So the journey begins.............

Nigel: After spending several weeks enjoying the UK weather (for a change), the time soon arrived for us to set off on our journey. We are not train enthusiasts in the slightest but we decided to try and do 3 train journeys between the UK and Hong Kong (Eurostar, Trans-Siberia, and Beijing to Tibet). We arrived into London a day before catching the Eurostar and we stayed in a hotel just around the corner from the station. The place we stayed in didn't look anything special from the outside or that big but when you entered the place it was like a rabbits warren. The room we stayed in was interesting though as the wooden floors were sloping from one side to the other so you had to do a bit of hillwalking to get from the sink to the bed - good practice for Everest base camp.

We arrived at St Pancras early so we could have a walk around as we heard that the station was very impressive and had only recently been refurbished. It was impressive inside and with a bit of delay getting through security/immigration we set off to the channel tunnel.

The first place we visited was Bonn in Germany but to get there we had to change in Brussels and Cologne. We didn't have any time to explore these 2 cities but we can say the stations were half decent!! We arrived in Bonn around 5pm and the weather was good which was fortunate as we got lost trying to find the hotel.

Alison: Although I had heard of Bonn before, I didn't know anything about it and before Nigel suggested going there, I thought it was in France! I wasn't expecting much from Bonn but it is actually a really nice city and I wished that we had more than an evening and a morning to explore it. There are some nice colourful classically European buildings and there is a really romantic feel to the place. Cycling appears to be very popular and there were lots of people cycling through the streets on old fashioned bikes with baskets on the front. I can definitely see us going back to explore more of the city.

Next stop was Berlin. The train from Bonn to Berlin takes about 5 hours but the trains are really comfortable so it goes by pretty quickly. When we arrived in Berlin we had to navigate to our hotel on the S-bahn which is like their metro system. It was easy to use which is always a relief when you have an 18kg rucksack on your back! We only had a day to spend in Berlin so it was a bit of a whistle stop tour of the main sites including several sections of the Berlin Wall, Check Point Charlie, Brandenburg Gate, Berlin Cathedral, the TV Tower, the Reichstag Building and Norma Supermarket (he he he, it's my Mum's name). I even got to test out my German in the cheapo shop near our hotel much to Nigel's amusement. I enthusiastically said Morgen (morning) to the lady on the till and heard a few titters from Nigel next to me. Then when we left I thought I would try a friendly Tschuss (bye). We had to make a quick exit because we were roaring with laughter ;-D

Although we saw the main tourist attractions, a day is probably a bit too short to see everything and so we may pop back in the future to see the rest. It was really hot when we were there so I quite fancy going back when it's winter and the markets are on. We had an early start after the sightseeing day as we had to go to the airport to catch a plane to St Petersburg....eekk.

P.S the pictures dont appear to have come out in order of places visited.