Literally minutes of research went into choosing accommodation for the Sziget festival last year, and so perhaps it was unsurprising that when I first arrived at Riverside I was distinctly underwhelmed. After an overnight train journey and a long sweaty walk from the station I had to breach several gates and wander around most of a dilapidated (but it must be said beautiful) townhouse before finally locating the narrow and unwelcoming reception - behind which were crammed a couple of ramshackle dorms. Hardly ideal. Once I'd got over the claustrophobia I managed to pin down the distracted staff who led me upstairs to some much nicer private rooms (sigh of relief), which had their own bathroom and spacious kitchen. Our room even had a balcony - we'd lucked out! Chosen solely for its proximity to the festival, Riverside proved a great choice in this respect as we just had to cross Margaret Bridge and we were one short train ride away from the action. Other than that the hostel was never going to win any prizes. One final thing that really f@cked me off, was that no matter how much I bugged the staff we could only get one set of keys to our room and the various security gates, meaning that whenever one of me or my mate either pulled (rarely) or got ill (frequently) we'd be stuffed as we had to return at the same time.

5 / 5

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