Coach trip Part 1

London, Dover, Calais, Amsterdam, Heidelberg, Lucerne

Hi all,
We have covered a lot of ground in the last 5 days.
We left Cardiff Thursday morning and arrived in London about midday. We went for a walk from the hostel (King's Cross) into London, via the British Museum, Oxford Street, Regent Street, Carnaby Street, Trafalgar Square, National Gallery and Portrait Gallery. Then late in the afternoon, we decided to go to Greenwich and see the Observatory and straddle the Prime Meridian of Longitude. As we returned to the hostel it started belting down with rain and didn't stop until the next morning, this aborted our dinner plans and we ended up eating in the hostel cafe.
Friday morning we had to catch a bus/coach to Dover, then get on a ferry and then join our tour group in Calais (France). We then had a very long drive through Belgium, then the Netherlands and arrived in Amsterdam at about 9 pm. A long day, but the hotel (Dorint) was fabulous and allegedly the best we will have for the whole tour!
Saturday morning started with a canal tour of Amsterdam and a diamond factory visit (managed to keep Kristin from buying anything!) and then a couple of hours around the city centre. The boys insisted that we went for a stroll through the Red Light District (well, Lucy hadn't been there before), then it was another lond trip to our accomodation in Hennef, Germany.
Another early start on Sunday to catch the 9:00 am boat cruise down the Rhine river from a pretty little town of Boppard. The 2 hour boat trip, was lovely and the scenery spectacular. If you have a look at the photos on the web albums you notcie the vineyards on very steep hills above the river. Besides the many castles there was also the Lorelely Rock, which has a tale about a mermaid/scorned lover/ etc..
After the boat crusie, our next stop (all too brief) was Heilelberg, a pretty medieval (now a university) town on the Neckar river. From Heidelberg we travelled to Lucerne in Switzerland (via France for a short time) in total about 700 km in the day!
Monday began with a walk around Lucerne, which is located a large lake and at the bottom of some large mountains. We visited the Lion's monument, built to commemorate the Swiss Guards who were killed trying to defend Louis XVI (?) and Marie Antoinette, not successfully obviously, and as a result this why the Swiss became neutral. Next was the visit to Stanserhorn (a relatively small mountain ~1900m) which involved a cog railway then a cable car trip to reach the summit. Up there were some great views looking towards other peaks and down on the lake and Lucerne. Back in Lucerne Billy and Declan each bought themselves genuine Swiss Army Knifes and they think they are very pleased with themselves!.
At he moment, we are driving through Switzerland and its amzing scenery and tunnels. One of the tunnels, St. Gothards, is 17 km long, third longest in the world.. Next stop is Lugano, then onto Verona (Italy and the last stop for the day is Venice.
Cheers for now.