I’ll admit I wanted to go to Bruges (Brugge, not pronounced the same which can be confusing) because of the scenery in the film ‘In Bruges’. The city is almost all medieval or mock-medieval buildings with cobbled streets. Even the new buildings such as the monolithic post office near the station are fairly tasteful, and there is not a concrete block in sight. There is a lot of bell-ringing going on too at the 83-metre high central Belfry.

Our hostel (‘Passage’) turned out to be basically a hotel, being the first with the free little bars of soap and towels. It had an adjoining restaurant run by the same people, which we went to in the evening on the back of a promise of two free beers for being guests. The restaurant is open to the public too and was very busy which I think is a good sign. We ordered Flemish Stew (beef in dark beer gravy with a jacket potato and assorted veg) and Waterzooi (chicken broth stew with veg and jacket potato). It was defnitely the best food we’ve had so far and incredibly filling.

Afterwards we went for a walk around the city, it was night but the streets are very nicely lit and were very quiet. It didn’t feel unsafe whatsoever though, it was very peaceful. We went to find a bar on the excellent tourist map we’d found. The map is focused on young people and lists many bars and clubs (we didn’t come across any full on nightclubs but there are several music venues). The other side has things to do in the day like going to all the museums with a €1 ticket for under 26’s.

We found an underground bar (‘T Poatersgat’) where I managed to bang my head on the way in despite thinking that I should avoid doing so. Things improved from there though when we found the massive menu containing hundreds of types of beers. The place was pretty cool and seemed to be mostly local 18-30’s with few foreigners besides us, definitely recommended.

Next day we tried to fit in as many things as possible since we had to leave in the evening. Unfortunately a lot of tourists had now come out of the woodwork and there was a massive queue to get into the Belfry tower so we gave it a miss. We discovered a market with random things like ancient letter openers and wooden swords which would have been amazing to have as a violent child, and got the obligatory waffle which is a local speciality.

We spent the rest of the day looking at various attractions on the map including heavenly chocolate shops. There is a healthy rivalry between Switzerland and Belgium over who makes the best chocolate. I haven’t been to Switzerland but some little chocolate shells we bought in Bruges were amazing and I would like to have the money to try more. Bruges is a great place and we would have loved to stay for longer, however we were now going to Frankfurt for a day to meet a friend of Lucy’s.

Frankfurt was a strange mixture of skyscrapers (financial centre of Germany) and an expansive red light district. As usual, we were staying in a hostel in the red light district for budget reasons. It didn’t really seem very dangerous at all though and it was quite bizarre seeing bankers walking out of sex shows at 10AM the next day.

In the city centre there is a lot of opportunity for shopping if you’re into that kind of thing (I’m not). There was also bizarrely a queue and bouncers outside the Hollister shop. Apparently there is also some classical music and opera going on (ditto). However we did manage to get some Bratwurst with Kartoffelsalat (potato salad) and walk around the river which was a lot more agreeable. It is great the way Germany are not bothered at all about drinking in public whereas the police can be a pain about it in England even when you are not at all drunk. A few fountains and ice creams later we got the train to our next stop – Munich!

After a 6 hour journey from Hamburg, we arrived in Amsterdam Centraal, which is housed in a very nice building. We were in the minority of foreigners not interested in going to the ‘Coffeeshops’ to buy cannabis. We stumbled out onto ‘Damrak’, the main street outside the station. It was buzzing with trams and tourists attempting to avoid their angrily beeping progress (including us, by a matter of inches).

We then took a wander through what turned out to be the even more famous Red Light District, which while apparently ‘open for business’, was also patrolled by Politie on bicycles. There is something about bikes which detracts from the intimidating factor and adds to the humorous factor. After a bit we had to reluctantly buy an overpriced drink (€2,50 for a thimbleful of diet coke) from a café to use the toilet. Free public toilets do not appear to exist in mainland Europe, or at least any of the cities we have been to. We also sometimes get irritated looks when we order the cheapest and smallest drink between us.

Later we met some friends who live in Amsterdam and went for some great Dutch (and probably Belgian) beers in a much less touristy pub than the ones lining the main streets. After this we got the tram to their flat and watched the Olympic Opening Ceremony on TV with a tasty Chinese takeaway. The ceremony was a bit bizarre in places but had many undeniably impressive moments. We went to bed very tired but contented.

In the morning we got some tips about where to go and said farewells. We had failed to book the Anne Frank museum and after walking past decided the queue looked non-negotiable, we will have to save it for another time. We did get an excellent chocolate muffin and had a nice walk along the quiet canals which Amsterdam is renowned for. Next stop: Bruges, Belgium.

Later on that day, we went on the Sandeman’s bar crawl which required some involved U-Bahn hopping to get to Oranienburger Straße. The drinking began in earnest after we were warned to not take photos of the numerous prostitutes dotted along the street. It would make pimps quite angry with you. Apparently it’s completely legal in Berlin.

After not-particularly-wanted free shots of Jagermeister (I think it tastes like a mixture of Listerine and Calpol) and navigating past beggars at ATMs (who ever gives them €20?!), we ended up in the ‘Matrix’ club. It was very big and busy but disappointingly did not play any discernibly German music. Eventually we got a taxi back and managed to blag a fare reduction by trying to speak German (‘my friendlys are very drunk’) to the driver.

In the morning I noticed a helpful mosquito had bitten me on the top of my foot, which is a very itchy place to choose. We had to try and book our night-train to Amsterdam, and could not do this online or over the phone. And so we U-Bahn’d to the labyrinthine Berlin Hauptbanhof (main station), which has at least four levels. After waiting for at least 25 minutes an implacable Deutsche Bahn official told us with great finality that all the night-trains were full.

We went to visit the ‘Topography of Terrors’ museum which lies on the former site of the Gestapo headquarters. Much of the area is in ruins, but there is a mercifully air conditioned museum with a lot of interesting exhibits with chilling history. Definitely worth a visit and it is also free. We then went on to have another walk around the Holocaust Memorial before heading back to our hostel. We made the mistake of trying to take a short cut, and our slightly outdated map did not show us that the line was under maintenance between Franzosischestraße and Friedrichstraße. And hence a half hour journey became an almost two hour journey.

The consolation was that we were to have a barbecue on the hostel terrace with the excellent and free-to-use gas barbecue. We bought some absurdly cheap vegetables and meat in Kreuzberg (I’d say everything was almost if not twice as cheap as in Bristol, UK). Then we made excellent kebabs in the sun and watched a wasp attempt to fly into the barbecue and think better of it after several attempts. At last we had to say goodbye to Berlin and all the great people we had met, and make our way to Amsterdam via an overnight stay in Hamburg (again).

We got into Berlin in the early afternoon, and after navigating the U-Bahn metro found ourselves on Adalbertstraße in the Kreuzberg district. We had no idea how to find our hostel since it seemed to be hidden and the street numbering system in Berlin is different to that of the UK. We walked quite far down the street which seemed to grow increasingly seedier, reminiscent of Hamburg. We eventually found the amusingly named ‘Comebackpackers’ who assured us that the area was in fact safe.

Our room was a 16-bed dorm, with a 13-3 female to male ratio. This is actually a good thing as it usually leads to much less snoring. Another plus was that the Wifi in this hostel actually worked. We had a fairly quiet evening drinking €5 bottles of wine on the terrace with some Canadian and Mancunian girls from our dorm.

Next day we awoke to sweltering heat and decided to make our way to the Sandeman’s tour of Berlin, starting from the Brandenburg Gate. After scratching our heads at the U-Bahn and S-Bahn for a bit we found it, walking past the huge US embassy on the way. There were a lot of tat-touting street vendors in Parisienplatz (in front of the Brandenburg Gate) including men in faux Cold War US Army and West German military uniforms inviting you to pose with their flags for photos. Also bemusingly a woman dressed in a full gorilla costume with flip flops showing underneath, in 38C weather.

At Parisienplatz (the French embassy is on the square) we were given a sample of German humour as the tour guide showed us the statue of ‘Victoria’. It was restored after being stolen by Napoleon with its head altered to look down on the French embassy. The joke is in the name, and we were reliably assured by our American-Finnish guide that German humour did exist but was not funny.

We also saw the Hotel Adlon, where Michael Jackson famously dangled his baby from the Royal Suite window. Our guide had looked into staying in the suite, also used by Queen Elizabeth II, and told us it was €15,000 a night. We then walked along Ebertstraße to the Holocaust Memorial, which is a huge area filled with variously sized concrete blocks. The artist did not reveal any meaning behind the number or pattern of the blocks. Walking into the memorial, which dips into a valley in the centre, is very peaceful as traffic noise is blocked out. I liked the memorial as it is intended to allow more individual interpretation than traditional memorials to the 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis. 6 million is very hard to comprehend as a number alone since it is so large.

Next we walked to the site of the Führerbunker, which is now underneath a car park. The bunker was blown up multiple times after the war and is now inaccessible. I found it very strange thinking that only 67 years ago the city was in ruins and rumbling with tanks. On the sides of one or two surviving older buildings I noticed bullet holes in the stone. Many of the ‘old’ buildings had to be extensively rebuilt after 1945.

In the sweltering heat we walked to the former site of the Gestapo headquarters, which is now a museum called the ‘Topography of Terrors’. There is a large section of the Berlin Wall, ironically protected by a fence, adjacent to it. The former site of the Berlin Wall (there were actually two, with a ‘death strip’ in the middle) is marked with twin paving stones. It follows a zigzagging path across the city. Then we trudged on to Checkpoint Charlie, which has a replica border crossing booth, large photos of American and Soviet soldiers on their respective former sides, and its own whole range of Berlin Wall tourist tat such as fake Soviet hats and passport visa stamping.

We (from many places in Berlin) saw the television tower on Alexanderplatz, which is the tallest structure in Germany. It was built in the 60s and was intended as a show of force for the secular East German government. Unfortunately for them, a reflection dubbed the “Pope's Revenge” by Berliners thwarts their secular building ambitions quite spectacularly.

We arrived in Hamburg and asked the miraculously available information man if he knew where our hostel (the ‘Generator’) was. After dumping our stuff, we wandered down the nearest street looking for an Internet café (broken hostel Wifi is a running theme). What we did find was seediness in all directions, and decided rather soon to turn around. Finally we took refuge in a café next to a Polizei station.

We didn’t do much on the first night, but next day went on our first Sandemans walking tour. The guide was very enthusiastic and obviously very interested in the history of Hamburg, which has a florid past as a trading centre, being a member of the Hanseatic League. It has been hit by several disasters over the centuries, including a Great Fire in 1842, the black death in 1350, and Allied bombing in World War II which killed around 50,000 people and destroyed many buildings. Nevertheless, there are a great number of old and beautiful buildings plus some examples of ‘brick expressionism’.

The Chilehaus was built in 1922 by a shipping magnate who traded with, unsurprisingly, Chile. The building is very unusual, featuring idealised depictions of Chilean life and the sharpest corner of a building in Europe. We also walked past the former headquarters of Degesch, who manufactured the infamous Zyklon B. Even before we knew its history we thought it very imposing.

We were also alerted to the presence of ‘stumbling stones’ which are dotted throughout cities in Germany. They are slightly raised brass plaques which each feature the name and vital dates of a victim of the Holocaust. It is a different form of memorial that people might come across by tripping.

It was comforting to find that it is not only the UK that is profligate with public money. The Elbe Philharmonic, while a very grand and modern project, is now many years and euros over the initial estimate. We were advised to ask Hamburgers what they thought of it if we wanted some explosive reactions. We also heard the amusing tale of Klaus Störtebeker, the fisherman turned pirate and perhaps a German answer to Robin Hood. Our guide’s story-telling prowess is too great to try and replicate here so I will recommend you take the tour!

One last interesting thing we saw on the tour was a lot of padlocks attached to a bridge. I asked the tour guide what they were about and he replied that they are put there every Valentine’s day by young lovers, who then throw the key into the river below as a symbol of their commitment to each other. If you click on the photo you can see many have names and dates engraved in them. This was only slightly soured by the fact that before each next Valentine’s day the city council cuts some of them off to make room for more.

In the evening we went in search of cheap but good restaurants, and found the Portuguese quarter on a recommendation from the tour guide. The outside table we wanted got stolen from under our noses by smug and non-queueing people, but we decided to go into Casa Ricardo (in fact Spanish) on Rambachstraße anyway. Mixed tapas for €23 shared sounded and tasted good. It had very kingly prawns, deep fried anchovies, calamari rings, potatoes, crab claws, Spanish chorizo and new potatoes. While veteran eaters, we had anticipated a rather smaller portion and were also duty bound to work through the starter tapas of spicy meatballs and diced potatoes in lovely chilli tomato sauce.

The bill (zahlen) was requested with a little dread, as €23 shared now seemed rather too good to be true for our banquet. Fortunately we were wrong, and got the most surprising bill of just €45 for two drinks each, two starters and the aforementioned main! If you ever go to Hamburg, go to this restaurant!

Hamburg was a great place once we found our way out of the dodgy bit by the station. Even though we were there early in the week and so did not get a glimpse of the famously decadent Reeperbahn, it was one of our favourite places. It is not too busy or dirty and our hostel (Generator) was cheap and good. The only blip was the windows being locked in our 6th floor dormitory due to people throwing things out. This was rather stifling in the sunburn inducing heat, but I guess being British I can’t complain about good weather. Onwards to Berlin aboard the super-efficient 2-hour Deutsche Bahn ICE train!