PAUL AND LI We arrived in Paris around 5:30pm (June 10) from Brussels. With our hostess not home until 11pm that night we had some time to kill before heading over there. After storing our bags at the station and managing to book our next few train trips, we went off to find the Basilique du Sacre-Cœur and, after walking up the stairs, discovered that it really does sit on the highest point in Paris! At the top, we went into the Basilica and then sat in front o...

PAUL Well we did end up going back down to the square in and it was a little more lively, though still nothing like we'd seen in Amsterdam. We sampled one of the Belgian beers and then returned home. On our last day in Antwerp we went for a walk through an area rich in Art Nouveau architecture. I was going to try to explain what that is but I think it's best to leave you to the pictures. Then we were on the (right) train to Brussels. We arrived in Brusse...

PAUL We arrived in Antwerp to discover that the beautiful sunshine in Amsterdam had not followed us and that it was in fact raining. So looking rather like blimps with our rain covers and jackets over the bags on our front and backs, we made our way to our hostel, needing only to stop and ask for directions once. We arrived to what can only be described as the perfect hostel. The owner, Bridget, is a traveller herself and so she has endeavoured to make it a ho...

PAUL We got up early on our second day in Amsterdam (5 June) and made our way over to the Anne Frank House. We were really impressed with the way the whole thing was presented with a mix of Anne's diary entries written on the walls and video recordings from the people involved as you moved through the house and up to the annex. Then we went for a wander through city centre again and discovered some other areas we hadn't seen. We also managed to end up on a sho...

PAUL We arrived in Amsterdam last night (June 3) flowing a quick flights from Leeds Bradford Airport. After breezing through customs and finding, to our slight surprise, that all the signs and announcements here are in both Dutch and English, we made our way outside and caught a tram headed for our accommodation. First lesson learnt: hang on when the tram takes off. These things are like roller coaster ride and we both nearly fell off our seats when the tram fir...