Shukram! Ahhh the glitz, glamour and sand that is Dubai! Well, is it all it's talked up to be? Is our ever-increasing fuel price actually creating anything spectacular over there or is it all going straight into the bank accounts of the needy multi-billionaire Sheikh's of Arabia? Do 50c cones actually cost 1c in the UAE? And if so, how long does it take for such ice cream to melt, run down your arm, all the way to your elbow, into your brand new 100% cotton shirt of which you walked for 2 hours in the boiling hot heat to buy [View Full Entry]

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Well I've finally found half an hour with nothing better to do, so here's the next instalment of the holiday that was. 24/5/08 - Amsterdam to London - End of the Tour :( After a HUGE night out in Amsterdam, It was nothing less than pure cruelty that on our last morning of the tour, we were to be up, ready and bags to coach by 7am. Another frantic morning of last minute jamming of the clothes into the bag, a 5 minute breakfast and a quick clean of the chops and we were ready to head back to the UK. [View Full Entry]

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Wow. It's only been 2 weeks since I was there, and I can remember it like yesterday. The hype, the glitz, the unknown that is the Amsterdam Experience. The whole group had been looking forward to the Netherlands, for many reasons, but it was unfortunately our last city of the tour. 22/5/08 - St Goar to Amsterdam First up was a 3 hour drive to services, and our first taste of traffic in Europe, which wasn't too bad for the second last day of the tour. For some reason we were delayed, about 10 over-heated cars were piled along the side [View Full Entry]

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Back on the party bus and we head north from Switzerland to the Wine Valley of St Goar in Germany. 21/5/08 - Lauterbrunnen to St Goar Today was a big day on the coach. I had a 6am wake up for my last morning of cookies/dishies, and it was an 8am departure from the picturesque Lauterbrunnen back into Deutschland. We had a 3hr drive to an Autogrill, back into Germany where the Burger King burgers are the size of an average football field. We hit the road for another 2 hours and arrived at a pleasant little German town called Heidelberg. [View Full Entry]

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First and foremost, Switzerland is beautiful. If there is 1 country you ever visit, make it Switzerland. Don't go without a camera and don't leave without visiting a chocolate shop - they are everywhere and they are to die for. 19/5/08 - Munich to Lauterbrunnen, via Liechtenstein. Stumbling out of bed feeling bloody fantastic at 7am and quickly packing the bags, we made it just in time for our 7:30 departure to Liechtenstein. It was a 3hr drive from Munich to the border checks of Switzerland, just outside of Vaduz, capital of Liechtenstein. Unfortunately for us, it was a little overcast [View Full Entry]

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Hallo for the next little story about Germany. We visited Germany 2 times on the trip, Munich was the first stop and we returned to the Northern Wine Valley called St Goar a few days later. 18/5/08 - Hopfgarten to Munich (München) After our much needed early night in Hopfgarten, we awoke to a slightly rainy day for our departure to Munich. Our first stop was back in towards Innsbruck where we visited the Swarovski Crystalland museum and the amazing showroom that followed. This was probably one of the most weirdest exhibitions I've ever seen, full of surreal artwork that had [View Full Entry]

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Seavas! This time we look at Austria. After leaving the tropical sea-levels of northern Italy, it was nice to have a change of scenery as we moved forwards towards the Germanic regions of central Europe. Possibly the most scenic of the countries we visited, Austria is 60% mountains, so we were bound to get some decent photos and sights. 16/5/08 - Venice to Austrian Tyrol We left early (again) from Venice, and headed 3hrs up the road to services for lunch and white-water rafting shortly after that. Rafting was just outside of Innsbruck on a river that was the fastest-flowing river [View Full Entry]

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Bonjourno from Thornlands. But, this one is all about Italy. You thought France was big. First of all, Italy was probably my least favorite countries of the trip. Second of all, I loved the buildings, ruins, food, people and history. If it wasn't for the smell, the dirtiness and the craziness, it would have been great. That said, I still had a great time there, Italy was amazing, but don't think I'm in any rush to return. 10/5/08 Antebes to Florence (Firenze) On our way to Florence, we stopped back in Monaco to visit a French perfumery, which was really interesting [View Full Entry]

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Bonjour! Well here we go again, a few more photos and stories from the first few days of Contiki. Grab a coffee and a bikki - this one's huge. I don't think I mentioned that on our last day of London, we went to the British Museum, where we saw the Rosetta Stone - the actual one. It was amazing to see it in person - the rosetta stone was a block of stone archaeologists used to figure out heiroglyphics - the ancient egyptian writing. Fascinating piece of history indeed. Anyway, we met up that night 4/5/08 in London for a [View Full Entry]

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Well finally back home and as promised, some pics. Had an unbelievable time on the trip - will write about the pics individually due to being awake for 36 hours straight. According to my trusty travel diary, which I'm glad I took due to so much happening in the last month, and quite possibly a few million braincells killed along the way, we arrived in London at 12pm on 2/5/08. I'm led to believe we got straight on the tube (awesome transport system I might add) and legged it pommy-prat style to Russell Square to the Royal National accommodation. We walked [View Full Entry]

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