After chatting with a few travelers at the hostel tonight, I thought it might be helpful to relay some of our thoughts on staying at hostels vs. hotels vs. bed and breakfasts since we’ve recently been asked by a few people which we think is better.  The short answer is there is no one or the other we would pick – it really depends on the place itself.  Hostels generally have more of a social atmosphere and a younger clientele, but we’ve stayed at a lot of hostels that have people in their 30s and 40s staying there.  The nice thing about hostels is they usually have a fully equipped kitchen so you can cook a meal if you want, the bad thing is that it’s almost always shared bathrooms, which can be gross.  B&Bs can really be hit or miss, but we’ve been happy with the two we’ve stayed at so far.  Like I said before, though, at a B&B, you’re in someone’s home so you tend to feel like you have to stay quiet and out of the way.  Hotels in Europe have been fairly good so far, but at a hotel you’ll never meet anybody or get advice about where to go or what to see (unless you’re at a small owner-run hotel like the one we stayed at in Avignon).  The plus side of a hotel is the noise insulation (you don’t get woken up as other people come and go) and the privacy, especially having your own bathroom.  It’s also nice to have someone clean your room everyday, although we generally turn the housekeeping staff away because they come so early! 

For comparison sake, here’s a list of our accommodations so far:
1. Lisbon, Portugal – Rossio Hostel; loved everything except the showers
2. Porto, Portugal – Rivoli Cinema Hostel; great but no social atmosphere
3. Madrid, Spain – Barbieri Internation Hostel; worst place we’ve stayed so far
4. Barcleona, Spain – Itaca Hostel; great private double room that felt like a hotel
5. Montpellier, France – Les Arbousiers B&B (Jean-Luc & Ann d’Auzac); fantastic hospitality & a big spacious room, option for home cooked meal for dinner
6. Nimes, France – Campanile Nimes Centre; not close to anything but ok budget hotel
7. Avignon, France – Hotel Boquier; nice owner-run small hotel
8. Nice, France – Ibis Nice Centre; first stay at this budget hotel chain, no frills but very clean & fairly new
9. Lyon, France – Ibis Lyon Centre Perrache; bigger room & cheaper than Nice
10. Geneva, Switzerland – City Hostel Geneva; dorm-style hostel so no social atmosphere,  private twin room w/nice bunk beds, Wi-Fi broken
11. Bern, Switzerland – Bern Backpackers Hotel Glocke; great except for check-in policy sucked and there weren’t enough bathrooms
12. Lucerne, Switzerland – NH Lucerne Hotel; a step-up from Ibis, bigger & more luxurious room but not worth regular price
13. Strasbourg, France – Hotel Le Grillon; 2nd worst place we’ve stayed, very dirty, felt like I was in an attic, shared bathrooms
14. Rouen, France – Ibis Rouen Centre; standard small Ibis room but not close to city center!
15. Le Mont-Saint-Michel – Hotel Formule Verte; very basic budget hotel but ok
16. Caen, France – Bristol Hotel; cramped over-priced budget hotel, bad Wi-Fi
17. Paris, France – Ibis Paris Gare de L’est; typical Ibis but a bit older
18. Munich, Germany – Ibis Muenchen City; typical Ibis, bathroom a bit small
19. Berlin, Germany – Best Western Hotel City Ost; not in city center but commute was no problem, a bit better than Ibis, bathroom was nicer
20. Hamburg, Germany – Ibis Hamburg Alster Centrum; again typical Ibis
21. Dusseldorf, Germany – Ibis Dusseldorf Zentrum; not close enough to center
22. Cologne, Germany – Station Hostel for Backpackers; room was nice, bathroom was gross, didn’t socialize with anyone at the hostel
23. Luxembourg – Novotel Luxembourg Kirchberg; much nicer than Ibis but not worth regular price
24. Brussels, Belgium – lucdelux B&B; small basic room but comfortable
25. Brugge, Belgium – Lybeer Travellers’ Hostel; 3rd worst place we’ve stayed but good social atmosphere & really good Wi-Fi

After travelling by train in Portugal, Spain, France and Switzerland, I thought it might be informative to put up some information about stuff like ticket checks, etc.

I was prompted to do because, while travelling by myself from Lucerne Switzerland to Strasbourg France, I nearly missed the ticket validation machine when changing trains in Basel, Switzerland (when you travel between France and Switzerland you must walk through customs, where you may be stopped and searched at random, and change trains at a border city, such as Basel or Geneva).  You see, in Switzerland (and Spain and Portugal), you generally buy tickets for a specific train, so you don’t need to validate, but in France, most tickets are for general travel that day, so you must validate your ticket by time-stamping it in a yellow ticket validator located at the entrance to the trains. We had learned to do this while in France (although you don’t have anything to validate when you’re just using an Eurail pass) but after going into Switzerland I had totally forgotten about this and got onto the train to Strasbourg without seeing the validator machine at all.  Thankfully there was a middle-aged lady sitting across from me who heard the announcement (in French) reminding passengers to validate their tickets, and she turned and asked me if I knew where to validate the tickets.  I realized that I hadn’t done so, and she asked me to take her ticket with me when I said I would go find the ticket validator.  I had to run pretty fast since the train was going to depart in a few minutes, but I managed to make it to the gate and back in time with both our tickets validated.

The other thing I wanted to make note of is the frequency of ticket checks.  In Spain, our tickets weren’t checked on the trip between Madrid and Barcelona, but were checked when going from Barcelona to Montpellier.  In France, our train tickets were checked about half the time, usually only during the longer distance journeys.  Whenever the tickets were checked, it was by SNCF officers who would go back and forth after each stop, somehow remebering whose tickets they had seen and whose they hadn’t.  This seemed like a totally inefficient system to me, but I guess it’s the only way to control a train system where you can get on at any stop and get off at any stop and only your ticket will show how far you’ve paid to go. In Switzerland, train tickets were checked everytime, but it seemed like they didn’t have dedicated ticket checkers, they used the regular staff of the train.  I guess if you really want to, you can try to get away with not buying a ticket in Spain or France, but don’t do it in Switzerland!

Last night, after a wonderful day in Porto, we decided to have dinner in the Ribeira area by the water so that we could see the Ponte D. Luis bridge at night.  The view was spectacular, but the food was a big disappointment!

After walking the entire strip of restaurants in the area, we picked a smaller one where the waiter seemed to speak English and the menu had an option of ordering entrees sized for two people or just one.  We decided to try a trout  dish and the tripe – the last Portuguese specialty that we have heard about.  It came out looking interesting – a small steel pot full of beans and tripe in some sort of broth. Considering we ordered the single serving, this seemed like quite a big portion by European standards!

Again, the first two bites of our meal were fine, and then we began to notice how the food doesn’t sit well in our stomachs and the flavours are just kind of blah.  It seemed like something about the way the tripe was cooked was not good- it was too tender for tripe, like it had been overcooked, and there was an overwhelming amount of beans.  The trout seemed fine, until Paul started getting sick later at night.

Today he has full on food poisoning and has had to spend the day in bed/the bathroom at the hostel (editor’s note: try sipping at least 1 – 2L of coke throughout the day – the acid kills the germs and the sugar/water keeps you hydrated).  For dinner I went and got take-out at McDonald’s because it’s familiar and safe in a way I think the willingness to try new things may have been lost for now, but hopefully things will improve when we head to Spain tomorrow…

Since the breakfast included at the hostel was only toast and cereal, we headed out early today and wandered into a cafe that seemed to serve our normal idea of breakfast (eggs, toast, etc).  The language barrier came into play again so we blindly ordered by pointing at things on the menu that looked like words we sort of recognized (such as ovo, which means egg).  We ended up ordering a heart-attack breakfast (2 eggs, a hamburger patty, and a hot dog style wiener for me and 1 egg, a small steak, and french fries for Paul), but it was delicious and it kept us full for most of the day

Before leaving Lisbon, we grabbed a few pages from a guidebook about Porto, and it came in very handy as we explored the city today!  We started by going to the Igreja de Sao Francisco (Church of Saint Francis) where we paid 4 euros each to go into the church, the museum, and the catacombs.  The church is an amazing demonstration of Baroque style wood gilding (unfortunately no pictures allowed inside), but the really cool part of the visit was the catacombs.  Apparently there were no public cementaries in Portugal until 1845 so people used to be buried inside and all over churches.  The place was spooky but pretty neat!

After the church, we walked across the lower part of the Ponte D. Luis bridge to get to the Vila Nova de Gaia area where all the Port wine lodges are located.  We had planned to go to a couple of tastings, but after touring the Calem lodge and tasting a white Port and a tawny (which were delicious), Paul told me he felt drunk and wanted to pass out so we decided we were done with Port.  This is the first time I have really wished we weren’t backpacking and had suitcases because I really wanted to buy some of the Port – some of their best bottles are only 50 euros!

Today we arrived in Porto and checked into the Rivoli Cinema Hostel.  I am happy to report that this hostel has a nicer bathroom, but unfortunately it’s co-ed, so now I’ll really have to be careful when getting out of the shower!  The other good thing about this hostel is that we have a private room with a “double” bed (which is really actually two single beds pushed together) and they have a washer and dryer you can use for free!  The bad thing about this hostel is there is an ant infestation in the kitchen, which makes us not want to store any food there, and there is no social atmosphere whatsoever.

We took our first train ride to get to Porto and I am amazed at how efficient and cheap the rail system is in Europe (only 19.50 euros to get from Lisbon to Porto).  The directions to the hostel were a little hard to understand so it took us 45 minutes to find something that is really only 5 minutes from the train station!  But we eventually got here and so far, Porto looks nicer than Lisbon!

For lunch, we tried a BBQ place which was pretty good, but the meat was still a little too salty for our liking.  For 15.70 euros we got an entire small chicken, a huge plate of rice, and some pork ribs.  Because it was a sort of a late lunch after getting lost, neither of us felt hungry at dinner time so we decided to pick up a small lasagna at the supermarket when we went to buy drinks.  It wasn’t great, but what can you expect for 2 euros?  We sure won’t do that again

We decided that after a couple of days  of sightseeing, we would just take it easy today and walk around Lisbon’s Old Town and do some people watching.  We spent the morning wandering, stopping at a couple of parks along the way, and found a nice view of Lisboa at the top of the hill.  We also managed to find the way to get to the top of the elevator to Old Town by walking instead of paying for a ride up; a handy tip the guys at the hostel told us about!

In the early afternoon we wandered back to the hostel and started to pack our bags.  Both of us were sore and tired from two days of a what seemed like non-stop walking (especially the uphill trek in Sintra) so I decided to run down and try to get some takeout while Paul started working.  There is a tiny little cafe at the bottom of the hostel and I tried to order some coffee, but when I tried to order it to go, the guy said they don’t have takeout cups for coffee! I tried to explain to him that I was just staying at the hostel upstairs so I could bring him his glasses back right away, but he didn’t seem to understand me and kept shaking his head.  Thankfully the guy next to me spoke English and some Portuguese and stepped in to help me.  In the end, we ended up getting take-out coffee in the little plastic cups they use to serve beer and I raced it back upstairs hoping the cup wouldn’t melt.  I think I should have just tried to find a Starbucks!

Lisbon has been quite pretty and the weather here is awesome, but a part of me can’t wait to get back to where people speak English!  Whoever said you can get by with just English anywhere in Europe lied!  As we move forward I am hoping for better bathrooms, no weird families, and an easier time communicating.  Oh, and some better food please!

We return to the hostel around 2:30 in the afternoon so Paul can work, I run upstairs to use the bathroom and I see the man standing outside the door to the ladies room, facing the bathroom.  I’m not sure what he’s doing there but he waves at me to go past him and, when I open the door, I see why he is waiting there – the rest of the family has taken over the ENTIRE ladies bathroom and he’s waiting for them to pass him the shampoo.  They’ve got the little girls standing naked in the shower all covered in soap and shampoo (the doors and curtains are all open), one of the women is washing them, and the other has taken over the sink area.

In my hand I had some garbage I was planning to toss into the bathroom’s garbage can, but the woman at the sink was blocking the garbage can and when I tried to say excuse me, she either didn’t hear, didn’t understand, or just plain ignored me.  I waited a few seconds (I’m pretty sure she was shaving her eyebrows) but decided to give up trying to get to the garbage can while she was there.  I glanced at the toilets, wondering how I could go pee with this garbage in my hands,  decided that it wasn’t worth it and turned around and left the bathroom.

If this family continues to use the ENTIRE bathroom, I can’t wait until we check out!

After waiting 25 minutes, we became frustrated with the bus system and decided to share a cab with another random person Paul met at the bus stop who was also going to the Monastery.  We never learned his name but he told us he’s a history professor from a college in Chicago, here on his sabbatical and he gave us a few good tips on places in the world he has traveled to.

We decided to start our day at Belem Tower, a fortified tower built in the early 16th century and from there, walk to the main part of town where the Monastery is located.  The tower was neat but did not seem worth going into for 5 euros so Paul and I waited outside while Uwe and the stranger went in.  They came back in 15 minutes and confirmed that it wasn’t worth it

From there we walked over to The Discoveries Monument to check out the amazingly sculptured exterior, and then over to the Jeronimos Monastery.  The church part of the Monastery is free, but you must pay to go inside to see the rest.  Uwe said it should be quite interesting to see the other parts because its where the monks used to live, so we decided to pay the 6 euros each to get inside.  We noticed that there was a family price for 9 euros for two adults with two children, but when we asked if we could get a family price since we were married but didn’t have children the guy at the counter said no.  I’m not sure if he didn’t believe that we’re married or we constitute a family, or if you really must have children to get a family rate, but it seemed rather silly to us.

As it turns out, the inside of the Monastery was a waste of time and money.  There is nothing in there but a big courtyard and a giant cardboard exhibit that takes you through the history of the monastery, the history of Portugal, and the history of the world.  I started to read this but got bored by the time I got to the second phase of the Monastery’s construction and gave up.  I would strongly recommend anyone going to the Monastery to not bother with the paid part and just visit the free church.  The church was amazing.  Unfortunately, my camera battery died because I forgot to charge it   Ultimate fail!

After the Monastery, the three of us decided to grab some lunch again before heading our separate ways – we had to get back to the hostel for Paul to work and Uwe was off to see the Anthropology museum.  The other people at the hostel had said we must get pastries at Pasties de Belem which was right by the Monastery, across the street from the bus stop, so we went straight there.   Again, we couldn’t figure out how to order at the counter, but a waiter pointed us to a table so we sat and he brought us menus.

We randomly picked a few lunch items - this menu had an english section which we could more or less understand and, thanks to Uwe, I figured out the coffee menu (which doesn’t come in an english version).  Caffe here is just espresso, Caffe con Leite is espresso with a little milk, and Galao is espresso with a lot of milk (sort of like a latte).  We ordered 3 tarts, which are their specialty, 1 chocolate croissant, 1 sandwhich, 2 individual pizzas, 2 Galao, and 1 Caffe con Leite.  Everything tasted awesome – especially the tarts which came out warm!  In case you don’t know what a Portuguese tart is, it’s like a chinese egg tart made with phyllo pastry.  The cherry on top was that the bill came out to only 14 euros!  If you’re in Lisbon, Pasties de Belem is a must!!!

Sigh – when will the food start tasting better?  Tonight we went in search of a restaurant that got some good reviews on the Internet about it’s Portuguese style chicken but only to find said restaurant deserted and quite pricey.  We decided to walk around and find something busier since going to the busiest restaurant we could find for lunch had worked out well.  We ended up at a restaurant where a South-African man (possibly the owner) kindly explained the menu and there were several people eating on the patio, including one couple deeply engrossed in their make-out session!  “PDA” (Public Display of Affection) is taken to a whole new level in Europe…. (horse is impressed as he edits)

Paul tried the roasted pork – another signature Portuguese dish we had heard about – and I had the calamari and prawns.  The pork reminded us of Chinese roasted pork but not crispy on the outside and not as tasty.  The calamari was not what I was expecting – apparently calamari here is grilled squid, not the battered and fried stuff we get back home.  It tasted decent but there was this jelly-like substance inside of it that I had to pick out because the texture of it made me gag.  We asked the South-African man about it and he thinks it’s the bone of the squid, but he wasn’t sure.  Whatever it was, it wasn’t good.  The prawns would have been tasty if they hadn’t been grilled with the shell on because that made them almost impossible to peel.

All in all, we would say this dinner was mediocre at best and we are really hoping things start to get better in the food department – that’s the main part of our travel budget!