Our Grand Tour

We left yesterday by taxi to Durham, train to Newcastle and then took the dedicated DFDS bus from outside the station (who knew?).  Our ferry from Port of Tyne was full of Dutch people who had spent a day shopping in Newcastle.  Mostly stocking up on clothes and shoes.  They all have big suitcases! We couldn't update on the ferry as it was much too expensive so we will attach some photos now. Newcastle Station. Including one for Sebastian of the smallest shower/bathroom ever. You could have sat on the loo to have your shower. Haha. Arrived today in Amsterdam .

Well we are almost ready. We have worked our way through lists of things to do and have even crossed off all the other things we'd added. Peter says he is keeping the list on his computer for next time. The garden is looking nice and the apples and pears have done well this year. Hope they are still there when we get back. Just have to bring my house plants back indoors as the nights are getting cold. One of the xmas cacti is confused and has started to flower. Get your map ready Sebastian....

We have been planning our Grand Tour for a long time. We are very excited (probably over excited) and packed our cases 3 weeks ago! This wasn't as odd as it seems because we decided to travel light and just take hand luggage size cases. We don't want to be lugging heavy cases around with us. But making that decision has meant we've had to plan carefully what clothes we will need.  We will let you know if we were successful or if we look dishevelled. Peter has spent hours looking up all the places we will visit and deciding which are the must see museums! And I have been deciding where  are the must eat restaurants! We're taking Kindles not books and I have been instructed to load mine up so I don't want to talk to Peter all the time! As if... So we leave on Wednesday.

We are taking time to prepare for our Grand Tour. As part of the preparation we are creating a blog so that any family member who wants to follow us can do. And we aren't clogging up whatsapp. Sebastian is going to be following us on a map so we will try and post photos of each stop.