London to Vienna Trail | Start Amsterdam | Winter | 25/26

The adventure of a lifetime kicks off today. Meet up with your new Contiki family in London town before hitting the road to Amsterdam. Shortly before we find our ferry for France, we'll be taking in the English coastline beauty of the White Cliffs of Dover. They owe their gorgeousness to their composition of chalk - you're learning and we haven't even left the UK! Off the ferry we arrive in the port town of Calais - French soil! We travel north via Belgium before reaching...Amsterdam! Tonight, the famed-for-fun Amsterdam is ours to explore. First fill up on your included group dinner, then an undisguised Red Light District & plenty of bars are there for the curious.

Amsterdam is cute as a button & sure to win your heart with its canals, obscure museums & a café culture like no other. Today use your time to get local, bar hop, museum crawl, and see what other tastes take your fancy, this place is famous for pancakes, frites and so much more.

Amsterdam, it's been lovely, but today's agenda is onto the autobahn and on the fast-track to uber-cool Berlin. On the world map of party vibes, Berlin has a gold star. We've got two nights to explore every inch of this iconic city, and we'll start them off with a driving tour. After that, you're free to explore, and maybe even sample some of that legendary nightlife for yourself...

Get into the mood of exploration with a historical walking tour where you'll discover 20th century Berlin (including Hitler's underground bunker & the Holocaust Memorial) with our local guide. Berlin has so much to offer the hungry traveller, from the obvious icons like Checkpoint Charlie to all the obscurities tucked away in the side streets. This evening we’ll embark on an Alternative Berlin walking tour, taking us to all the city’s hipster haunts.

"More city hangs" you'll all scream in unison as we motor out of Berlin, high on life & still wanting more. Since you asked so nicely, let us present you with Prague, the darling of Europe.  A drive from Berlin to Prague would not be complete without stopping in Dresden. Destroyed by World War II, the rebuilt town is now a symbol of resilience, soaked in the rebirthed beauty of an Opera house, the domed Frauenkirche, & the Royal Residence. On arrival in the compact & lovable city of Prague, we'll get out and go exploring, seeing castles and cathedrals and learning of Bohemian Kings and gothic history.

With a full day to loiter, expect an entire photo album of Gothic architecture, market antiques & you cheers-ing beer; not to mention life! Tonight, you could see yourself spending the evening indulging in traditional Czech cuisine while admiring the local folklore dancers as the sun goes down on the 'City of a Hundred Spires'.

Today we exchange the Czech Republic for Austria, waving goodbye to pretty Prague knowing that cultured Vienna is coming right up.  Before Vienna we'll be stopping in the Bohemian city of Kutna Hora, remembering that Bohemia is the name of the place and not a nod to the fashion sense of the people that live there. Make the local Sedlec Ossuary chapel a high priority, it's decked out and furnished in the bones of over 40,000 ... humans. Eeep! Austria, we have arrived! It's time for a Habibi & Hawara dinner, followed by a classic night out in one of the city’s imperial palaces (both totally optional, should you prefer to spend your evening relaxing in style.)

Let's delay the inevitable goodbyes as long as we can. Enjoying a leisurely breakfast and taking some time to continue exploring Vienna should do the trick. Then at about lunch time things will start wrapping up - we'll talk shock about how much we've done in just over a week, and wish to the travel gods we could do it all again - 8 times over.