Cork student: Final tips from my inter-rail journey of discovery

After my exams, I went inter-railing across Europe, travelling to Berlin, Prague, Vienna and Budapest via train rides. I never expected to gain so much from this journey.

I learned so much about the history of these cities in far more depth. For example, the incredible continental success of art and music, from Klimt to Mozart, but also, the horrific, heartbreaking reality that faced the Jews of Europe during the Holocaust.

The timeline, statistics, photos, and personal stories we saw about the atrocities committed against minorities in Germany was highlighted in the Jewish Memorial Museum in Berlin.

However, this information and knowledge was vital to be conscious of as we travelled to more of Europe, as these concentration camps and this discrimination impacted the Czech Republic, Austria and Hungary as well.

Certainly, the emotions evoked by that memorial will stay with me forever, and serve as a reminder of the importance of empathy, listening, patience, acceptance, and embracing diversity.

I challenged some of my own beliefs and ideas as I became exposed to new art and new ideas. For example, the graffiti-like style of art that we saw on the walls of the East-side gallery, Berlin, and the type of art inside Leopold museum, Vienna, were very different.

Even so, it was interesting that both were clearly reactionary art.

In Berlin, so much of the art referred to tearing down the Berlin Wall while the modernist work of the Austrian museum, seemed to respond to the hopelessness of the world wars, changes and industrialisation.

I also learned a huge amount about psychology at the Sigmund Freud museum in Vienna. I have a much better understanding now of his life, but also his theories and findings.

My travelling partner Niamh Finn and I were also able to debate and discuss these psychoanalytic thoughts and practise critical thinking.

I found interacting with so many different cultures during my trip to be an amazing experience. It was so exciting to find out how the food, language, transport and daily ways of life varied.

For example, we were intrigued to try the traditional kolac pastry in Prague and even found recipes for it in local shops. The apple strudel in Germany and Kaiserschmarrn pancakes with plums in Austria were heavenly.

We observed that the fashions in Berlin and the way people dressed in Budapest were different. We had some idea of how the German people often communicate. We could both speak a bit of the language, having studied it for the Leaving Cert, and had visited the country before. However, we were unprepared for the humour and bluntness in how the Hungarians interacted with us, although simultaneously being extremely nice.

Even so, almost everyone we encountered was friendly and welcoming.

The transport systems also vary in each city. In Berlin, we mainly used the underground trains because they were the fastest. Yet, in Vienna and Prague, we opted for trams because they gave us a scenic tour of the city and were very frequent.

In Budapest, we used a mixture of both the metro and trams, depending on what was the closest option for us, with the least amount of walking required. This was great because we were so tired from the heat in Budapest, and meant we never had to walk too far.

Hearing the different languages and seeing other currencies being used was also interesting. I loved learning about the customs, legends and stories that accompanied each city as well.

Niamh and I also picked up a lot of practical tips and tricks whilst inter-railing. For example, how to travel really light and only bring the bare essentials with you. We each had one small backpack and then, day to day, we brought around a fanny-pack each.

We found powerbanks and fast chargers really handy because we did need to use our phones quite a bit for translations and directions. On that note, make sure to bring an adapter for your plug.

Furthermore, Google Maps was incredible! It was able to tell us the different walking routes we could take, and we could add sites as stops on our way to a location so that we got as much sightseeing in on our walk as we could.

I do think navigating entirely new cities would have been much more confusing and overwhelming without it.

Likewise, being able to convert euros to the local currencies was vital in terms of checking prices and Google Translate was constantly on hand.

It’s very hard to pack for all weather scenarios, but we had looked at the forecast and knew that overall it would be warm. So, we brought light ponchos for the showers and wore suncream each day, bringing it with us to top up and reapply.

We also practised saving money on food and water by going to the supermarkets to buy bits for most of our meals, and only ate out a couple of times, mainly to try something from the local cuisine.

We also found a great free walking tour in Vienna and carefully chose only the attractions we’d be most interested in to pay for.

For example, we didn’t buy a ticket to enter a cathedral in each city because we knew St Vitus in Vienna was free to enter.

However, we happily paid for the comprehensive tour of Berlin, the DRR museum, the Sigmund Freud Museum, and the Leopold Art Musuem, having decided that these were of the most interest to us.

To conclude, inter-railing is a brilliant experience. I’m so grateful I had the perfect person to travel with. Niamh is someone who knows me so well, I can talk to her about everything, and with such a busy type of trip, we were able to lean on each other and figure things out together.

I can’t begin to describe how much I learned about the world and myself from the full experience. It was truly worthwhile and an amazing opportunity to expand my horizons that I would have to recommend to anyone.