Woke up after a very restful sleep last night, which was nice. But, not feeling on top of the world, which was not nice. So todays entry may be a bit short/low effort. Don’t worry, no headache or sore throat or cough though!

After navigating the space age (ok, Japanese) shower controls it was time to find breakfast. We had a tour leaving from the station, and if Frankfurt is any indication, big stations have tons of food options.

That’s probably also true with Amsterdam, but only if you have a ticket. Everything, other than the ticket machine, is behind the ticket barriers.

We also learned that Amsterdam, like me, isn’t that much of a morning person. We headed out at around 7, and there was basically nothing open, not even the “all day breakfast” place. So, desperate times call for desperate measures – maccas was open so that was that.

Finding the meet up point for our tour – again, should be easy, but it’s on the opposite side of Amsterdam Centraal – and as far as our little tourist brains could comprehend, there’s no way through without a ticket.

We went around, down a road that I think was titled “no pedestrian access” and eventually found it. Woo!

We were herded into a group and into a bus, I mean, some people look down on “tourist things” but when it makes access to some where you want to go easy, sure, gimme a bus and the crowd and the person with the little flag on a stick!

First stop was Zaanse Schaan, land of windmills. And not just for show, a number of them are still fully functional. The one we visited as part of the tour was a peanut mill., built in 1679. You’d never guess, it mills peanuts! This was primarily for the oil – as the mill could also make linseed oil for paint, and other oils that i would have remembered if I had written it down at the time.

The process was really interesting. First the peanuts were crushed under massive 5 tonne stones from Belgium. The same stones have been in use since the 1870s but they’re about half their current size now as compared to then.

Then they opened up a hole in the mill base and the ground peanuts dropped into a hopper, after which they were shovelled in to a big kettle, which was auto-stirred thanks to the wonders of windmill power. After cooking at 60 degrees for a while (to loosen up the oil) the crushed peanuts were out into two bags. The two bags were laid out in some filters which kinda folded over them, then the whole shebang was out into a press, where (thanks again to windmill power) a 150kh hammer beats the shi, er, oil out of the cooked peanut powder, releases all the natural peanut oil goodness.

Is there more to this fascinating (opinions may vary lol) process? Of course there is!! The now-presssed peanut remnants are saved, to be used as quality cattle food during the winter. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle since the 1600s! (Mind you I guess everybody did it back then out of necessity, blah blah modern life is so wasteful, etc etc) 🙂

The windmills aren’t just for us tourists to gawp at, the oils are still sold to companies to be used, as a way to help support the whole Zaanse Schaans operation, which is pretty lovely.

The whole end to end peanut oil process using a windmill takes a while. Alas can’t remember how much exactly but I think they could produce a reasonable amount in a day. What I do remember, is that nowadays in a modern non-windmill facility, it’s all in about ten minutes.

So understandably the world moves on, but it’s an absolute delight knowing these working mills are still, well, working.

Once upon a time they made all the difference to the Netherlands’ position and in the world. Sawmill windmills reduced the average time it took to build a boat from 3 months to the 3 weeks, much for the benefit of the Dutch EasT India company who was able to rapidly expand their trading routes, and with it their reach and their power. And, sadly, their involvement in slave trading.

Here are some Zaanse Schaans pictures

On the way to our next destination we learnt a few more things. Perhaps unsurprisingly winds can be really strong in that area, so many houses have tall pyramid shaped roofs, the most efficient way to cope with the high winds.

Next stop was the very pretty seaside town of Volendam. By the way it was described to us it sounded a little like Vaucluse or Toorak. Everybody is very rich and neighbours spend much of their time trying to one-up each other.

We learnt a bit about how to make Gouda, and the different varieties available. (yes they’re allowed to call it Gouda even though it’s not made in Gouda). They try to release a new flavour every year, I tried a little bit of the ginger one which was nice.

There was time to kill in volendam, and I was super keen to just sit down and rest a bit, so we found a nice looking restaurant (like all of them) along the dock. I just had chips and mayonnaise, Perry has croquettes, so super Dutch all around! There was a group of what I imagine we’re old friends nearby, having a grand old time and laughing and carrying on, was lovely to hear all the happy Dutch voices even though I don’t know what they were saying. The coronation was on the restaurant’s telly, and despite not understanding them I am 99% sure they were taking the piss!

While waiting It was funny to hear Dutch directness with a tourist at the waffle shop.

“Oh no I didn’t want that”

“That’s what you said. It’s too late. I am already making it. You will pay for it”

And, she did!

After lunch we also learned about Stroopwaffles. They came to be in the 1800s as a way to make use of leftover scraps and crumbs by sweetening them with syrup. Volendam say their ones are better (I’m sure they’re not at all biased) because they use a bit of cinnamon in the syrup that goes in between the two layers.

Speaking of layers I always through my stroopwaffles we’re just two of them stacked with syrup in between. But if you’re doing it properly you cut your stroopwaffle in half, quite a feat as they’re only a few millimeters thin.

And yes we got to try some of the freshly made stroopwaffle produced during the demo. What a winner!

The tour soon moved on to the island (former island) of Marken, via a peaceful boat ride. Here, we were treated to a clog-making demonstration. I still fondly remember going to one of these school back in like 1982. Of course the process was the same, and fun to watch the clog take form as a big drill followed a template and carved where it needed to carve. Next minute, clog!

Back on the bus we go to conclude the tour back to Amsterdam, just in time for, yep, the next tour!

Keukenhoff is a beautiful tulip garden about 41km south west of Amsterdam. It’s only open for eight weeks a year, and this is one of those weeks, so we had to, right? Right.

On the bus, off we go, leaving Amsterdam’s ancient majesty behind for very modern infrastructure and beautifully kept expressways.

We had a few hours here, and it wasn’t long before I was feeling kinda worn out and all I was doing was slowing Perry right down, so I picked a bench and there I stayed, leaving him to see all the sights unencumbered and take lots of lovely photos. If he was waiting for me he probably wouldn’t have seen half of what he did, so, bit of a bummer but the right thing to do. The Kkeukenhoff is about 79 acres, and like a teenager in the early 2000s, I literally can’t even.

I’ll just take a brief moment of self-pity to say that all my still-not-shifted lockdown-weight and working from home nearly all the time, barely moving, was not conducive to a very sudden change in routine of doing 10000+ steps a day and being active for much of my waking hours. But that’s something I’ll have to endeavour to keep up when I’m back home.

The bench I’m on has lotsa pretty flowers nearby though 🙂 And, it would seem, plenty of people doing the exact same thing that I am.

A while later when Perry returned I got a nice cup of tea at a big cafe here – tea revives, right? It kinda did, and had a bit of a wander with Perry and we got some pics.

These are mostly Perry’s awesome work, unleash the floodgates of flower photos!!

I can’t help but think so many people were only there “for the ‘gram”, and, why not I guess. Seemingly endless seas of beautiful flowers, it was definitely a treat for the senses, enjoy it however you like.

A few hours after arriving the bus picked us up and whisked us back to Amsterdam.We just had a super simple dinner (chips again) at ‘Snack it!” next to the hotel. Time (already) to pack everything and get ready for the next exciting leg!

Also sorry I have a few more pictures but I can’t be bothered downloading them from my camera. They’ll come later.

Amsterdam is still lovely, I get the feeling it always will be.

Today’s mission:

• On May 5
• Wake at 4
• Catch 3 trains
• Across 2 countries
• With 1 goal
• And 0 idea how it’ll all pan out.

Let’s do it!

After waking up every hour during the night just make sure I hadn’t slept through my alarm, I got up at 4 after a less than great night of sleep. Still better than missing a train though!

We got ready and stumbled out of the hotel room, leaving our usual calling card.

We checked out, and shuffled across the road to Frankfurt am Main train station, grateful again that we picked a place so close to it.

Happily, the pretzel place we visited yesterday was already open, so I had a nice tomato and relish one and a small coffee, whilst being gently mocked by the storekeeper about my complete lack of German language skills 🙂

There wasn’t too long to wait before our “ICE” train arrived. Big and shiny, and with a red stripe which of course always makes things go faster.

I booked the tickets ages ago through the Deutsche Bahn website, and I want to give a big shout out to their phone app for making everything so easy. It stored the ticket, and all the helpful information about which platform, which car, and which seats we needed. It also gave the ability to “Komfort check-in”. This means when you find your seats and are all settled, you just hit the button in the app to say “yep I’m here”, and the conductor doesn’t need to stop by to check on your tickets. Too easy!

After a bit of a struggle to heft our heavy bags on to the overhead luggage storage (I kinda wondered if we’d make the whole thing come crashing down on our heads, but no), we sat in our comfy window seat with table, ready to go.

At exactly 5:40am, as scheduled, the journey began. Within a few minutes, we were whipping through the landscape at 270km/h which was pretty cool, and surprisingly quiet while we sat by, watch the sun rise over lovely bits of German landscape.

Just when you thought things couldn’t get better, a member of staff walked past asking if wanted coffee. Of course! Why doesn’t anyone ever do that when I’m getting a train from Newtown to Central?

The train stops for a minute or two at each station, but had a longer wait time at Köln (Cologne), one of the major stations. When the train started, it headed off in the opposite direction, ie going backwards instead of forwards. It’s ok, it didn’t head straight back to Frankfurt, but off in a different line on the way to Düsseldorf and Duisburg, but it seemed funny (to me) that a train would change direction half way through the trip. As a bonus, Köln station is kinda pretty.

It wasn’t long at all before it was time to manhandle the big suitcases from the rack above our heads for our first train change, in Duisburg. Thanks again to the Deutsche Bahn app for giving us a reminder that it was time to leave this train, and which platform we had to head to for our next train.

Now what can I tell you about Duisburg . Umm, it has a train station? That’s about the limit of my knowledge. But it’s nice enough, it has a shop with the pretzel machine, so it must be a good place. The only downside perhaps is that if you want to ‘spend a penny’, it’ll cost you 1 euro. But at least this money helps ensure the bathrooms are nice and clean.

We had a 40 minute wait here at Duisburg, watching all sorts of trains and all sorts of people come and go, mostly commuters heading to work by the look of it. So here are some boring station photos I took to help kill the time.

Our train arrived bang on time, and … then it just kinda sat there. And sat there. There was an announcement in German I didn’t understand but I figured it was “sorry we’ve been held up a bit”. We only have an 18 minute window at our next station for our next connecting train, so we were crossing our fingers

Ten minutes after our scheduled departure time we were in the move. Once again the Deutsche Bahn app came to the rescue, sending us a notification that we should only be 4 minutes late getting to our destination. Shortly afterwards, the train stopped again. There was another announcement so I got my translate app running, just in time for it to translate “thank you for your understanding”. Which was kinda ironic, seeing as how I didn’t.

This train moves (when it’s moving) at a more stately 80km/h or so, but it still quiet, comfortable, and we found a spot for the bags thank goodness. There’s a toilet on this train, it’s not working. A few people have walked up and found this out – it is pointed out by a very loud announcement “this lavatory is out of order!” which then results in a pretty awkward walk-of-shame back down the carriage for the passengers who needed to go.

The train had a few more rests in between stations, slowly making its way through construction work. However once it had passed that past, the driver was going hell-for-leather to make up lost time, getting us up to 160km/h in parts.

When it became apparent we had no chance of making our connection at Arnhem, once again it was the Deutsche Bahn app to the rescue, telling us what we already knew (you won’t make your connection), but helpfully, saying “click here to choose an alternative”. Seriously the customer service is just excellent, it’s like someone’s holding your hand the whole way to make sure you get to where you need to go. Awww.

We could tell we were getting close to crossing the border into the Netherlands, the land was already flat, flat, flat. The onboard announcements were being delivered in German and Dutch. Then, somewhere between Emmerich-Ellen and Zevenaar stations, we crossed the border with no fanfare and no fuss. Welcome to the Netherlands!

Once arriving at Arnhem Centraal I hit the “alternatives” button in the app and, no dramas, there’s a train to Amsterdam in 15 minutes. It looks the way this train works is everyone piles in, then moves from carriage to carriage looking for the best spot in the ten minutes before it takes off. There’s no luggage storage that we can see, so we hung around in the vestibule until Utrecht, where we were able to get a seat.

Ah, Amsterdam! It’s lovely to be back. There were things I remembered, the canals, the flowers, the bicycles (OMG the bicycles!) and of course within minutes of walking out of the station, there was the smell of weed.

The rain was in and off when we arrived, so we took a short walk and found somewhere for lunch. In keeping with our tradition of sticking to local cuisine (ha!) we had pizza and pasta. I was hungry so you only get an after photo this time. The restaurant had some funky decor going on though.

Watching the endless stream of people go by, it feels like every UK lad and ladette has decided to avoid the upcoming coronation celebrations by coming here instead. Packs of skinny lads, packs of fake tanned and big lipped ladies, I was almost looking to see if there was a Geordie Shore camera crew following them all for a new series.

We had a wander around , and grabbed a croquette from FEMO, the nifty ‘automat’ food shop. Pick a window, tap your card, get what’s inside. Simple! It was really busy inside so no photos this time.

We wandered the pretty streets through the light rain, past about 10 shops selling “space cakes” and ten shops selling these delicious looking overloaded waffles full of chocolate and other delicious things. There are a lot of shops dealing to the ‘marijuana tourist’ crowd it feels like – there are so many reasons to visit Amsterdam but alas this is the one that probably gets the most publicity.

Our room wasn’t ready when we arrived at the hotel so we wandered through more pretty streets and past more shops selling space cakes and the like , plus more packs of lads and ladettes. Man it is super busy – I remember last time we were here we were leaving on the first day of the ‘Sail’ festival and the streets were rammed with people. It felt a little bit like that today, but I guess Friday lunchtime it makes sense that there are hordes of tourists descending. Plus us two, compounding the problem by, I dunno, 0.0002% 🙂

After stopping for an iced coffee before my feet mutinied, we popped into a supermarket, and I’m taking to moment to call out these ridiculously cute, if kinda useless, itty bitty 150ml tins of Coke. Awww.

Upon our return to the hotel, the room was ready. I knew when I booked this place was known for being quirky and it doesn’t really disappoint, check out the odd little space we’re crammed into. It’s big enough, and has windows even though they’re way up in the ceiling. Thankfully there’s a remote-controlled blind for them. We hung around here for part of the afternoon, doing important things like writing up much of today’s blog and sorting out the photos. Now, I’m not saying the lift here is small, but, with our luggage we had to go up to our room one at a time! Not only that, it has no kind of internal door, so if you want to lose a finger you can reach out and touch the wall as it scrolls on by. Like I said, a little quirky.

We went out and looked at some of the shops, bought the tiniest of keepsakes coz that’s all the spare room there is in the luggage. There was also one thing in a shop I had to take a photo of just so I could caption is thusly for my own amusement:

Also I’m not sure if this actually sells suitcases, but I do appreciate TK Maxx’s sentiment.

Here are a few more sights to see from the afternoon’s wanderings.

After a bunch if “Where should we have dinner” wandering around, we ended up right on the main tourist drag, but my poor old body was saying let’s stop here. Wherever here is, here’s where we’re stopping. This time we did manage some Dutch food – bitterballen! Super tasty mini-croquettes, with mustard. Yum! After that – burger and pizza. The place didn’t really pass the vibe check, but the food was OK. ANd the price was kinda tourist-rip-off-y, but, hey, at least we’re fed :). There were these two blokes at the table next to us, from Ireland I think, and it felt to me like this was their first trip to Amsterdam… poor things were completely stoned off their chops, trying to work through a mixed grill while also solving all the problems of the universe. Hilarious.

After dinner we followed it up with a Razzle. A Razzle is I think what happens when you hire your marketing department on fiverr, late on a Friday afternoon. Rubbish name, but it was more a less what happens if you could order a McFlurry from Wish 🙂 I had the stroopwaffel version, and gotta say it was pretty darn good. Plenty of Razzle, maybe even a tiny about of Dazzle.

Because we are such voracious, high energy, unstoppable party animals, we went back to the hotel straight after. Perry’s already asleep, and I won’t be far behind as soon as I hit Publish on this blog.

Tomorrow should hopefully be a bit more interesting for you all than reading about us catching some trains. But we’ll all have to wait ‘til tomorrow to find out. See you then.

Today started after a really good sleep, I reckon I’m super lucky that I don’t seem to get hit much with jet lag.

We began by heading across the road to the train station, to double check where we need to catch tomorrow’s train from, but also to grab a bite to eat. Today we had the very traditional German breakfast of croissants and coffee 🙂 Good value at €4.50, from a bar inside the station. And despite being 8am, there were people enjoying beer and wine.

Good old Frankfurt am Main Hbf was bustling at this time of day – commuters, tourists, you name it, they were there. It was great to see the place so alive, and even greater to see the amazing variety of food outlets dotted across its numerous platforms, most with an eager queue of folks hoping to grab a snack and/or coffee before heading off to places new. And the station itself is so pretty!

We saw one stall with something that should be standard in every home, a pretzel machine. Ok, more of a pretzel toasting roller, but it resulted in the freshest pretzels, so we had to grab two. And oh man, fresh warm pretzel, you can’t beat it. One thing I’ve really noticed is so many places selling so many varieties of bread , there really is something for every (gluten tolerant) body, all looking super fresh and super delicious.

Then quickly back to the room to get organised before going out again. Well it would have been quick if the door actually opened. That’s one way to generate a nervous moment for any tourist. I guess like all good old buildings, this one’s having it’s own little bit of subsidence and whatnot, but once we were (ok, once Perry was) able to find the point where the door was sticking, we were able to open it before we ripped the handle right out of the door itself. The whole place did smell of fresh paint when we arrived, maybe some of it wasn’t 100% dry yet!

We figured out the transport ticket we probably should have bought yesterday as well. There’s a day ticket that lets you travel around Frankfurt by bus, tram, train, S-Bahn (regular train), U-Bahn (Underground) for as much of like for the day. Quite a sensible system once you figure that out, and very sensible to let someone get where they need to be by any means required, without charging them extra just because they may switch was tram to train. Are you listening, Sydney? Of course not. So anyway we hopped on a number 12 tram for our first destination, Kleinmarkthalle.

I’m sure you’ll be unsurprised as I am to know it means “Small Market Hall”. 🙂 It was reminiscent of the fresh food part of the Queen Vic markets in melbourne, a bit. But safe to say there was a lot more emphasis on meat, sausages, salamis, and every variation of the above. Was nice to have a quick wander through and of course grab a few photos.

On the way back we passed the best shop ever – “Australien Shop”. Sadly it was closed but the window display was a treat. Exotic things like a can of Solo, or a handy kit of Pavlova Magic and John West Passionfruit pulp. Enough to make a tourist homesick 🙂

Next up, we’d seen bits of the city by bus yesterday, so why not by boat today? The Main boat tour was on one of the many Main boats, I’m sure ours wan’t the main Main one though. (Main is more pronounced like ‘mine’ if that helps). We bought tickets for the first cruise of the day, 11:00, and then set off to kill some time while with a coffee while waiting for it to start. We went back to the touristy old-town, which is pretty but, at the time, kinda deserted. The nearest I can think of is Darling Harbour of old – mainly made for tourists, and the local know better and stay away. Unlike Darling Harbour though, even the cafe in the middle of tourist central didn’t charge like a wounded bull, which was a nice surprise. The coffee was, well, coffee. Maybe a 5 on the famous iScott Coffee Scale.

OK. Cruise time. We were sitting on the boat a little while before the tour started, and here’s something about Frankfurt, at least near the old town, you’ll never be stuck wondering what the time is. Every hour it’s like the churches and assorted civic buildings in the area all get together and ring their bells, it sounds like a competition. So we listened to the back-and-forth of the big Frankfurt 11AM ding-off to see who they would ring in (see what I did there) as the winner. Or at least that’s kinda what it sounded like. Or to summarise: Lots of bells ringing at once on the hour.

Making our way to the top deck of the boat, it started with a helpful reminder:

They weren’t kidding, some of them were a bit of a close call.

The commentary along the way taught us a few things, some of which we had learned already from the bus tour, but some things were new. One great thing, I’m guessing the Main wasn’t always the cleanest river after many years of industry, but it is now cleaner than ever and entirely fishable, i.e. you can actually eat the fish you catch in the river. Nice! (If you like fish).

The first bridge over the Main (so I guess it really was the main Main bridge) was recorded as being around since at least the 1500s. The Iron Bridge, where we started our cruise, was built in the 1800s and was a citizen-lead endeavour, basically a nifty bit of 19th century crowdfunding, and it paid for itself pretty quickly thanks to a 1 penny toll. Every bridge we passed under had a story – the most used rail bridge in Frankfurt, the bridge with lanes for people, trams and traffic, the bridgiest bridge to ever have bridged… They all had a story, I didn’t say they were all exciting though. Anyway let me distract you with a ton of pictures we took along the way.

The cruise itself though was really nice – serene, relaxing, educational. The boat itself was near silent, it really was a very pleasant way to pass the time. And top marks to Absolutely Every Single Person standing on a bridge we passed under, as without fail, every stupid tourist wave I did was met with an equally enthusiastic wave back. Hurrah! Who cares if they may have been muttering “Stupid tourist!” under their breath, be they young or old or in between, no one left me hanging.

All this waving, in addition to relaxing and looking at waterways and bridges and bridges and bridges (and also bridges) is enough to make anyone hungry, so lunch was next on the agenda. So back to the Old Town (as it is so close by) and the mission was to find somewhere that fulfilled one of my most important travel criteria – whilst in Frankfurt, you must have a Frankfurt, right? Right. Check these photos and see if we came good on that plan.

It was as tasty as it looked. Five different types of sausage, with potato and sauerkraut, and again not at completely crazy-tourist-rip-off prices. If we didn’t have more things to do in the afternoon it would have been perfect washed down with a nice cold beer… but I know I then would have been asleep for while afterwards so thought better of it. I knew by this point that when we got to dinner, it was going to be a small one!

We next wandered around the main shopping streets, another day of amazing mostly-sunny weather, which has been a treat. We found some fun shops like Hema, a kind of light hearted little department store with an emphasis on party decorations, and the Galeria, which was basically Pitt St Myer. The shopping mall we went to (myZeil) was massive, and the front was pretty cool with its whole ‘get sucked into the vortex’ style glass construction, which carried on through the centre itself. Since it was May the 4th – international Star Wars Day, one of the pop culture shops really got in the spirit by having these two standing out the front. May the 4th be with you! The Lego shop was also getting in on the action a bit.

Another interesting bit of MyZeil was a four-storey-plus escalator taking you straight up to the fancy food court. AC/DC was right – it’s a long way to the top when you want a sausage roll.

After buying a few essentials (one of the old USB chargers we took with us was buzzing in a threatening manner, so it went straight in the bin), I wanted to get a close look at that unusual subway entrance that we’d seen from the bus trip. And with free travel for the day, should be easy enough right? Again, Frankfurt, what is it with you and helpful signage? I’m sure without my phone I would never have found the station, the entrance was basically a short dingy alcove in a building with a small “U” marked on the outside, and that was it. Not entirely sure if we were taking a lift to the U-bahn or to a weird tourist-trapping dungeon from which we may never return (thanks in part to the buttons in the lift not making any sense at all, to us at least), we arrived somewhere near the platform at Römer station, even at the right platform to get us to our destination, Bockenheimer Warte. The U-Bahn, like the trams and the S-Bahn, was clean and comfy and turned up on time. The stations, at least the three we ended up visiting today, we spacious and nicely decorated, for a subway. Of course we didn’t pick the right exit from Bockenheimer Warte the first time, but not to worry, the result of our quest was in site, just had to cross a few roads. And here it is – one of the grooviest subway entrances I’ve ever seen, should be more of it I say!

And because I am a nerd, here are other photos of the u-Bahn and some of its stations

It was a quick trip back to the Main (main) station and back to the hotel to download all the photos off the camera and start writing up the events of the day.

We weren’t out for a big or exciting evening – just a quick snack in the train station was enough after today’s huge sausage-packed lunch. We leave the hotel super early tomorrow for our next bit of the adventure, so in the hope we won’t be complete zombies for that, it’s nearly time to turn in.

So, thank you Germany, thank you Frankfurt – you’ve made for a nice start to our trip, and that’s the main (Main) thing!

The day started around 5am when the alarm went off. Ugh. Everything was packed, all I had to do was shuffle along like the sleep-deprived zombie that I was, get some coffee into me so I could make it out the door 🙂 Farewelled the cat, who was even purring, happy at the prospect of a few hours peace and quiet once we’re out of the way. Fortunately we have some lovely people house-and-cat-and-plant sitting while we’re away, so everything should be fine on that front.

At the airport, check-in was fine, the “smart gate” worked, I don’t miss the old days of filling out departure forms to hand to angry people.

Minutes later we arrived at the Skyteam Lounge to wait for our flight. The lounge has been refurbished since we were last here back in 2015, it looks nice, there was some standard Bain-Marie food (bacon, mystery sausages, solid scrambled egg), plus the usual bread and little pastries. It was all tasty though and helped to pass the time.

I’m not a plane nerd (despite being an almost-everything-else nerd) but our plane for the first leg is an A350-900 if anyone finds that kind of thing exciting. The bit that I find exciting is that we’re fortunate enough to be travelling business class, the extra room and comfort are very very much appreciated.

Boarding was delayed a bit, but with 6 hours to wait in Ho Chi Min we weren’t in a panic – and soon enough, we are on the plane. Since Business is still a bit of a novelty, so gotta admit it was nice to ‘Turn Left’ upon boarding, to find our comfy seats.

One thing I found a bit unusual – it’s quite normal to be expected to turn your phone etc on to Flight Mode, but this time anything that was capable of transmitting was not allowed to be activated – so, no Bluetooth, no Airpods, no nothing. Felt a bit weird. They did supply their own (wired) noise-cancelling headphones, which weren’t exactly noise-cancelling, just noise-politely-suggesting-could-you-please-tone-it-down-a-bit-thanks. But they were better than nothing so shouldn’t grumble.

And then, the food! If Vietnamese Airlines has a secret, this would be it. I was really surprised by just how darn good it was! Yes I’m one of those people who takes pictures of my meals (on holiday at least), so here’s the ones I manage to get pictures of before scoffing them down.

The flight itself was uneventful, hardly any turbulence the whole way. Since I couldn’t use my headphones I watched ‘Jumanji Welcome to the Jungle’ on the in-flight system, which was a fun enough way to kill some time. The cabin crew asked if they wanted me to prepare my seat for sleeping – so I thought sure, why not. This basically involved them chucking a thin cover over the chair so… ok, guess I’m ready for sleep now. But it was all good, I pushed the buttons to make it go from a seat to a lie-flat bed. There’s juuuuust enough room to sleep, though I kept jamming my elbow in to the side of the seat which wasn’t real smart, or comfortable. But seriously, shouldn’t complain, did get to sleep for a bit of time so all good.

Actually Time is one of those weird things about flying, you’re kinda in a few time zones – the one you left from, the one you’re flying through, and with any luck you’re already thinking about the time at your destination, so the hours kind of stretch out in all directions, but I guess the most important one is ‘time to destination’ – weirdly when I saw it was only 2 hours I was like ‘almost there!’, unlike regular me who gets annoyed when the microwave tells me I have to wait a whole 15 seconds.

With around 2 hours to go we were served a light meal, I had a delicious chicken mushroom pie and after that, time to get ready for landing. Next minute, here we are in Ho Chi Min! It was easy finding our way to the international transfer bit, and on to the lounge, which is lovely. Overlooking the airport, it’s s always fun to watch the planes come in, check out the interesting food/drink on offer, and also fun to see some of the ground staff getting around on bicycles – which, in the 36 degree heat, is a good effort.

Since it’s 6 hours to the next flight, we’ll be here a while, which seemed like a perfect time to write a bunch of stuff in the blog. So, job done! Hoping to get more sleep on the next flight, to arrive at least half fresh and relaxed early in the morning in Frankfurt. See ya then.

Here we are, three years after our aborted trip to Rotterdam in 2020. Five years since our last proper ‘big’ holiday. I guess things will be a little different this time. Do I still know how to holiday? Will I remember how to airport? Can I still “seat backs upright and tray table stowed for landing”? Have I forgotten how to choose between chicken and beef? Tea or Coffee?

In a few short weeks … let’s find out!

All the plans are in place, everything’s good to go. House and cat sitting is taken care of. Planes, trains, ferries, buses all booked. Accommodation is all sorted. Eurovision tickets acquired (YASSS!!!). Plenty of other shenanigans locked in. Lots of West End Shows organised in London. Now, all that’s left to do is for us to hope it all goes somewhat according to plan, and more importantly, enjoy the hell out of it!

Bring it on!

WordPress lists things in “newest first” order – it makes sense while on the holiday, but not when you’re looking at blog after the holiday is done.

Here’s the whole trip,  in order from start to finish.

There’s still a lot of pictures missing because when I migrated from my old travel blogging platform to this one, it lost all the pictures (thanks for that!) – but I’ll slowly add them back in over time.

GETTING THERE

• “It won’t be long”
• Going Places
• First flight done – Hello Jakarta!
• Almost in Amsterdam

AMSTERDAM

• Hello, Amsterdam!
• Regen regen ga weg! (Rain rain go away!)
• A visit to Eindhoven – part 1
• A visit to Eindhoven – part 2
• Rotterdam, and Den Haag
• Last day in Amsterdam

ATHENS

• Goodbye Amsterdam, Hello Athens
• One day in Athens

SANTORINI

• Sailing to Santorini
• Relaxing in Santorini
• Driving around the caldera
• So long, Santorini

MYKONOS

• Hello, Mykonos
• Venturing away from the hotel
• A very lazy day in Mykonos
• Last day in Mykonos

LONDON

• Hello London!
• Big day in London
• London Shopping and Shows
• Crumbs, doilies, and 1984
• Boating, and Beckham
• Harrods and Harvey Nicks
• The last day we’re all together (for now)
• And then there were two
• Wicked (again)
• Camden (Part 1)
• Camden (part 2), The Zoo and the Mousetrap
• One day, two shows. Just how it should be.
• A heap of photos from the Harry Potter Studio Tour
• The big last day in London

BRIGHTON

• Bye Bye London, hello traffic! (Oh, and Brighton)
• Bikes, Busses and ChockyWockyDooDah
• Last day in Brighton

BRISTOL

• Bucketing down in Bristol
• Busy-ness Boats and Busted Buses in Bristol
• Beauty, BC, Bath, but barely any Bristol
• Bridges, Boats, Balloons & Buh-bye Bristol

CARDIFF

• Bore da, Caerdydd (Good morning, Cardiff)
• Who’s who in Cardiff
• So long Cardiff, Bye-bye UK

STOCKHOLM

• Hello, Stockholm!
• Buses and Boats and Bjorn and Benny
• As we draw to a close

SYDNEY

• And then we came hone. The end.