Slept in till the alarm went off for the first time since leaving home - and what a joy it was! After our lovely buffet breakfast we put our luggage out in the hallway to be loaded onto the coach. Once we were on the autobahn on our way to Rothenburg our tour director, Bob, had a talk to us about our optional tours. Because there are only 17 so us, instead of 40, some tours will not be available, so we have to choose some alternatives. The medieval walled city...

This morning we had a wonderful breakfast in the restaurant and it was lovely to see our fellow travellers. We had to put our suitcases outside our room by 6:30am, have brekky from 6:30am and be ready to go by 7.15am. Aaaah - this coach tour business is all new to us, but we are enjoying the change. After brekky we set out on our trip, first touring through Brussels while Bob explained the background of the EEC and NATO. We then drove on through Belgium and enter...

So this morning we arose disgustingly early, after sleeping fitfully waiting for the alarm. We got ourselves organised and went over the road to Paddington Station's taxi rank where we caught a cab to the Marble Arch Thistle Hotel to join our tour at 5.15am. But it was so nice to have a lovely gentleman standing there as we paid the cab (I thought he wanted the taxi) and then he turned to us and said "Mr and Mrs Watt?" It was Bob, our Dutch tour guide. So, we w...

We skipped the cooked breakfast this morning, preferring to get ourselves over to Victoria Station in plenty of time for our 8am start, so we bought some vegetarian pasties along our way. We arrived out at the Warner Brothers studio at 9.30am and after the introductory movie footage we were taken into the Hogwarts Dining Hall set. This was followed by various sets, props and equipment used in the films. We looked at the boys' bedroom, the Weasley's home, Dumbledo...

This morning we had a lovely cooked English breakfast in our hotel before setting out for our explorations. Typical though, we got to Paddington station to find that the Bakerloo line was closed due to an operational problem, so we sat down and replanned our journeys. By the time we finished, we made our way over to the underground to find the line was open again, but only spasmodically, due to overcrowding on the platforms. So on we went - Tom off to check out t...