Hostels in Europe- any advice?

Excelsior

El Pres, I and our friend are off inter-railing in about 4 weeks. we'll be hitting all the major cities- barcelona, rome, florence, munich, prague, crackow, berlin, amsterdam, brussels. so does anyone have any heads up on cheap accomadation in these cities. we're talkin' about hostels, pensiones, that kind of scene. anyone have any other general tips about what we should go see or where we should go to be seen? anyone got any inter-railing tales of shame or wonder they'd like to share?

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It is so lonely here in my indecipherable tower of speech impedimency

Excelsior

just the kind of advice we need. out archtecture-student buddy wants to go to brussels. plutonium and all that crazy stuff he eats. i don't know

BossArky

I know I've posted this heaps of times before but if you missed it, this is a great site for info:
www.virtualtourist.com

and
www.encarta.com is ok too.

BossArky

Originally posted by Excelsior:
We'll be hitting all the major cities- barcelona, rome, florence, munich, prague, crackow, berlin, amsterdam, brussels.

eh, Where exactly would this place that you call crackow be?....?

Von

Give Brussels a miss. I know a bit about Paris if you're going there.

BossArky

grrr, I wrote a big spiel for ya and then my pc crashed and I lost the lot.

If you come to Munich go see the Olympic park/tower/lake and general area...go to Marien Platz and that area...and if you have time take a trip to Dachau, the concentration camp from ww2.

If you go to Prague try to get to the mini Eiffel tower on the hill top, the charles bridge(mission impossible filmed there), King Wencelas square(yes from the xmas carroll!)..and the John Lennon wall...there is a cheap hostel near the mini eiffel thingy...6 squids for me for a night in a double room all to myself...4 nightclubs built into it.

IN Munich there is a hostel in RotzkreutzPlatz that is nice, 20-30DMS a night depending on single/double or dorm...Munich apparently one of the safest in Europe, Prague is one of the cheapest...and if you get time then go see Salzburg in Austria(2 hours train journey from Munich 35DMs weekend return)...cos that is the most beautiful place that I've ever been.

TRUST ME!

Von

That's in Poland I think.

The last 2 times I went to Paris I stayed here http://www.aijparis.com/
It's cheap, £11 quid a night, and within walking distance of plenty of sites and good late bars.

I've been told that people get robbed a lot in their sleep on night trains. In Spain they use gas to knock everyone out in the carriage.

BossArky

Yeah, actaully I'm reading this book and last night there was a bit about "Krakow", supposedly in Poland somewhere, I'd never heard much about it before.

I'm told that Paris is supposed to be extremely dangerous to walk the streets at night.

When I was on the night train to Prague there was this America fellow in the carriage with me and he said that people in the US are afraid to come on these European night trains cos they fear that the Czechs/Germans are in on some conspiracy and gas entire trains and rob the passengers!...!!!!....he even insisted on having the window open for the 9 hours!...it must be exciting to be/think like an American!

Excelsior

i once met an american who could speak seven languages and i thought, WOW! all americans must be so learned.

Excelsior

crackow was added to the unesco list of heritage interntaional sites in 1978. it has ovewr 2.5 million pieces of art, and 1700 protected pieces of architecture. also, 40% of the population are students. (fun for smee) finally, the nazi camp, auschwitz birkenau is an hour away. so we have to go. and since poland was in the soviet sphere of influence we hope to pick up some genuine red army hats. you know the furry ones with the ear flaps? now that will be cool.

metalchicken

You should book in advance for Florence, really. It took me hours of wandering around to get anywhere there, and I ended up staying with nuns (nuns!), which was interesting, if nothing else. I went in June and it was really very busy.

The best place in Florence is apparently the Istituto Gould, Via del Serragli 49, tel (0039.055.212.576) or Santa Monaca, via Santa Monaca 6, tel (0039.055.268.338) is supposed to be really good too. They were both pretty cheap too, I think. But full up

As for Rome, I just posted a big thingy about it on Bossarky's post about Rome, and am too lazy to repeat it all so just see that post if ya want

hehe
btw Im not posititive that the 0039 code bit is the right one for dialing Italy, I think it is though...