The water was cold and so blue, and the flow was just fast enough to be a bit exciting. After I’d dried off a second time it really was time to cycle the 30km back. The rain didn’t come, and the bike didn’t run out of charge. It was all just wonderful.

I’m currently doing a workaway in Switzerland, which is where you do a few hours work each day in return for free accommodation and food. I’ll do a post on that once I’m nearing the end of my time here! But today I had my first day off and decided to use it to explore Interlaken and the surrounding area. When I initially decided to go to Switzerland, Interlaken was the main place I wanted to visit. It’s a town situated between two lakes and several mountains. I spoke to someone who lives nearby on the workaway website (it really is the gift that keeps on giving) and they suggested I also go to Thun, which is a town on the opposite side of lake Thun to Interlaken. I wanted to spend time up close to mountains, so my first thought was to go up one. I looked at the options between the two towns, and Niesen and Stockhorn stood out. My plan was to go up one and do a walk on the top. I looked into this for a bit but the cable cars up were crazy expensive, like £50, and I wasn’t that bothered about actually going up the mountain, just being near them. I then looked into walks around Interlaken and found one that sounded wonderful - a walk up the valley of 72 waterfalls. I was happy with this option so worked out the trains I’d need to get (6 in total, and 1 bus) and packed my rucksack for the next morning.

Eva drove me to the station at 8:15am and I caught the train to Thun. I only had an hour here but made use of it by walking up to the church and castle, and then right down to the edge of the lake. It was a small but pretty town. Then I ran back to the station to catch my next train to Interlaken.

The train journey had some amazing views, of the mountains on the right and the lake on the left. Once at the station I caught a third train to Lauterbrunnen. I sat with an Australian couple and their American friend. They were nice, but the American was strange. She immediately asked me my views on Meghan Markle. And talked about that and the royal family for most of the journey. The views on this journey were a step up from the previous one. We ascended up the valley between the mountains, with an alpine river, with its characteristic grey/blue colour (the aussie gentleman informed me), to the left and snowcapped peaks high above us. When we reached Lauterbrunnen I said goodbye to the aussies and the american and headed out of the station. The moment I stepped off the train I had to pause to take in the views, the waterfall and the white mountain, they were something you had to give your full body’s attention to.

Lauterbrunnen is an even smaller town than Thun, consisting mostly of hotels, restaurants and a few shops - very touristy but still lovely. This was the starting point of the valley of 72 waterfalls walk, with Stechelberg being the finishing point. As I walked past the tourism information office I spotted a map outside for the walk so picked it up. I also saw a flyer about Tolkien, it explained that he had visited Lauterbrunnen and the surrounding valley and it was most likely his inspiration for Rivendell (something for the LOTR fans!). And off I went on my walk.

I, unsurprisingly, passed many beautiful waterfalls, and the views continued to develop to be more and more amazing. This is where I really appreciate travelling alone. I can look at these views so fully, I’m not talking to someone else or sharing the experience. It is solely my own. And I can feel it moving through my entire being. Maybe I’m being dramatic, but I felt so full of the scenery and so alive in that moment.

After about an hour of walking I saw some of the so-called ‘Basejumpers’ land. It was impressive to watch. They flew through the air in their bat style suits and then parachuted to land. One almost hit someone so that made it even more fun.

I then reached Trummelbach waterfalls, something a bit different to the other 71 in the valley. This waterfall occurs inside the Eiger mountain. Once I got to the valley side I realised you had to pay to go inside - 14 CHF which is around £11. I hesitated for a moment, that seemed like a lot of money and I didn’t really know what the waterfall was and if it would be worth it. But I decided that I’m not already going to not do things because of the money, so in I went. I’m so glad I did, it was 100% worth it! I went up in the lift which is inside the mountain, to about halfway up the waterfall cascades. From here I walked up through tunnels inside the mountain and along paths attached to the exterior of the mountain. The most notably thing was the sound. Inside the mountain, looking over the balconies down at the cascade and the river rushing down, the sound was almost deafening. It was just so loud. It made my heart beat faster and I felt almost panicked by it. The second most notable thing was how lovely and cool it was inside. And finally, the spray of the water hitting you. There were 8 cascades to see, some inside and some outside, and they were all amazing.

(At the end of this post is a link to a google album with some more photos and some videos, including some of the noise inside the mountain - just in case you’d like to listen!)

On my way out I noticed the welcome sign featured an extract from Lord Byron. Lord Byron is a poet who lived very near my house back at home in Somerset. We (my cousins and I) actually managed to find the ruins of his impressive villa-style house along with its tunnels on Boxing day last year. It was a nice reminder of home.

I continued all the way to Strechelburg, more beautiful waterfalls and with the snowy mountain at the end of the valley getting closer and closer. It took me around 3 hours to get there, including the time spent at Trummelbach.

At Strechelburg I arrived just in time for the bus, so hopped on it back to Lauterbrunnen. I then hopped on the train back to Interlaken. As I bought my ticket for this train I found 5 francs had been left in the change part of the machine, I’m not sure if it counts as stealing but I took them (I actually don’t think this counts as stealing, the money had been abandoned and I think it unlikely that a jury would find I was being dishonest in taking it. Did you know I’ve done the postgraduate diploma in law and the legal practice course???). I had 2 hours to explore Interlaken. I first went into the main part of the town, buying a postcard with 1 of my definitely not stolen 5 francs. Then I decided to walk to the lake. Interlaken is sat between lake Thun and lake Brienzersee. I was closer to Brienzersee so chose this one. The walk along the river was beautiful, it was such a deep turquoise colour.

When I got to the lake I thanked yesterday’s me for packing my bikini - I was so hot and the water looked so inviting. I swam for this first time on this trip, and it was glorious. I got out, dried off and walked back to the train station. I stopped at a ‘coop’ (not the same as in England) and spent the rest of the 5 francs on 2 chocolate bars. I haven’t had any chocolate on this trip, which has only been just over a week, but for me that’s a lot. I got the train back to Boll-Utzigen, changing at Bern, where Eva’s son Robin picked me up in a Tesla. I’m not sure if the Tesla surprised me or not, Eva was full of surprises so I was getting used to them now, but it was notable nonetheless.

Once back I put the animals to bed, swam again in the pool, showered and ate my dinner. All in all a beautiful day.
BUT in the interest of sharing the lows too, I developed a small rash under both my armpits which caused me moderate discomfort throughout the day, especially as I got more sweaty. Nice.

Click to see a google album with more photos and videos if you’d like :)
https://photos.app.goo.gl/ZZ3vt7PSgYcEgsaG7

Next stop is a workaway in Switzerland for 2 weeks. I needed to travel to Boll-Utzigen for this. The journey started with a 12:30am bus from the Bercy-Seine bus station in Paris. It was probably the worst place I’ve ever stepped foot in. I was quite nervous about this journey, it’s my first one of the trip, it’s at night and I’m alone. To get to the bus station you have to walk through a dark park, and directly past the exercise equipment area which was filled with men even though it was just before midnight. After being shouted at I made it to confines of the bus station. It was honestly like hell. It’s under a bridge and it was really really hot. People were running around confused, with one guy coming up to me with eyes pleading for help. I realised why when I looked at the ticket he was showing me - his bus was at 11:50 and it was currently 11:48. We hurried through the diesel fumes and I sent him off on the correct bus with a thumbs up, then I managed to find mine. I had a total of 12.5 hours of travelling ahead, but I mostly slept so it was fine. Below is a picture of me lying on the floor of the Lyon bus station waiting for my second bus, just to keep it real.

Once in Bern I had to walk to the train station and catch a train to my final destination, where Eva was picking me up. There was some slight stress when I realised I couldn’t use my data in Switzerland, there was no wifi at the end station and Eva was not there, but I remained remarkably calm for me. I managed to connect to the wifi on a passing bus for long enough to let Eva know I’d arrived and she appeared a little while later. It always works out it in the end, or, as Eva said, it all happened as it should.

This was my view this evening as I walked the dog Kiona. Much better than the Paris bus station.

Stepping off the eurostar alongside passengers who are much better dressed than I am, and stepping out of the station to see two police officers with their truncheons and both smoking cigarettes, I didn’t need the ‘Gare du Nord’ sign to tell me where I was, this was definitely Paris.

I broke the main port on my snazzy travel plug adapter. I really do need to learn to look after my belongings better. I woke up at 4:20 am and thought about Louis’ stupid joke of “there’s more than one 4 o’clock in the day?”. I had about 2 hours sleep, I was actually nervous that night and struggled to sleep. My trusted citymapper let me down, I arrived at Finsbury Park tube station to see the gates firmly shut, luckily there was a bus instead. Eurostar was very easy. And so here we are, country number 1: France. It was 10am with my hostel check-in at 3pm, but I decided against finding somewhere to leave my bag. First stop was a cafe (KP Roasters), I was starving and very much in need of a coffee. As I slowly ate a cheese and onion scone with chive cream cheese (it was interesting, I’ll leave it at that) and drank my flat white, the man next to me asked me where I was from. Clearly the french boy haircut (as dubbed by Tarsha) wasn’t fooling anyone. We had a lovely chat, he had done a similar trip when he was 24 and whilst on it set up a not-for profit organisation that now employs 200 people (makesense)! He gave me some tips for Paris and travelling in general. It energised me more than the coffee and scone did to be honest. Also whilst sitting at this cafe I noticed a cool looking building in the near distance, and this is where I aimed for next. It was the Sacre Coer of Montremarte, and it was up a lot of stairs. But my packing was proven light enough and I had a lovely time exploring the area, lots of people painting portraits and pretty small streets.

After I had my fill I made my way to the hostel. I didn’t fancy the trek to Gentilly so I used the metro. This is where I had my first two less glamorous travelling moments. Firstly, the doors on the metro don’t automatically open when you arrive at a station, and the button, in my opinion, is not well labelled. I’m sure you can work out the issue I had there. The second issue arose when I tried to exit the metro station, but couldn’t find a slot for my paper ticket. After waiting awkwardly for a while I caved and stopped a man to ask for help. He gestured to a different gate which did have a ticket slot but was out of order. Turns out the gates on that one were open the whole time. The following evening I was returning back quite late from a bar and this time the out of order sign had been removed. This had clearly been done in haste however, as the gate still didn’t actually work. Two other girls with paper tickets joined me in slight panic - stuck in a metro station at 1am is not where any of us wanted to be. A french man saw the situation and managed to gesture to us all to squeeze in the space between the barrier and the place you scan your ticket. He scanned his card and we all rushed through, with the man being only minorly crushed. I haven’t been impressed with the metro.

I thought it might be fun to try a french yoga class, and after walking with my rucksack all day my body would definitely benefit from one. I found a studio and booked in for an Iyengar yoga class. I’ve never tried (or even heard of) this form of yoga before, but thought it made sense to try something new. This was most definitely a mistake. I know very little french and without any familiarity of the poses or sequences it was a struggle. It was a very prop heavy class, that involved a lot of deep floor stretches. This would usually be a calming style of yoga, but this class was not calming. The instructor was very intense and almost aggressive, we were certainly not meeting her expectations. But as I didn’t actually know what she was saying I couldn’t do much to help. It was quite funny, and at least I wasn’t the british girl next to me who was picked on repeatedly by the instructor.

My time in Paris continued in a similarly slow and pleasant fashion (ignoring the metro issues). I met up with a friend who gave me an off the beaten path tour (thanks Laura), enjoyed the sun walking along the Seine and went to the catacombs. I had never liked Paris when I visited it previously, but I like it this time. I think it’s the sunny weather. Even Parisians can’t be grumpy when it’s sunny.

Some extras

Food/cafe highlights

• Cafe Med - 3 delicious courses for 14.50 euros
• The trusted baguette, jar of mustard mayonaise and emmental
• Lots of crepes
• The Musee de la vie Romantique cafe - sheltered under blossom trees and rose bushes, really beautiful
• Le Pavillon des Canaux - the most amazing cafe decorated like someone’s house, with tables in a kitchen and bathroom (and the actual bathtub)

Catacombs
Cost - 15 euros if bought on the day. Took about an hour. I wouldn’t recommend to be honest, the ones in Rome are more impressive. The bones are just sort of stacked here.

The catacombs were originally mining tunnels. They became catacombs when the department put in charge of dealing with the overfilled and unsanitary cemeteries decided the solution was to move the bones to the tunnels to create a tourist site. The whole thing was a bit tainted after learning that. Also by the australian guy behind me the whole way round who kept pointing out good eye holes he’d like to put his penis in. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find it slightly funny though.

The inevitable

At the Louvre I had my first unwanted encounter with a man. How does a man think they’re making someone feel by coming up to them and saying “I like you” immediately followed by “are you alone?”, if not hugely uncomfortable? I’m almost certain this man had only good intentions, he was smiling pleasantly and wasn’t at all threatening, yet I still felt threatened. Luckily my large group of friends was just behind me…

But, for balance, the male receptionist at the hostel didn’t charge me the 4 euros to leave my bag in storage on my last day. I’m not sure he would’ve done that if I was a man, but who knows!

A true french meal: a baguette, a jar of mustard mayonaise, a pack of emmental cheese.
Cost: around 5 euro, with the mayo and cheese doing the next day’s lunch too

Laura and I went to find some lunch to enjoy in the sun on the side of the canal. We stopped at a boulangerie first, and I picked up a black baguette. After doing some research, it’s black because of the addition of charcoal. It just tasted like a normal baguette. We nipped into a Carrefour where I got the mustard mayonaise and the emmental, and also an Orangina and a packet of Prince sandwich biscuits. We found our way back to the canal and sat to enjoy our feast. The baguette was wonderfully soft inside, the mustard mayo had so much flavour of both good eggy mayo and dijon mustard, the emmental was plasticy and plain. A true french meal. And, honestly, my favourite meal in Paris.

It was so good, I had the same thing the next day sat in the sun in the Jardin du Luxembourg.

How do you prepare for a trip like this?

I knew I wanted a gap year very early on, in sixth form, but decided to do a post-uni one instead of the usual pre-uni. Any travel I did during uni cemented the idea that I absolutely wanted to have a year to travel before starting life. I got my training contract and asked for it to be delayed a year, they agreed and here we are! This trip was originally planned for straight after uni, so 2020. For obvious reasons it’s now happening this year, in 2022! I’m very lucky to have been able to postpone it 2 years without any major issues, being able to do my law conversion studying in the meantime. But now it’s finally time to go!

The idea for this trip came from watching the BBC show Race Across the World (I’d highly recommend). The first season saw the teams racing from London to Bangkok without flying. The actual travelling looked amazing and I thought the idea was a cool one - on both an environmental and slow travel level. So the location of my gap year was decided pretty easily.

Actual preparations have been sparse. I worked out a very rough route with some even rougher timings to check seasons were okay (no monsoons thank you) and that it was actually possible to cross certain borders. I looked into the countries and found some things I’d definitely like to see/do, but I’ve left most of that sort of thing to later. I’ll have plenty of time to look into stuff whilst travelling, and can get recommendations from people I meet on the way. I sorted my vaccinations and travel insurance. I brought a new bag (see below for more packing insights). I contacted my first workaway host for when I’m in Switzerland. About a month before I left I booked transport to Paris and a hostel for two nights. And that’s it!

I love packing

Said no one literally ever. And definitely not me. But I have actually loved packing for this trip. Something about carefully choosing the only items you’re going to have with you for the next year is oddly satisfying. I thought it might be interesting to share my packing list. A little amuse bouche before the travel posts begin.

What’s in my bag?

The final bag…

My bag is the Osprey Fairview 55 litres. It includes a day pack that attaches to the main bag.
I’m also taking a small cross-body bag.

So there we are, packed and ready to go!
I’ll have to buy some warmer clothes when I move into colder climates, and perhaps some hiking boots, but hopefully this will have me sorted for the first 6 months.

My name is Meg. I’m travelling for the next 12 months, from England to Thailand across land. I wanted a place to properly record this trip - no highlight reel and no restraints. Complete freedom on what I write about, and a chance to actually write. Who knows what this blog will include, but definitely don’t expect consistency or beautiful prose.

You’re very welcome to join me on the evolution of this page and, more importantly, my trip.

Route plan:

Disclaimer: You might note that my route goes through a few war zones, but don’t worry I’m not completely insane! If they are still not great places to travel through (I’m not holding my breath), I will fly over them. Currently it’s looking like I’ll be flying from Uzbekistan to Nepal, and from Nepal to Thailand.

Leaning into the travelling hippy vibe

When I notice a full moon I make a mental note of where I am, I think back to where I was on the last one, and I think forward to where I might be on the next one. It takes all of 1 minute to do but it’s a nice moment of reflection. The world moves in cycles, and so do we. Noticing the little cycles specific to you are a personal, private affair, but observing the huge cycle of the moon seems like one that should be shared. So I plan on doing my personal piece of reflection on noticing a full moon in this space!

Expect a short:

1. this is where I am now;
2. this is where I was on the last one;
3. and this is where I think I might be on the next one.

It might lead to some interesting reflections, or just show how little forward planning I’m doing on this trip when my future prediction is completely wrong!

Is this a food blog too?

This is a travel blog sure, but what’s travelling without eating a lot of amazing food? So this is the space for all things food related. I’m imaginging descriptions of certain meals so vivid you can taste them; recipes for said meals; and descriptions of my own creations and other strange foods I’ve turned to for sustenance as I remember I’m travelling on a budget.

If you have any food recommendations, of delicacies I absolutely have to try in certain countries, please DM me: meg.co7 (instagram)!

Won’t you get lonely travelling alone?

The great misunderstanding of what travelling alone means! As I’ve happily explained to several people recently, travelling alone doesn’t mean I’m going to be alone. In fact, I’ll probably be with people most of the time. The people I meet will form as important part of my memories of this trip as the sights I see. I truly love meeting new people, hearing about their lives and getting to know them. I’d like to record these experiences, sharing people’s lives along with my other travel experiences (with permission of course!).

Expect some Humans of New York style pieces here.