Every trip seems to have an overriding theme, unfortunately, its starting to be quite apparent that this trip is going to revolve around transport, and perhaps the lack of it. First stop of the day was to Madrid’s train station to join the long queues to sort out our trains to Pamplona… but the return trains were all fully booked… so we reverted back to our trusty buses instead - better than a bridge collapse I suppose. Now with half the day already wasted, we could finally start our sightseeing… We spent a couple of hours in the ‘Museo del Prado’, the Prado Museum, which houses some great sculptures and paintings from the 12th to 19th Century by various artists including: Goya, Rembrandt, and Rubens etc. Next stop was the ‘Palacio Real’, the Royal Palace, and ... read more

Day 1 of our two week trip across Spain and Portugal… Leah and I set off from London to rendezvous with James in Barcelona, Spain. We’ve got a jammed packed itinerary, so hold on to your hats and enjoy the ride…. After major delays in Heathrow and in arrivals, Leah & I, and our bags were finally in Barcelona, and were surprised to see James still waiting to meet us at the airport ... some time after mid-night! Feeling a bit more refreshed, we started the following morning by going straight to the city centre, dropping James off at the pub to watch the rugby, and went sightseeing. We headed to Las Rambles, Barcelona’s main street which is pedestrianised right through the middle with large trees and stalls either side selling everything from flowers to live ... read more

Mix: one round of double Gloucester cheese one extremely steep hill, preferably muddy one group of kamikaze people Release round of cheese at top of hill, wait one metric second before adding kamikaze people, cheese should reach 70mph. And there you have a recipe for disaster.. I mean, what could possible go wrong?? Haha everything!! Which is really funny when you’re standing on the sideline! Also the number of ambulances at the bottom certainly proved his is not for the faint hearted! It was a ‘welcome to the UK Dean, people are crazy over here’ as well as a good excuse for Helen, Grant, Michelle and I to get out of London. We had enough trouble walking up Coopers Hill to watch from the sidelines - this hill is a lot steeper than it looks in ... read more

Zürich, our last stop for this trip, and probably just as well since Leah and I were starting to run out of zing. Our hostel was located in the middle of what seemed to be the main café and restaurant area, and more cobble-stoned streets which seem to make everything just that much more authentic. We climbed the mass of stairs up to our room, and both decided to have a rest for 15 minutes….an hour later we ventured outside to see the beautiful and vibrant Zürich. The River Limmat dominates the whole city, cutting the centre in two. It seems the most things worth seeing are located just on either side of the River. We walked over the Rathaus Brücke and wandered through narrow cobble-stoned streets with tall buildings each side until we reached the ... read more

Leah and I decided our itinerary across Switzerland wasn’t jam packed enough, so somehow found time to squeeze in some sightseeing of the Swiss Alps between Geneva and Bern. We started the day with a stunning train ride right along the north coast of Lake Geneva before heading into the mountains, then swapping trains to make our way up into the Alps to Zermatt. We had a small look around Zermatt before catching a smaller train to wind our way up to Gornergrat - 3100m above sea level - in the hope to get views back across to the Matterhorn. It was very cold up the top on the exposed mountain, a lot colder than we had prepared for considering we were basking in the heat of the French Rivera only a day or two before ... read more