A little over a year ago, in the early days of 2019, I realized I didn't have any goals, resolutions or dreams for the new year. In a moment of panic, I tweeted some friends to ask them for help. It was Ella from Ella Was Here who then came up with the idea of the Twelve Cities Challenge. She challenged me to visit a new city every month of 2019. I added some rules of my own to that basic setup: a city counted as "new" if a previous visit was five years or longer ago; a visit had to last at least six hours to count; going somewhere for a track meet does not count. I was very excited to start planning. The challenge was not impossible, but difficult enough to get me out of my comfort zone. In January, I boarded the Thalys to Paris, confident that it'd be the first in a row of twelve successful, if short, city trips. Alas, it was not meant to be.

Like a lot of challenges and changes, the Twelve Cities Challenge seemed easy enough at first. My trip to Paris was already scheduled in December 2018, so I didn't have to worry about the first destination at all. Keeping my financial status and ecological footprint in mind, I made the conscious decision to stay closer to home in the months that followed. I explored the old city center of Dordrecht in February. March saw me visit The Hague, a city I had ambiguous feelings about prior to that month. I came in trouble with university deadlines in March though and almost let the month pass by without me going anywhere. I had to squeeze my visit into the last few days of March, but for a second I was convinced I was going to fail before I'd even made it to April. A crisis was averted at the last minute, mostly because I couldn't live with the thought of failing so early on. Luckily, April and May were easier. My parents and I had already planned a trip to Bratislava for April. Ella, being the mastermind behind the whole ordeal, helped me out by inviting me to Ghent in May. All was well, but I started to notice an issue: Content. While I had enough content to share on my Instagram stories during my visits, I often didn't have much to blog about. I enjoyed all my visits up until that point in the year, but really had to put a lot of effort into making my time in for example Dordrecht sound interesting enough to keep my small audience from falling asleep.


In June, my dad started asking when I'd post my Twelve Cities content here on my blog. I tried to avoid his question, said I was working on it. In reality, I was just counting down the days till we'd leave for Africa and I'd have actual material to write about. I didn't give up on the challenge yet, although that month's city trip once again confronted me with the content problem. I went to Breda to visit my college friend Stefanie. She gave me a tour of the city, we looked at street art, but most important of all: We talked for hours about everything that did and didn't matter in life. It was a perfect summer day that I have fond memories of. But let's face it: no one wants to read about friends discussing their former teachers and classes on what's supposed to be a travel blog.

Although I was struggling with the presentation of the challenge on my blog, I did not give up. My mom and I went to Gouda. We took a long walk through the city center while my mom shared her memories of the city from when she was a kid. We had a good time, but after lunch we realized we were practically done there. We'd seen what we wanted to see, we'd done what we wanted to do. I let go of my six-hour rule that day. What's the point of holding on to it if you're literally just waiting till you can go home?


August made things easier again. I spent a few days in Cape Town and thanked the universe for the stories I could write about it. Those stories are very dear to me, but at this point in time I'm finally ready to share them. They'll be here soon. You won't hear much about the city I visited in September though. I didn't visit one. Soon after the start of the academic year, I fell sick and couldn't travel much. Luckily the judges of the Twelve Cities Challenge (read: Ella and my parents) allowed me to visit two cities in October to make up for the missed month. I chose Zierikzee and Leiden, both of which I liked, but couldn't blog about without getting bored myself. By November, I'd lost most of my motivation. Nonetheless, I got on a train to visit the northern city of Leeuwarden. That was the city that broke me.

It was cold when I got off the train. As a cruel welcome gift, I got my period as I left the train station. Then I found myself, miserable and alone, in a complete ghost town. The streets were deserted. Most shops were still closed late in the morning. The city felt completely life- and soulless. I tried to like the place though, and told myself to keep following the signs leading me to various monuments and sights. None of them made an impression on me. I wondered why this city had been chosen as European Capital of Culture in 2018. Everything it had to offer, I'd already seen bigger, better and more beautiful elsewhere. Leeuwarden's only redeeming quality was its street art. Within two hours, however, I boarded the train home, almost angry at the city for wasting my time.

The silence in the city center of Leeuwarden was deafening

Too annoyed by Leeuwarden's disappointing existence to go anywhere else, I let November slip by. December came, and I was in no way ready to go anywhere. I had no ideas left, no motivation, no energy. I had to drag myself through the busy weeks at university. I collapsed the second my Christmas vacation started. Sleep won, travel lost. I swore I would not leave the house for two weeks. Ironically, the last days of the year saw me revisit The Hague, a city I never expected to see again so soon. A friend asked me to tag along, and I didn't even want to try and convince him to go somewhere else with me just so I could complete my challenge. I didn't care. I hadn't cared since October.

As I looked back on 2019 early in the morning of January 1st 2020, I noticed I didn't feel bad about failing the Twelve Cities Challenge at all. I made if far and learned a lot about planning and spreading myself too thin. Sometime after Africa, I'd become tired of constantly being on the move. I needed to stay in one place for a while until the travel fatigue was gone. That's what I've done since the disaster known as Leeuwarden. At this very moment, I finally feel excited about traveling again. I don't need a challenge anymore to get out of my comfort zone. Besides, I went to so many new places I hadn't counted for the challenge that I didn't care about not visiting a new city in December. I visited Swakopmund, Cork, Belfast, Brussels, Vienna and Victoria Falls. Seventeen cities in one year! That's without all the national parks, towns and places I saw for the first time in 2019. My goal with the Twelve Cities Challenge was to not get stuck in one place. I more than reached that goal. Sadly, completing the Twelve Cities Challenge didn't play a big enough role in that process to keep me going. I don't see it as a true failure. It was an adventure. I learned more than I'd expected, mostly about planning and logistics. If only I'd learned what to do with insufficient content, it would have been perfect (suggestions are more than welcome). And hey, I'm not dead yet, I might try again in the near distant future! It's never too late for a second attempt when it comes to a challenge like this one.

I've often talked about how much I like trains. They're great. But there's another mode of transportation that I like just as much, yet rarely get to enjoy: the boat. 2019 has been a good year for boat trips so far though. In February, I went to Dordrecht by boat and on a sunny day in April, I boarded a boat that would take me from Vienna to Bratislava. Things got even better when I got off the Twin City Liner in the Slovakian capital. Because right next to the mooring place for the ferry was Botel Gracia, the hotel where I'd be staying for the duration of my stay.

Sleeping in a botel had been a dream of mine since my mom explained six-year-old me the difference between a hotel and a motel. I'd jokingly asked her if a botel was a thing too. When she said yes, all I wanted was to stay at one. It took sixteen years to happen, but the wait only fueled my excitement. I had so many questions when I walked to Botel Gracia. Would I get seasick? Or riversick, as this boat was on the Danube? Would the rooms be cramped, like on a submarine? Would the riverside be safe or scary at night?


As soon as I stepped aboard the botel, I knew I was not going to be seasick. The Gracia was a big ship and barely moved in the fast currents of the Danube. While my dad checked us in, I wandered off to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows, mesmerized by the river outside. The most exciting thing to float past was a duck, and I loved it.

We'd arrived before midday, so after dumping our luggage, my parents and I left the boat to explore Bratislava. Although there is a sightseeing bus, we decided to walk. The map we'd picked up at the front desk showed that all the major sights were within walking distance. Within five minutes, we'd reached the city center. It was a sunny day, and because we were so exhausted from walking almost 20 kilometers through Vienna the previous day, we just sat down on a bench to enjoy the weather.

With the boat as our base, we planned short trips into the city. One in the morning, one in the afternoon, with a boat break in between. It was an atypical plan for the Fisher family, but it worked under the circumstances. We were all tired, me from university deadlines, my parents from worrying about my grandmother who'd just been hospitalized. My grandad had given us his blessing to go on this trip, as there was nothing we could do for him and his wife by staying at home, but we made sure to keep up to date on the situation by returning to the boat's wifi at a regular interval.


Our adventures in Bratislava were small. They started on the second day of our stay with a visit to Bratislava Castle, a mere ten minutes away from my hotel room. We could have reached the castle in seven minutes, but I was still doing a half-limp when walking uphill due to a calf injury. Once I'd made it up to the castle, I basically wanted to go down again right away. The building was renovated and redesigned so many times that it now looks odd. I felt strangely uncomfortable. The castle looks like it belongs in every single century it lived through, from the 9th till now, or in no century at all...

After leaving the anachronistic castle behind, we walked to the other major landmarks we spotted on our map, all close by. We saw the Blue Church (do not recommend) and Michael's Gate, but I personally enjoyed simply strolling down the old streets the most. They're charming in that calm Eastern European kind of way that Western Europe just lacks. I calmed down a bit in Bratislava, realizing I didn't need to hurry of worry about what was to come. I think Bratislava is the most relaxed European capital I've ever visited, and it reflected on my own usually stressed mind. Later in the afternoon of that day, my parents and I took a walk along the Danube, crossing a bridge to the other side. I went down to the water, sat between trees as I dipped my fingers in the icy cold Danube and thought to myself: This place is perfect.


I slept well in my bed on a boat, but woke up to rain on the third day. We rented mountain bikes to visit Devín Castle, but believe me when I say that that deserves a blog post of its own. When I returned to the botel that afternoon, I crashed on my bed and didn't get up until it was time for dinner.

It was still raining on our fourth day in Bratislava, and I wanted to stay on the boat all day. My parents convinced me to go out and explore the city once more. We walked to a Russian cemetery, which was my idea, as I hadn't seen a graveyard from up close yet and that usually is part of my routine when I visit a new city. This cemetery was the resting place of Russian soldiers who died while liberating Slovakia from the Nazis in the Second World War. It's odd for a girl from Western Europe to see statues honoring the Red Army, but those are the experiences that make traveling so interesting. I got the chance to see history through Slovakian eyes, and in those eyes, the Russians weren't all bad. Although the state of the cemetery seemed to imply that the current generations don't care as much anymore...


That night, the rain stopped pouring. We decided to stay on the boat and have dinner in the botel's restaurant on the top deck. The view we had from there was amazing. Night fell relatively early, and the weird but famous UFO bridge lit up just a couple of dozen meters away from our boat. The spotlights on Bratislava Castle turned on. For some reason, all those lights made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I left the boat with my dad around 9PM to take pictures of the riverfront with its bridge and view of the castle. All the pictures turned out awful, but the short walk and the views were worth the effort.

I was happy when I went to bed that night. Four days in Bratislava is a lot to explore the relatively small city, maybe a bit too much, but I'd had a good time. Most important of all: I'd finally had my botel stay. But would I surprise anyone when I say I hope to go back someday? Probably not. Because as usual, I already have new Slovakian adventures in mind that I hope to turn into reality.

A lynch mob gathered outside the Gevangenpoort, The Hague's prison, on August 20, 1672. Inside the prison are the brothers De Witt. Johan, grand pensionary of the Dutch Republic, was rushed over to the prison to help his brother Cornelis, who was suspected of treason against the Stadtholder and was subjected to torture sessions in the basement of the Gevangenpoort. The angry mob outside on the streets of the Hague was calling for the brothers' heads. The two men are trapped. Before they know it, people break into the Gevangenpoort. Johan and Cornelis are killed, ripped to pieces just outside the prison. A finger and tongue which supposedly belonged to the brothers are still kept in a Dutch museum as morbid memorabilia.
Well over three centuries later, I was standing in the same room where Cornelis de Witt had spent his last days on Earth and thought to myself: How the hell did I end up here?

I'd come across museum De Gevangenpoort online while planning a day trip to The Hague with my mom. The city is close to Rotterdam and I hadn't been there in ages, so it was a perfect choice for my Twelve Cities Challenge. Although the city has plenty to offer in terms of shopping, food and art, my mom and I wanted to spend our time learning a bit more about the history of The Hague, which is central to The Netherlands as a modern constitutional monarchy. We already knew we wanted to visit the Binnenhof, where our parliament is located, but the Gevangenpoort seemed like a good addition, as it would introduce us to lesser-known parts of Dutch history. Granted, I'm very interested in Medieval prisons and torture chambers. I have odd interests, I know. My mom isn't a big fan of such things, so we planned some more light-hearted activities as well. We wanted to go shopping at De Passage and visit Chinatown, but first and foremost: we would be going to the Binnenhof and the Gevangenpoort.

When we arrived in The Hague by train, it was cold and gray; a normal Dutch day in March if I've ever seen one. We walked from The Hague Central Station to the Binnenhof, directed by small signs. You really can't miss it, although it comes as a surprise when you reach the place. None of the streets leading up to it, nor the gate, imply that you're about to enter a historical place. Within a few steps, my mom and I left the 21st century behind us and entered the timeless epicenter of the Dutch democracy. We sat down on a bench opposite the Ridderzaal (literally translated: "Knight's Hall") and talked about the current political climate.


We looked at the Asian tourists posing for pictures, but kept an eye out for famous politicians. There's always a chance of spotting a party leader or minister, since parliament is based in one of the many buildings of the Binnenhof, as well as most politicians' offices. Sadly, we had no luck. After a while, we stood up and walked on, past al the buildings dating back to the Middle Ages and the Dutch Golden Age. I even got the chance to feel tall in a tiny archway. We strolled along the Hofvijver, taking in the view of "het torentje", the small tower housing the office of our Prime Minister. Then we crossed the street, and found ourselves in front of museum De Gevangenpoort.

At first, we didn't notice that we were standing in front of the museum. The entrance is a non-distinct door everyone walks past without noticing it. I double-checked the address and the signs next to the door. I didn't dare enter, convinced this wasn't the right place. Yet all the signs said so. I stepped through the door hesitantly. There was a small courtyard, and a souvenir shop where you can buy tickets to the museum (beautiful tickets with pictures of old Dutch art on them, I have to add). Fifteen minutes later, our guided tour started.

We started out in the courtyard before entering the actual prison and its cells. In every one of the rooms, our guide told us more about Dutch history as well as the history of the Gevangenpoort, which were often intertwined. Vague memories of my 11th-grade history classes slowly came back to me as I wandered the small, cramped hallways.

The first part of the tour brought us to the cells where the convicts from the lower social classes were kept, including children, often dozens at a time. They had to stay in a dark, small room, the door of which was so low that even I, standing at a measly 1.67m tall, almost hit my head against the top of the door frame as I stepped into the cell. The next stops were more accessible and comfortable, although equally gloomy.


Our tour guide took us to the attic of the Gevangenpoort next, where the most disgusting torture equipment was on display. I found it strangely fascinating to see the rack, nooses, and branding irons, which were used to burn criminal records directly into the skins of those who broke the law. The use of every piece of equipment was calmly explained. It sent shivers down my spine.

The tour moved on to the cell of Cornelis de Witt, which was the most normal room in the entire building. It looked more like the early modern equivalent of a studio apartment than anything else, yet the story of Cornelis and his brother's death filled the room with darkness. It's always a humbling experience to walk in the footsteps of a famous historical figure, but this time it made me feel slightly uncomfortable. Little did I know the last stop of the tour would be much worse.


The guide led us to the cellar. It was a small room with old fashioned tiles in Delft Blue on the walls. The tiles had been haphazardly applied, some broken, many upside down. It didn't matter; they had been bought at a low price as rejects from the factory, chosen because it was easy to wipe the blood off of them. The cellar of the Gevangenpoort had once been a torture chamber. Centuries earlier, Cornelis de Witt had been tortured for hours n end so he'd admit to his alleged treason. No matter what they did to him, Cornelis kept his mouth shut. I found myself staring at specific tiles, wondering if he'd been staring at the exact same ones while his body was almost torn apart. The sight of those tiles imprinted itself on my brain.

As my mom and I left the Gevangenpoort behind us, we were both a bit blown away by everything we'd learned about our national history. Although the topic had been gruesome, we were glad we'd planned the visit. We spent the rest of the day shopping, looking at architecture and just having a good time. But looking back on all the things we did that day in The Hague, nothing came even close to my experiences at the Gevangenpoort.

Half an eternity ago, I was in the process of throwing my goals for 2019 out of the window. It was January, the nights were long, the days were short and I was bored out of my mind. Everything I wrote down was either not exciting enough, or was bound to happen anyway, regardless of how hard I'd work. Then Ella from Ella Was Here came to the rescue and challenged me to visit a new city each month of the year. The Twelve Cities Challenge was born. I went to Paris for January, but had to stay a lot closer to home for February because of university assignments. After a quick glance at the map of my country, I knew exactly where I wanted to go: Dordrecht.

Dordrecht is a small city very close to Rotterdam. It's not very well-known, often ridiculed in a local saying, but . You can reach Dordrecht within minutes if you take the train from Rotterdam Central station, or you can take the Waterbus, a boat. Paying the fare works the exact same way is it works for all other public transport in the Rotterdam area; if you don't have an "OV chipkaart", you buy an RET day ticket and scan it upon getting aboard the boat. Even though I love trains, I like boats even better, mostly because I rarely get the opportunity to go anywhere by boat. I'd followed this route once before, back when I was in kindergarten, but barely remembered it. It was time to really get to know this city so surprisingly close to home, yet so unknown. So on a sunny day way back in February, I got on the Waterbus to Dordrecht.


As usual, I arrived at my destination with no plan at all. Actually, that's not entirely true. I'd thought about doing a street art route and had the vague idea of walking to the city center, whichever way that may be. Neither of those plans was thought through, so after picking a friend up at the quay where I got off the boat, I did what I always do when I don't know what to do in a new place: I started walking.


The walk to the city center would have taken no more than a few minutes... if I hadn't gotten distracted by just about everything along the way. Dordrecht became a city in 1220 and wasn't bombed to pieces in the Second World War, so it has something Rotterdam doesn't have: old, monumental buildings from centuries ago. Many of the streets in and around the city center are small, winding and flanked by high, small houses from the 19th century and earlier. Some of these houses are now antique shops or sell vintage items. I spent ages windowshopping - until I saw the water of the marina.
As in many parts of my country, water is everywhere in Dordrecht. But whereas Amsterdam has its canals and Rotterdam has the river Maas dividing the city in two, Dordrecht's water isn't as omnipresent. It's been turned into a marina some time in the Middle Ages. The marina is relatively small, very cute and a perfect example of an old Dutch cityscape. Countless little boats and yachts bob up and down gently in the calm water. There is literally not much more to do than walk along the quays and look at all the sails, gear and old boats, but that's exactly what makes the place so charming. I could feel the stress leaving my body as I took pictures of the marina. I could have stayed there for hours, just looking at the water, oblivious even to the Pokémon Go players who had come to Dordrecht that day for a community event.


A million pictures of boats later, I decided it was time for lunch. My friend and I discussed our plans for the rest of the day over sandwiches: We'd do the street art route, look at the Church of Our Lady, go to the comic book store I vaguely remembered from a visit almost two decades ago, then catch the boat back home. I have to admit I did a terrible job preparing this short day trip. I couldn't find the street art route online anymore, and when I did find it, I noticed that my reading comprehension skills were not strong enough to understand the description. There was no map available, but since we had access to Google Maps, we figured we'd be fine.

We were not fine. The challenge began as soon as we'd left the old city center behind us. We did find the starting point, directly next to the train station, but the next street in the description was nowhere to be found. A quick Google search showed us that we first needed to walk down another street, which wasn't mentioned in the description, to get to the street we needed to be on. This happened time and time again. You had to be a local to be able to follow this route. We fell into a time-consuming and frustrating pattern: Read the description, google the street, get directions to that street, read the description again, follow the description for a couple of dozens of meters, maybe find a mural, and repeat. We gave up after three murals and went to a Japanese store instead.


Although the sun was still shining when we left the store, I was getting cold. We headed back to the old city center and walked around for a bit in search of a small coffee shop. We came past a machine that was writing a Bible, the comic book store on Scheffersplein which was still there after all those years, the only mill left in the city of Dordrecht and the Church of Our Lady before my friend spotted a place called Francis Lunch & Baked Goods. We ordered some drinks and talked for a while. It had been a good day, but it was coming to an end. At 5 pm, exactly 6 hours after my arrival, I boarded the boat to go back home. As I sat down in my chair and looked out over the water, I felt an unexpected sense of relief. With Paris and Dordrecht under my belt, I only had ten more cities to go to complete the Twelve Cities Challenge. I already had my next destination in mind. Bring it on, I thought to myself as the boat left to bring me home.