We arrived at our accommodation and we were surprised that it was actually a fully furnished studio apartment complete with full kitchen facilities. We loved the place although it was slightly far from the main tourist attractions. Amsterdam is an interesting city with its canals, nice architecture and liberal sex shops and red light district. Another good city to cycle which makes me wonder why my own country can’t make cycling on the roads safer and more pleasant. Everywhere, you will see people cycling and it is a joy to watch them whiz around town effortlessly. The morning markets are interesting to find a good bargain and the cafe culture is popular around here. Once again, we stopped for hot cappuccino at one of the cafes. Not to be confused with the famous “coffee shops” which ... read more

Bern turned out to be Jace’s least favourite town of the trip due to the lack of “breathtaking sights” which we would encounter a quite a number of times on this trip. I guess fountains and clocks didn’t really interest her much. But, I actually liked the cobber-stone streets and the numerous flags hanging out on one of their well known streets. Furthermore, I liked the feel of riding our bicycles in the cool weather to explore the town. Lock it up, explore the streets and cycle on. So, while there were not many sights, I liked it. The roads are bicycle friendly and traffic is light. Did I also mention that our hostel provided free bicycles? We liked out accommodation in Bern. It was cozy, it had a nice common kitchen and it provided free ... read more

We arrived in Rome early in the morning and considered going to Naples for Pompeii but decided we could spend less time traveling and more time exploring Rome. Naples will have to be on another trip. Our lodging in Rome was a modern chic apartment room which we liked very much. After settling down, we went straight to the legendary Colosseum! The stadium appeared out of place in modern Rome with traffic and the Metro station just across the street. We tried to imagine how it was like thousands of years ago where the Roman Empire was in its heyday. It reminds me of Russsell Crowe and the movie Gladiator. Next stop was the Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill carrying more ancient ruins of pillars, temples, market places and gathering places. I like Rome for ... read more

We decided it was time to travel Europe so we booked our tickets earlier in the year, read up, planned our rough itinerary, booked accommodations and got all excited as the date to depart drew nearer. Our route eventual route looked something like this (Italy) Milan Venice Florence, SiennaRomePisa Cinque Terre (Switzerland) Bern Bernese Oberland Swiss Alps  Luzern (Germany)Rhine Valley (Netherlands)Amsterdam , Haarlem, Kinderdijk (Belgium) Brussels (France) Paris The key idea was to have some flexibility to tweak our itinerary to suit our pace as we went along. We got ourselves a Eurail 7 day flexi pass for rail travel between cities which we found convenient as the trains pulled into stations which were often in the heart of the city and near our accommodations. Milan. Sophisticated, stylish and expensive food. A huge cathedral (Duomo) ... read more

We were still deciding if we could squeeze Sapa into our 6D5N itinerary for what was originaly planned for just Hanoi City and Halong Bay. In the end, I am glad we made the right decision in what differentiated a good trip from an average one. So thank you Melvin, for your kind recommendation! It also meant we had to reduce sightseeing in Hanoi to just 1 day and had no change for major screw ups. Thanks to the our hotel Manager at Atlantic Hotel, Mr Tamzay and his staff who babysited us from the very first day. The accomodation was nothing fancy but comfortable for a very brief 1 night stay in Hanoi. But I felt the service was great. Recommend it especially if you are on a tight schedule. It rained all day ... read more