The sleeper train was a great experience. It was comfortable enough for us both to get some sleep, breakfast arrived as promised with our wake-up call, the showers in the GWR lounge at Paddington were very welcome and soon after 7am we were on the tube on our way to St Pancras.

Terry and Jenny arrived bang on schedule and we had time to enjoy breakfast together while checking our mobile travel passes and making sure we’d all loaded the right journey’s in the app.

Most of the train journeys en route to Bergen are quite long so we have treated ourselves to 1st Class tickets. On Eurostar to Amsterdam that meant Standard Premier (?!), the seats were comfy and we were served a very acceptable light lunch with wine, and coffee/tea and cake later in the afternoon. The journey flew by as we caught up with 5 years of news from Australia.

It must be 30 years since we were last in Amsterdam and Terry and Jenny have never been to mainland Europe so the taxi ride from the station was a first glimpse of the beautiful canals and tall town houses. We were booked into the Hotel Notting Hill situated on the edge of the Singelgracht canal.

Terry and Jenny were interested to try Rijstafel, the Indonesian buffet meal popular in Amsterdam so that night we walked to a restaurant 10 minutes from the hotel and enjoyed a feast of spicey chicken, meat and vegetable dishes, salads and rice. After a walk back to the hotel we were all ready for an early-ish night.

We had one full day in Amsterdam so we took a city tour by boat and spent the afternoon at the Rijksmuseum which felt like a good introduction to the city. Dinner at a restaurant on the bank of the Amstel river rounded off the first of our mini city breaks.

We are now on the train heading for Hamburg, I’d better sign off so I don’t miss the change at Osnabruck. More soon.