We met just before sunrise Boxing Day at the Royal National Hotel in central London. Soon I was among forty other drowsy travellers cruising to Dover on England’s south-eastern edge and a ferry ride towards French Calais. Our comfortable Contiki coach was nearly completely full with passengers from locations around the world. Although Australia was best represented there were also tourists from South Africa, Brazil, America, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Korea and even a few other Kiwis.
Our driver Derek was an affable Scotsman with a typically thick accent and our Tour Manager Dave ‘Scandy’ Thompson, a Yorkshireman based in Nice. Derek’s accent was so strong that several of the American girls couldn’t understand him at first. He later found that by singing to them he could break through the communication barrier as it apparently softened his Scots twang. One Californian girl probably regretted this as Derek proceeded to take the mickey out of her during the trip. He had her believing at one stage that Shrek-like Ogres lived in the Mountains of Northern Scotland hunting small appetising creatures called ‘Haggis’. Oh dear.
In accordance with Contiki policy everyone was aged 18 to 35. Surprisingly there weren’t many in the tour younger than 21 and quite a few were near or over 30. On the way to Dover we had turns standing at the front of the bus with the microphone introducing ourselves. We had to answer from a list of personal questions including a not so subtle one on relationship status which called for us to state if we were red, amber or green lights!
As the morning wore on a collective groan arose from the many single guys on the bus: There were at least ten couples on the tour, only about six ‘green lights’ amongst the girls, and of that number maybe three were attractive… Typical. Those three were going to get a lot of attention during the next few weeks! Oh well I wasn’t on the trip to meet girls anyway. I was there to travel, and travel (I told myself) is a serious business.
Put it down to geographical naivety but when Scandy announced in Calais that we still had a full afternoon on the road before reaching Amsterdam we were all pretty disappointed. After making our way through France we spent several hours driving through the tremendously flat Belgium and Netherlands countryside before we reached our destination.
Amsterdam seemed a tremendous city; clean and friendly with a picturesque canal system and lots of cyclists. We went for a night cruise on the canal soon after we arrived and had a great time getting to know each other with the help of some of the best Heineken I’ve tasted. Our bartender was extremely friendly and kept gently chiding us for not drinking fast enough! Later on, feeling a bit merry a group of us caught a tram and visited some of the local nightspots. We had a fantastic evening and some great conversations with some of the local people who seemed very friendly and articulate in what was their second or third language.
The next day we had time to expore the city in daylight. Several of us decided to visit the museum district and spent the morning in the Van Gogh Gallery learning about the Dutch painter and viewing most of his famous works. According to the museum he was a highly emotive and nervous character who gravitated towards painting to create happiness for others. His early work was frequently concerned with peasants and their relationship to the land. The emphasis he placed on the daily life of common people was quite a unique approach for contemporary art of this time.
Later his style seemed to change remarkably incorporating intense colour and brushstrokes and he painted such famous pieces as ‘Starry starry night’ and ‘Sunflowers’. My favourite was a painting of a wheatfield in the heat of a summer day, the tremendous amount of strokes making the air seem to shimmer with heat.
As he grew older Van Gogh began to suffer bouts of mental illness and once famously cut off part of his left ear after a quarrel with fellow artist Gauguin. As his depression deepened he eventually took his own life at the age of 37. Sadly Van Gogh’s received little recognition during his own lifetime and his greatness wasn’t recognised until well after his tragic death,
After our museum visit we did some exploring around the city centre. The buildings were quite old fashioned and pretty and a relaxed atmosphere prevailed. Even in daylight we were surprised to come face to face with the city’s liberal drug culture when we were offered ‘coke’ by two separate dealers on our stroll around the shops. Must’ve looked like tourists I guess! That afternoon we headed across the border to Germany and the picturesque Rhine Valley where we spent a relaxing night at riverside town St Goar.
We left the next morning and arrived in Munich after a few hours driving through the Bavarian countryside. We were able to spend a few hours seeing the sights before we headed to the hotel and dinner at the famous Hofbrauhaus beerhall.
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