Exploring the world reviewing metal and rock bars, festivals, and more!
July 31 I arrived in Naples feeling completely exhausted, but grateful to have made a last minute alternation to my journey which meant I spent the evening in a real bed (albeit in another hostel) by choosing to get the high speed train down rather than the sleeper, where I got to experience how beautiful…
July 24-29 The time had finally come for what became the highlight of my year, and one of my life as I arrived at a festival I heard a lot of great things about and somewhere that has been an annual pilgrimage for several of my friends back in the UK – MetalDays. This was…
Background: For the next few days I was mainly doing the tourist thing, although I did briefly stop by one place in Milan and had an all too brief experience of Ljubljana’s vibrant nightlife, otherwise I was mostly enjoying craft beer and some great Italian food. In fact other than MetalDays there is not much…
First port of call was Spelunke! Bar, just outside of the centre and involving another suburban train, which was subject to a very rare (for Switzerland) delay. Anyway even though it’s out a bit, it’s probably one of the highlights of the trip. Entrance to Spelunke! Bar, where I had a pretty good time. The…
July 20 I left Paris the following morning, for an equally short stay in Zürich where I will stay overnight before taking a rather special train over the Alps and into Italy. I took the TGV to Strasbourg, covering 300 miles (about 500 km) in a mere 2 hours, impressive when many train journeys of…
The first of the two bars I visited was Hellfest Corner – presumably associated with the metal festival of the same name. I was very taken with this place in particular, and this boosted my opinion of Paris greatly for one particular reason: they served food! Not only that, they served it at 10pm where…
July 19 Whilst the heat in Paris was just as intense and stifling as it was in the UK, people there seemed far more accustomed to it and it people were just getting on with life as usual. I first went to explore a local park near where I was staying in the 19th arrondissement,…
June 30 It seemed that continental Europe didn’t want me to leave! Firstly a small panic when I waited for my train at Berlin Hauptbhanhof only to be told just before departure that the train was leaving from another platform entirely, thankfully the crowd suddenly moving as a giveaway, and I knew enough German to…
First port of call of the evening was Paule’s Metal Eck, where there was plenty of the good end of mainstream metal there, including the Deftones and Trivium. They also sold their own branded beer, and the inside was pretty metal too: Paule himself (assuming that’s his actual name) was also pretty friendly too, and…
A previous arrangement to meet a friend in Brussels had fallen through, so I decided to break up my trip home and revisit Berlin for the first time in several years. So after an early start for the early morning train, I arrived in to Berlin Hauptbahnof at around 1pm, 52 minutes late since we…