WORLD TRIP - Part 1

STAGE 1

Two years in the planning and now less than 50 days to ‘take-off’. At first we thought we’d never get to this point and now it’s fast reaching a point of ‘Yikes! We’ll never be ready in time’.

At 6am on Saturday 8^th September we leave Perth for Dubai, UAE. There for 5 nights, we have a packed schedule of river cruising, swimming with dolphins and a 5 hour meal at the Burj al Arab hotel. This will take us through cocktails in the Sky Bar and courses in each of the hotels many luxurious restaurants and culminating with a chauffeured Rolls Royce ride back to our hotel. As each course is accompanied by wine I just hope we remember the trip back to the hotel!

 We then fly to Rome for 4 nights before taking a ferry trip to Barcelona, a trip of 21 hours. One of the highlights of Rome is to be a side trip to Pompeii and a trip up Mount Vesuvius. Hopefully the Mayan calendar is not right and that Vesuvius doesn’t decide to blow its’ top again during this trip.

The ferry to Barcelona is an over-nighter and we have a nice cosy cabin to sleep in. We pick up the train in Barcelona and head for Marseille in southern France. The main purpose of this stop is to take a side-trip to the Millau Bridge, until recently the tallest bridge in the world.

We travel through Europe by train using a Eurail Global Pass, enabling us a total of 15 days travel over the next 2 months. We then visit Montreux, Zermatt and St. Moritz in Switzerland with a scenic rail journey on the Chocolate Train for the day from Montreux to Montreux. We go to the Gruyeres cheese factory and the Nestle chocolate factory where we will be able to sample unlimited amounts of finished product! (This outing is for Julie – honest)! The rail from Zermatt to St. Moritz is to be on the Glacier Express through 91 tunnels and crossing 291 bridges during the 9 hour trip.

Our journey will then continue from St. Moritz to Salzburg, the home of Mozart. Here we plan on having a ‘traditional dinner from Mozart’s day’, whilst listening to a Mozart concert in Europe’s oldest restaurant. It is then on to Prague for 5 nights before proceeding to Krakow for a further 4 nights. Krakow will be our base for visits to the concentration camps of WW2. No doubt this will be a humbling and somewhat sad experience.

Next, its’ onto Berlin for a few days with a visit to the Berlin Wall site and ‘Checkpoint Charlie’. From there it’s yet another train to Copenhagen for a few days before catching a sleeper train to Amsterdam. (Hmmm! maybe I’ll take up smoking again, he he)! We have a week booked on a houseboat in Amsterdam, making for yet another experience, our primary objective of this trip after all.

The next stop is Bruges, Belgium where we hire a car for a few days and spend our days visiting the WW1 sites. My grandfather had no direct involvement in this area of the war as he was in the Merchant Navy. Never the less I have for years wanted to make this ‘pilgrimage’ to the Somme and Fromelles so this is a perfect opportunity for us to do so.

Now it’s on to Paris for the final leg of our European sector. There we meet up with Julies’ son Shane and daughter-in-law Anna. We have tickets booked for the Lido cabaret for the late night champagne show. A few days later we are booked for dinner and show at the Moulin Rouge theatre. This will be our final night in Europe before taking the Eurostar to Ashford, England. And yes folks, we do know that the UK is part of Europe but being a Pommie Git I like to distance myself from the rest of Europe!