Our Topdeck bus tour around Europe has finally come to an end, and after spending 28 days with the same people it was sad to see everyone go their separate ways. Venice was absolutely beautiful, one of my favourite places we visited on the trip. The whole city is surrounded by water. Cars, trains, busses and other land transport are not aloud in the city, so we spent the whole day on foot exploring the canals, riding on gondolas and getting lost in the maze like streets. After our day in Venice we crossed two borders to get to Pag Island in Croatia aka “Party Island” and we sure did party it up. Our first day on the Island we went on a party boat which sailed around the island stopping every now and again for a “swimming break” where we got to jump off the roof of the boat and go swimming in the crystal clear blue waters. The drinks were free, the food was good and the music was loud! It was one of the best times we had on our trip. Our next stop was in Lyblyana, Slovenia. We only had one night in Lyblyana so we spent our time wondering around town, eating dinner by the river and having a cocktail in the whacky skeleton bar. The next day we jumped back on our bus and drove all the way to Kirchdorf, Austria. This is where the adventures started. We all had optional activities to either go skydiving, paragliding or canyon jumping. I went canyon jumping, which was basically a series of abseiling, rock jumping and rock sliding through a gorge. Our next stop was Prague where we partied it up in a 5-story nightclub. From Prague we set off to Berlin where we learnt about the Berlin Wall. We also went to a beer house where we ate pork knuckles for dinner and drank steins of beer and diesel (which is a mixture of beer and coca cola). After crazy Berlin we hung up our dirndls and lederhosen and headed for Amsterdamage, which is the name, our trip leader gave Amsterdam because you feel pretty damaged when you leave. While we were there we saw the Anne Frank house, which is where the little Jewish girl Anne Frank hid in the attack with her family for years during the Second World War. The crazy thing about Amsterdam is that it was built on a swamp and all the houses are crooked because of their foundations. They look like they are going to tumble down on each other like a stack of dominos. On the last day of our trip we travelled all the way back to London stopping off at Brugge in Belgium to have some Belgium Waffles for lunch. When it was finally time to say goodbye we didn’t want to leave. We had formed one big family during the trip and now it was time to split up and face reality. We will never forget the good times we shared or the friendships we made during one of the best summers of our lives.

xx

Stephanie Cherry