Raindrops keep falling on my head

A friend suggested to me the other day that people following my travel blogs may think i'm still in Italy seeing as I haven't posted an updated blog in over 3.5 months. Belated apologies for this but to fill you in on my long absence from my blog, since my return my days have consisted of; work, sleep, seeing friends and family and more work. My life can be described as back to the boring mundane pre travelling era. To be honest, this travelling malarkey feels like a whole distant dream that I once lived. But for those still interested here are the much anticipated (don't kid yourself Ames) Italian blog posts, there will be 4 in total :)

Leaving Salzburg drew to an end stage one of mine and Jens European adventure, while at the same time starting leg 2; Italy. Somewhere we had both wanted to visit for a long time, somewhere we had penciled in 2 weeks of our travels for to explore this country. On our train journey somewhere between Salzburg and Padova, we traveled through a snow storm! Snapping away with my camera, trying out different settings to try and capture some of the nicest snow covered scenery I have witnessed kept me entertained. When our train became stationary at a random station I was itching to get out and play in it! We opted not too because well knowing our luck the train would have left without us. In hindsight we wish we did as we were stationed at this station for a good 30-40 minutes.

Snow pretty

Upon arrival into Padova, our base for the next 5 nights, we found our b&b. Welcomed by the host, shown our room and given a detailed history of the area, we were tired but excited. By now we were hungry so ventured out for pizza then called it a night. The following day still lethargic from the long day of travel the day previous we decided to take it easy. This meant a day exploring the city of Padova. Map in hand we just set out in search of all the places of interest that our host had circled for us. Well that was until I lost our map, meaning we were wandering around without a clue where we actually were haha. Heavy rain and sore blisters made this adventure all the more interesting. We made it back safely to our b&b though so alls good :)

Day 28 of our travels took us to Venice, a half hour train ride from Padova. Despite constant rain all day I really enjoyed Venice. For once I enjoyed being lost, not knowing which street or canal we were following. We walked our way through this maze city for hours, still happy despite raining. We found a lovely little restaurant called Ginos to eat in. A menu stating which dishes were vegetarian pleased Jen while free wifi pleased me. Infact we ate here for both dinner and lunch :) No gondulas were experienced by us due to the expense; however with the downpour of rain we wouldn't have enjoyed it anyways. Instead we enjoyed wandering inside souvenir shops, found some gifts for friends and just enjoyed the vibe of this unique city. Jen was also on a mission to find some new shoes seeing as hers had fallen apart. This was a success and the new pair lasted the whole remainder of the trip :)

Venice was lovely even in the rain

Still raining, we were still determined to explore. Day 29 saw us board another train, this time to Verona. Verona was also a very nice day trip. lots to experience including a lovely waterfall situated next to a small amphitheatre; marble covered streets which although looked impressive, weren't practical in the rain causing slipping; Castelvecchio Castle and its bridge over the river and Julietts balcony to name a few.

Verona

Finally on our fourth day in Italy the sun decided to make an appearance :) Italy was where I planned on topping my tan up so out came the shorts :) We spent much of the day sunbathing in Italy's largest square Prato delle Valle. This area was buzzing with different sports; tennis for the youngsters, zumba, an organised pink run (presumably like our race for life); music, dogs, couples, street sellers, etc. The vibe was just lovely :) We also ate at a restaurant where the served food was most likely an expensive microwave meal on our behalf. Before leaving we decided it would be a good idea to use their free loo. Jen went first and on her return informed me it was literally a hole in the ground. I decided to pass on experiencing this and waited until return to the b&b haha.

The tractor reminded of me home!

The first stage of my trip to Italy was wet (stupid rain), busy but enjoyable and from what I have seen of Italy soo far, I like it :)

Amester x

These are a few of my favourite things

After Prague it was time to head for Salzburg, this required two different trains and with it you get two different stories - aren't you spoilt!

During our travels me and Jen have made no attempt to socialise with outsiders and have been content with each other for company. We enjoy our own space so it suits us fine not really socialising! Sometimes we can't even be bothered to socialise with each other hahaa

Train one from Prague to Linz, Austria. Here we found our seats for the journey in a little cabin (like on the Hogwarts train). Eventually we were joined by an American guy who plucked up the courage to try and engage us in conversation. Having not socialised with outsiders for around 3 weeks this was scary! Anyhow we found out he was living in Linz working as an English teaching assistant, had only seen Heathrow in England and enjoyed a cheep kebab in Prague. He also told us about getting a 'Salzburg card' to get discounts into different museums which was nice to know even if we didn't follow his advice because we weren't interested in visiting the museums. Still was nice to talk to someone other than my sister for 5 minutes.

Now onto story 2 which is more interesting - again sat in our seats we were joined by a group of 2 elderly couples. Old people talk to everyone so we were forced into conversation again - by now my social threshold was being stretched :p Anyway the typical icebreaker question of 'where do you come from?' was voiced. They were obviously English as they were talking about ordering a cuppa within seconds of sitting down so I said Gloucester. Laughs erupted. Turns out one of the ladies lives in Gloucester also - 926 miles (thanks google) from home suddenly made the world feel a whole lot smaller!

A long way from home

Other than traveling the most productive thing we did on that day was wash our clothes in the sink. Something before these travels I probably had never done seeing as home has a washing machine.

Believe it or not the actual process of travelling from A to B is actually quite tiring and not as much as a rest like we'd hoped would be the case. As a result we decided to make our first full day in Salzburg a rest day. By rest day I mean a lazy morning followed by a McDonald's followed by a trek up a big steep mountain! I soo wanted to give in half way up but decided I may as well plod on. The views at the top were fantastic so it made the walk worth while :) the plan for the evening was to try and watch the sound of music on my tablet but the internet was too slow so we settled on doing some of our travel journals. Oh yea my trousers also ripped today - wouldn't have been an issue but they were the only pair I had on me during my travels -_-

Salzburg through the trees

The following day I was on a mission to find some new trousers. I eventually found some within my price range in good old h&m, happy days :) we headed into the city for a walk around but didn't come across anything interesting so we settled for sitting along the river enjoying the hot weather.

Percy enjoyed catching the sun along the riverside

The next day we had booked to go on a sound of music tour! It was really fun seeing all the filming location and inside knowledge about how the film was constructed. During the trip we stopped for an hour in the town of Mondsee, home to the church used during the wedding scene in the sound of music. It was a cute little town and did very nice cake! During the coach trip the sound of music soundtrack was played which was enjoyable.

Sound of music locations

I did enjoy my time in Salzburg but it has been my least favourite place so far. I think this is mainly due to the area not having an awful lot to do.

Amester x

Czeched into Prague

Being the 'comedian' I am, first thing I did on arrival into Prague was to 'czech-in' to Prague on Facebook!

We hopped off the train in Prague and headed for the hotel. It was only a short walk but mainly up hill and we were carrying our bags with the sun shining down on us, so it turned into a hot sweaty out of breath walk - lush! We czeched into the hotel, czeched out our room then headed out. For 'market research' purposes we czeched out the price and taste of an ice cream sundae! After a little stroll we found a place called 'pizza colleseum' to eat at. I had a very yummy risotto :) We then decided to Czech out the cocktails on offer in Prague. We found a nice little bar where they were showing ice hockey on the TV which i watched while enjoying cocktails. My cocktail cost the equivalent of £2.70 - happy days!! :)

The next day we decided to stroll around the city, czeching out the sights! In Wenceslas Square there were boards with the squares history on which i enjoyed reading. On one of the bridges across the river we came across a band playing music from films and the charts. They were really good and you could tell they were really passionate and enjoying every minute :) When on our strolls we were minding our own business when out the corner of our eye we saw many painted bricks. This captured our attention and on further inspection we realised it was for a Czech charity that helps to give those with a mental handicap get into employment and live a fulfilling life. Mental illness is something close to our hearts so we decided to contribute. We paid a small donation and in return we got to paint our own brick. Me and Jen decided to paint ours with the Czech flag, the English flag and our names. We enjoyed doing this and I felt proud that my small donation will help a worthy cause.

Our finished brick and posing with our brick on the wall

We decided that due to the cheapness of Prague we were going to take advantage to eat well during our time here. So far we've had many meals of croissants and brioches and to be honest we are bored of that! So 2 meals a day it was!! I definitely put a few pounds on during my Prague stay.

Our second full day in Prague we went in search of Prague castle. It was at the top of a steep hill where we had to climb 200+ (yes I counted) steps! At least the view from the top was impressive. By now it was lunch time so we found a Czech pub. I ordered sausage and chips - one of my favourite meals. Turns out the sausage was rank, so I left it thinking nothing of it. There I was in my own little world waiting for Jen to finish when a voice goes 'what do you not like about the sausage?', taken by surprise I stated that it was the marinade, however she claimed there was no marinade despite there obviously being a red marinate on it as my plate turned red from it. She insisted on getting me another sausage to try but I said not to worry. Once Jen was done eating I asked for the bill, however I was told to wait as they were cooking me some more sausages. Sausages arrived in front of me, they were the standard hotdog sausages which unconveniently I don't like! I forced myself to try a mouthful which made me heave before awkwardly notifying the staff I didn't like this option neither. The waiters reply was 'reallllyyyy', yes really!, I couldn't pay and escape quick enough! I was then in a bit of a weird mood for an hour or so as I didn't enjoy the confrontation and it took me a while to snap out of the mood. A walk through the castle grounds and gardens in the sun soon cheered me up though :)

Looking down onto Prague from the castle

In the evening we decided to act our age and hit the town - to a jazz club, where I think I may have been the youngest in the building. I bought a baileys and sat happily listening to a piano, drum and cello produce some lovely jazz music. I found it very relaxing and it was a good evening :)
The following day it was time to book a flight home for at the end of this European adventure. Up until this point we didn't know when we would return (we knew what week but not what date). We also didn't have a definitive end point. In the end we decided to book a flight home from Catania in Sicily. It was weird to think we suddely had an end - everything on this trip up to this point was last minute and spontaneous only booking up our next port of call a day or 2 before arrival. It was sad to think we suddenly had an end to count down to. We also went souvenir shopping then found some music in a large square to listen to. There was also a really cute dog running around finding anyone willing to give it attention so I enjoyed watching that.

I enjoyed my time czeching out Prague! It was a very nice city to wander around.

Amester x

Being blonde in Berlin

I was sad to be leaving Interlaken as I think I fell in love with the place but with travelling the norm is to spend a short amount of time at a location and then move on again! Leaving Interlaken to travel onto Berlin in Germany, our 5th country! To get here required boarding a 9.5 hour train! Truth is a bag full of snacks, an iPod and a tablet makes time go fast :) although 10 minutes into this journey I ate a chocolate croissant, turns out it had nuts in - an antihistamine tablet sorted me out :)

Percy and a European bear

We found our hotel straight away this time - walk out the station exit, look right and it's staring you in the face! Our room was on the 7th floor and we used the stairs the whole time except for the 2 times we had our heavy bags and one time when my knee was hurting! That was my daily exercise, walking them stairs up to 8 times a day! On top of the daily miles of walking!

Nice sunset from hotel room

By now we were craving hot food seeing as we hadn't had any for a few days, so yes, you guessed it - we headed to McDonald's, where we had our compulsory 'ice cream sundae', which we now have decided is for market research purposes to see how price and taste differ in each place :p

Our first full day in Berlin was just one of them days where nothing seemed to go right! I turned over in my sleep, wacked my elbow on the spiky wall which grated some of my skin off! Once awake we headed out into Berlin for the day. Everywhere was surrounded by hundreds of police! We assumed something was going on but we weren't sure what. Around 3pm we headed back towards the hotel, stopping at some shops to grab some lunch to cook for ourselves in the guest hotel kitchen. By now we were starving and I think it showed as both me and jen tried to go up a 'down' escalator. My brain didnt even registar what was happening straight away. We bought pasta and vegetables to cook and were really looking forward to it! Leaving the shop we tried to get to the hotel, the whole surrounding area was cornered off with police tape due to a protest. Eventually a policeman understood we was trying to get to our hotel and gave us a police escort walk back to our hotel. Still starving, we headed straight for the kitchen - it was closed :@ hotel reception told us it was being used as a second storage room so we couldn't use it till later that evening. This angered us as we paid over double our budget to stay here and still couldn't use all paid for services! We needed cheering up so we braved the police cordens again and had another ice cream sundae (for market research purposes obviously) then bought a baguette each because we were starving! We then dissapeared to our room to sulk, before eventually managing to cook our much looked forward to pasta and veg about half 8 in the evening :) what a flop of a day!

Percy made friends with lots of green crossing men!

We woke up the next day optimistic that it would be more successful than the day previous. We grabbed some breakfast - fresh orange juice and a chocolate muffin :) Time to explore Berlin - the Berlin wall memorial was interesting, trying to visualise that a line which can now be crossed without a second thought was once covered by a wall that divided the 2 sides, with lives lost trying to escape each side! The realisation that this happened not to long ago in history was thought provoking. The information on display at 'checkpoint Charlie' was interesting to read. We walked through the hollocaust memorial then ended up having A nice sit in Tiergarten :)

Hollocaust memorial

We decided to catch a train to Potsdam on the Monday :) it was lovely here! We spend several hours wandering through Sanssourci Park which houses several palaces and other buildings along with water fountains and lots of trees. We found some yummy pizza in Potsdam too :) I really enjoyed this day trip and the hot weather was an added bonus :)

Me in Sanssouci Park

I made a crquacking friend

So although my Berlin experience started of wobbly, it ended on a positive :)

Amester x

Jen, there's a bear!!

You know them unplanned, unthought about moments which turn out to be the best, unplanned spontaneous pranks also are the best :) I was just casually looking out of our bedroom window in Switzerland to the Alps and forest when I spontaneously told Jen there was a bear outside. Well obviously there wasn't but I must've said it pretty convincingly because Jen instantly jumped up excitidly to come have a look. I wish I didn't laugh and played along for longer!

Anyway Switzerland is one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited! The train journey in was incredible; snowy Alps one side of the train, pure blue lakes the other side! Interlaken was where we were heading. A cute little town surrounded by the Alps and massive lakes! 360° scenic views :)

On arrival we were booked to stay 2 nights. Well that 2 nights quickly turned into 4! Our hotel was very quiet and we had the whole floor to ourselves for 3 nights. After the hussle and bussle of the big city's we had visited previous, a quiet relaxation in Interlaken was perfect. We caught up on sleep, let my knees recover, went on little walks and sat along the river for hours taking in the beautiful scenery and watching the paragliders fly over the mountains. This is something me and Jen decided we would like to do, we then realised our travel insurance didn't cover us, so that's still unticked on my bucket list :(

Switzerland's McDonald's is also very expensive and tastes not very nice :(

Anyways enough talking, my time in Switzerland can only be appreciated by some of my photography, although it can't truly be appreciated unless you visit in person :)

Views from the train

We also went on a day trip to Thun castle.

I think I spent these entire 4 days in awe! It felt so surreal :)

Amester x

Parisian views and food

Ok grab a coffee or a glass of something stronger to enjoy while reading this, its turned into a long one!

Upon arriving at Paris the instructions to our hostel were simple; '3 minutes in a straight line from the train station to the hostel' - yea that's if you take the correct way on exit from the station. 30 minutes later and soaked from the rain we found it!! (We've got lost so much on this travels, my geography instinct should've packed a compass, life would be so much more easy!).

Hostel room was nice, we even had 2 pillows each so we were happy about this seeing as we've had to cope with one each in all our other accommodation resulting in stiff necks! Only issue was our curtains had a couple inches gap. We solved this by tying them together around the window handle with one of my hairbands!

After a good night sleep we headed down for our continental breakfast then went out sightseeing. Trying to save money where we can we aim to walk as much as possible. We headed for the Eiffel tower but found ourselves in the queue for Notre Dame Cathedral! I was very impressed we didn't have to pay an entrance fee :) If I'm honest I was expecting this cathedral to be more impressive and big. The size reminded me of the size of Gloucester Cathedral. Wikipedia clarified this for me - they have very similar dimensions. I'm not religious, so cathedral visits arent normally on my to-do list, however i did enjoy the architecture and stain glass windows. I also enjoyed sitting inside the cathedral listening to the organ music while people watching :) Afterwards lunch was needed so we settled for traditional French food of McDonald's (shock horror).

Percy enjoyed Notre Dame Cathrdral

We then continued the long walk towards the iconic Eiffel tower. The closer we were getting the more excited I was getting, singing made up stupid song lyrics like 'I'm soo excited, we're going up the Eiffel tower, it is chucking it down, we might not even see anything' (definitely a number one song coming along there). We decided that we would walk up to level 2 of the Eiffel tower, then get the lift up to the top. Well after about 2 minutes I was regretting not getting the lift the whole way! Needless to say the views were incredible even in the horrible cold, rain, fog and wind. We spent a good two hours admiring Paris from above! On the descent we decided to warm ourselves up with hot chocolate on the second floor. By now it was getting dark. My friend Christie gave me the heads-up about the Eiffel tower sparkling on the hour for 5 minutes once dark. At half 8pm we made the final descent down the Eiffel tower to get a good view on the ground for the 9pm light-up. Well annoyingly the stairs were closed so we had to queue for the lifts. We jumped off the lift literally as time struck 9pm and the lights started glittering. We ran backwards away from the Eiffel tower to a better spot for some obligortory selfies! I loved this, the Eiffel tower lit up is beautiful!! The Eiffel tower is a must for anyone visiting Paris, it doesn't even cost a great deal!

Looking down onto Paris

View from top of the Eiffel tower

Eiffel tower at night from below

Then was the realisation that our hostel was located on the other side of Paris, a good hour+ walk away, it was pouring with rain, dark and both our phones were about to die. This meant we opted to catch the metro back. 10pm gone, with wet clothes and very tight legs (walked miles/hours), we got back to our hostel where I collapsed into bed. I was then awoken at 5am by horrendously loud cheering/shouting/screaming from the sports bar downstairs. Apparently there was some important boxing match on. This experience reminded me of living in uni halls with being awoke by drunks and other loud noises. Ironicly this hostel was called 'St Christophers Inn' and the halls i lived in during my second year of uni was called 'St Christophers court'.

Paris day 2, we washed our clothes while eating breakfast while deciding who we were going to vote for in the UK election. With rain still pouring we headed off on our walk to Sacre Coeur. The views here were just as impressive as those I witnessed on the Eiffel tower, however here it was just a smaller viewing radius and from less high up. We wandered around the back streets into souvenir shops looking for our Paris shot glass memento (we collect shot glasses from our travels, we have for many years). We also stumbled across a cute little quaint French patisserie. I had a pain au chocolat, chocolate cake and hot chocolate while sitting in the seating areas watching little birds fly above our heads. Very friendly they were with one even getting close enough to knick some of my left over crumbs - cheeky thing! We then went on another very long stroll to the arc de triomphe. I loved the architecture engraved on the arcs stone.

Sacre Coeur

Arc de triomphe

By now it was late afternoon/early evening on a Sunday. We planned to walk back to our hostel along the river but half way back our bladder's had other ideas. With it being Sunday everything was shut so the metro came calling again to get us home quicker.

We spent the evening having dinner in the sports bar, writing out 22 postcards and then went back to the sports bar where I had my first alcoholic beverage of the trip :)

Monday morning I packed my bag up yet again and caught a couple of trains to my next destination...

On a side note, annoyingly I bought a pedometer for my travels to see how much i was walking but after it claimed I had only walked 3 miles for each of my first 3 days of my travels, which was blatantly inaccurate ive stopped using it. I'd love to know what I walked these last few days in Paris!

Amester x

Meet Percy

Everyone meet Percy. Percy is my mascot for my travels. He is a white tiger and very small. He's also cute and cuddly.

Hello, I'm Percy :)

This is Percys first travels but so far he is enjoying the experience. He thinks he is a model and keeps posing for pictures.

Train journeys are fun :)

I wonder if they do small clogs for my size feet

I love McDonalds!

Hiding from my owner is good fun :p

Bruges was beautiful

I'm a cool dude! Nearly as cool as my owner :)

The view from the top of the Eiffel tower was incredible but it was quite scary up here

Switzerland is stunning!!

Percy also has a brother aptly named 'Tiger'. His adventures can be viewed over on Jens blog.

Its fun chilling with Tiger :)

I love my family :)

Amester x

A brussel sprout in Brussels

'A brussel sprout in Brussels', whats that all about I hear you shout?! Let me explain...At work I wear green & yellow, so we call ourselves brussel sprouts hahaa, and I'm currently in Brussels - so there you go :) I haven't actually seen any proper brussel sprouts here though!

The city of Brussels, the place that I went to with uni in my final year, the place that opened my eyes to the want to travel! Since then I've wanted to return, so I'm glad it became a part of my European travels 2015 :)

After a pancake breakfast in Amsterdam we boarded a 3 hour train to Brussels on Wednesday. We then found our hotel to dump our bags then went in search of food. We found a quaint little Italian restaurant with a good variety of vegetation food (Jens vegetarian) and meat dishes. Filled up, we headed around the corner to Mannekin Pis. Aptly named its a famous statue about 24 inches tall, of a boy peeing. Its surprising how something so little can bring so much attention :p We then skyped our parents/dog, then I skyped by best friend (Abbie this is the shout out you asked for :p). I then slept.

Yummy Italian food

Mannekin PiS with clothes on for once

Thursday was the day to explore Brussels further. Alarms were set early but silly Jenny set it for the wrong day so no alarm happened meaning we overslept. Our hostel is called 'Sleep well youth hostel' - sleep well we did :) We rushed down for breakfast then caught the metro to 'little Europe' a miniature village of all things Europe. All the models are at a 1:25 ratio to its real life equivalent. I made a brief visit here on my last Brussels trip, but wanted to go again. I also knew jen would enjoy it. We saw all the famous European landmarks so now I guess we don't need to continue our European adventure :p the attention to detail here is incredible.

Little Europe model with atomium in background

In the afternoon we dodged the rain and tried to plan the next leg of our trip. Initially we planned to head from Paris to Tours in the Loire Valley and then south to Toulouse. However, on further thought we decided that Toulouse wasn't worth the long train journey and unfortunately Tours will have to bypassed as travel options out of here into our Switzerland leg of the journey is unrealistic for our timeframe :( Instead we eventually can up with a realistic plan of action - from Paris we will head to Interlaken in Switzerland. This new itinerary frees up 5 days including 2 travel days. 

Ultimately this means we can spend longer in either Germany, Austria or Czech Republic.

On the evening of Thursday we found chips and waffles for dinner while walking the city. We decided to head for a comic strip art wall; the walk turned out to last a lot longer than we anticipated, the areas we were walking though seemed to get dodgier, then darkness fell, so before we actually got to our destination we decided to turn back to our hostel. I still enjoyed the walk and we saw the untouristy backstreets of Brussels so that was good :)

Wafflesss!!!!

 Today I have visited the town of Bruges. Its such a beautiful place, made even better by the sun! A lovely long walk along the canal path lead to some windmills. We enjoyed a picnic on the canal bank also. The actual town has all cobbled streets with horse drawn carriage still very much a used transport option. Beautiful town houses and lovely squares with awesome architecture. I'm now writing this blog post on the train back to Brussels before getting another train tonight to Paris :)

Windmill

We have about 65 hours in Paris so where should we visit to utilise our limited amount of time? Also any suggestions on where to head in Germany? Please comment suggestions below, it would be appreciated :)

P.s. I'm struggling to put lots of pictures nicely within my blog posts from my tablet so make sure you click my Instagram link on the left side panel for more photos :)

Amester x

I am AMESTERdam

Goedenavond!!

I am Amester in Amsterdam

Country one of the trip draws to a close tomorrow so thought I should probably spend the evening updating my blog :) Soo where to start... I have a red face (my nose resembles Rudolph), thanks to the sun on Kings day! My shoulders hurt after about 4 hours of carrying my 8.5kg bag on the first day,and i'm fed up of having to pay to use a toilet!! But other than that I can't complain - free WiFi is super easy to get hold of over here :)

Accommodation's basic but nice - good old bunk beds! Well the top bunk doesn't actually have a side barrier and is rather narrow so my mattress is staying on the floor. It minimises the risk of accident prone Amy rolling over in her sleep and dropping a metre or two! Also for a couple of nights on a trott, drunks have mistaken our door for their's, thank god for locks I'm telling you! Its like being in student halls again in a way.

We visited the Anne Frank house museum on Sunday! We queued for two hours in cold wind but I'm glad we did. If i'm honest I couldn't really remember the story, all I could remember was the bookcase door. Nonetheless I found this experience interesting and definitely thought provoking.

Sunday evening and Monday 27th saw Kings night/day celebrations! Kings day is the kings birthday, with massive celebrations and people wearing orange!  I bought anm orange top andca funky headband to wear :) From what I could gather its a chance for a massive p@#s up and party! Obviously I had to join in so I had a hot chocolate and chips!! In the morning we visited vondekpark where the place was heaving with children selling; old toys, food, drink (non alcoholic), making pancakes, fresh orange juice, performing; circus skills, playing musical instruments, singing, etc. Its quite a sight to see! We listened to a live samba band then sat along the canal for hours watching the hundreds of boats go by blaring music from on board sound systems/DJs.

Big bike advertising the tour de France 201

Traditional Dutch windmill

Today we hopped on a train to the town of Utrecht. Utrecht is the starting point of the tour de France 2015. Here we walked along more canals and saw a tradiational Dutch windmill. The evening has been spent writing our travel journals and updating our blogs. Head over to Jens new blog post here.

Amsterdam's transport system is nuts!! To me it had no logic and its beyond me how I didn't see a crash. It was near impossible to differentiate between what was cycle lanes, pedestrian lanes, car lanes, bus lanes and tram lanes. It appears that trams and cars just fight for the same space.Bikes and motorbikes use the same lane at speed with neither vehicle willing to move out the way. Also I'm pretty sure most roads didn't have designated pedestrian walking areas. It seemed we just had to dodge the bikes and motorbikes. Also when crossing on a green man, it appears vehicles will still use the road regardless. So that's also risky! (This paragraph reminds me of my 3rd year transport assignment on the Brussels transport system, haa)

Enjoy reading!

Goede Nacht

Amester x