Breakfast was at the hotel and wasn't half bad I must admit, with salmon, cheeses, spreads, bread and even bacon and eggs. As much as I would have enjoyed the traditional bacon and eggs, I really enjoyed the cheeses, meats and bread. I was acutely aware that we were not going to be in Europe for much longer and I was certainly going to miss good bread and cheese. We met the Herbys at the train station and plotted a course for Sachsenhausen, a museum that began life as a concentration camp located in Oranienburg, some 35 kilometres north of Berlin. We had to change trains at one point and we ended up being delayed as all trains ground to a halt while we were on the platform. Armed police swarmed the station and spoke to ... read more

We'd built the entire trip around out opening night tickets to Monty Python Live at the O2 Arena. To be a little more precise, we'd built the whole trip around tickets to the only night of Monty Python Live before additional dates were announced. Today was the day - we were off to the show. The day didn't begin at all well as the fire alarm in the Travelodge Crystal Palace at 0530. We wearily made our way down the fire escape from the seventh floor, arriving at ground level a minute before the fire brigade showed up. They cleared the building and confirmed that there was no fire. We had only just made it back to our room when the alarm went off again... and stayed on... until 0600 when we'd had enough. We figured ... read more

The alarm was most unpleasant and went off less than 2 1/2 hours after we went to sleep. I tried to get out of bed a few times but my head was lead. I'm not sure how I managed it in the end but it was clear that I was being punished for the big night out. Nik (legend that he is) was downstairs at 0500 as he had promised and looked marginally better than I felt... must have been the whiskey he poured into my glass I reckon. Checking in at Amsterdam was easy and two bacon and egg muffins improved my state slightly. As we had booked Easy Jet, there was no lounge for me to sleep in waiting for the flight and we spent 20 minutes standing in the queue to board. I ... read more

Our plan to get into Amsterdam early to avoid the queues at Anne Frank's house went half right... we got there before opening at around 0845. The queue was already a couple of hundred people long and light drizzle wasn't helping conditions at all. None of us boys had much interest in standing in a wet queue for what looked to be at least a few hours so we headed to a cafe and left the girls to it. By 0930 we got a text from the girls saying that they were still a hundred metres from the door so we walked around the now deserted streets of the tourist area and red light district before grabbing a beer at an Argentine restaurant not far from Central Station. It was well after 1100 when we received ... read more

We thought a 1000 leave-time would help us avoid traffic on the road out of Paris but were horribly wrong. We initially engaged the GPS on the VW to help us out but it immediately sent us 20 minutes around the circular road around the outskirts of Paris before suggesting we do a U-turn and head back to where we came from. Nik and I tried to figure it out but every time we came across a road we were meant to be on, it turned out to be a road going either over or under the road we wanted to be on and there were no on-ramps. It tool almost two hours to get out of the city and we were on the outside of it to begin with! I began to relax the moment ... read more