Today is the first day of my coach tour :). From now on this blog may seem a little disjointed as I will type in small bits throughout the day from the bus and then upload (hopefully) each night when I have wifi at hotels

As mentioned already it was an early start. Breakfast was in the hotel at 4:30 and we boarded the coach at 5:00. There are just 26 of us so far with another 6 to collect in Amsterdam. So a nice small group of 32.

Our tour guide is Bernadette (Bern) and our driver is Mario. Bern has asked us if we all have our passports with us and not in our suitcases , as we have to pass through French Customs on English soil in Dover before boarding the ferry.

The trip from London to Dover is approx. 1.5 hours, it is a shame it is a wet drizzly day 🙁 but not too cold. Bern explained a bit about the trip and we just settled on for the drive. I did notice a service station on the highway with fuel prices of £1.26 so I guess we can’t complain to much about our fuel prices

We drove onto the ferry and could then get off the coach and have a look around the ferry. There were restaurants, coffee shops, bars and duty free shops on board. I bought a cup of tea and got chatting to an Aussie couple from Melbourne. The cruise was very smooth and an announcement soon came to return to vehicles.

Off the ferry , we travelled through the French countryside and on to Belgium. We were on a 100kph hwy that went through lush green country and quite a number of wind turbines.

Leaving Belgium, we crossed into The Netherlands. A short lunch stop at a highway service centre and we were on our way to Amsterdam.

The porters delivered our bags to our rooms and we had around 45mins to refresh before we were taken into the city to look around.

We were taken on a nice canal cruise and Roland our Cruise guide pointed out may sights of the city and told us a lot of history. We then went or a walk through the”Red light District” the girls rent windows and “advertise” their “goods” (Hey I am trying to be delicate.. my Mother is reading this !!! hahaha)

Roland explained that, literally this is where we get the term “Window Shopping” from.

We got back to the coach and were returned to the hotel at around 10:00pm. It was a long day, so I was very grateful that I had a quiet day the day before. We are up at 7:00 tomorrow and on to Germany.

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