Christmas Day. Was a touch miserable for the day, after having stayed up so late the previous night, but not able to speak to my four children left at home :( I was told by some of the people on our tour, not to worry about it, as the kids were probably having fun anyway ... gee that makes me feel better - NOT! Anyway an early day. We slept in unfortunately so breakfast was kind of skipped. I raced in and grabbed a couple of eat on the way foods to try and tide me over. We drive all over the place just looking at buildings and things. I'm not sure I would be able to remember going past half of the things we saw. It was just going to be one of those days. ... read more

I never knew Venice flooded! I mean its kind of obvious now thinking about it, but I really never expected it to be flooded when we went there! We were blessed enough to enter Venice the morning of its highest tide of 1.4m! Luckily high tide was at 4am, so by 9am, it wasn't so bad! That being said, I was totally freaked out! I mean, hearing about all these tides, we had to walk across this fairly low jetty to get to our boat in the first place, and we had been told the next high tide would be at 4pm. Um .... does that mean this jetty will be under???? I dont think our tour guide knew what I was talking about. Arriving in Venice, the first thing I noticed was the water level ... read more

Our first two night stop! Was definitely enjoyed. The first optional tour of the day was a boat ride on the lake. We chose not to do this, and we are again glad we didn't go. For 22 euro each person, it was so much nicer spending the time walking around the town. As it was, this was really our only chance to have done it, and I wish I had of achieved some shopping in this time as well! After the boat cruise, everyone had to meet at the hotel to jump on the bus. We were taken to the Lion monument, which if you had time you could have easily walked to anyway from the hotel. However they get you going on this, so that once again they can take you to a shop ... read more

One thing, if you are going to be travelling on these bus tours, dont expect to sleep in! That just never happens. A wake up call at 8am is an amazing sleep in. Dont expect to get many of these! For our morning in Amsterdam, we had to be on the bus for 8:30am. That means breakfast was at 7:45am and wake up call 7am. (I did write a whole pile of these minor notes in my cosmos book, however that was lost the last day - very frustrating, especially for all the details on internet costs etc for you). Breakfast was lovely. Alot of choices and options. Once again, when we went outside there was snow everywhere! First thing we headed out to a boat cruise around the canals. Now unfortunately my son was the ... read more

Being Jet lagged, waking early wasn't going to be an issue, I was still in the habit of waking around 4-5am and would play around on the laptop uploading the gazillion photos I had taken on the trip so far and also responding to the messages I had been getting on the photos already up. So when the room service knocked on the door around 7am I was already awake but there was no way I was going to open the door while they were there! I was petrified still on the whole tipping thing, so was grateful I was being taken on a personal tour through the day and could hopefully be explained and made less terrified of workers in regards to tipping. Seriously I think people that were born into tipping societies dont understand ... read more