Hamburg - 29th to 30th of June 2011

A speedy 2 hour train north west to Hamburg. More of a stopover on our way to meet friends in Dusseldorf, we had an afternoon to walk around the city, through the town square and along the canals, and up the top of Michaeliskirche (St Michael's Church) for a lookout across the city). With one of the biggest shipyards in Europe, it is perhaps not surprising that it also has one of the biggest red light districts. A miserable night weatherwise, we found a cool little bar to shelter from the rain, a nice change from the endless sun in Dubai!

Berlin - 27th to 29th of June 2011

Arriving in Germany after a mental busy weekend in the UK, we couldn't do anything before a quick snooze at the hotel! Having heard they were almost must-dos in Berlin, we wandered over to Alexanderplatz mid afternoon for the start of a bike tour of the major sights of Berlin.

Checkpoint Charlie

Berlin Wall (or what's left of it)

Holocaust Memorial, still creating controversy today.

Brandenburg Gate

After all that cycling, thankfully the tour took in more culture, an awesome beer garden in the middle of a giant city park.

Final stop as the sun was going down, the Reichstag, seat of the German parliament.

Having ticked off most of the sights on the bike tour, we spent the following day going to the few remaining highlights and revisting a couple of sights in more detail. Namely the Jewish Museum the SS Museum and some of the remaining sections of the wall.

A pretty huge night out followed. We went out on a organised pub crawl with a bunch of 18 year olds, we figured it might be fun, and it kinda was. Met a few nice people and got showed a few "different" bars around a small part of the city. All topped off by an awesome Doner Kebab - Germany has a huge Turkish population and so Berlin in particular has a reputation for great Kebabs. We had our share on this holiday, but for some reason at 3am they are just so good!

Weekend in the UK - 24th to 27th of June 2011

We were lucky enough to be invited to the wedding of our good friends in Dubai, held back in the UK. We arrived at Heathrow on Friday morning and went our seperate ways - Ange into London to spend the day catching up with Nicola, and Warren down to Sussex to play a round of golf. We caught up later that night back in London with the old crew of London friends.

Up early on Saturday morning to head out to Somerset for the wedding, about an hour and a half Southwest on the train and another 30 minutes by cab to the venue. We were staying on site in an awesome old manor, so got dolled up and walked to the top of the drive to the private chapel for the ceremony.

Back to the manor for the reception, bubbly, croquet, and dancing.

Up early on Sunday to make our way back to London for an afternoon in the sun. We went back to one of our favourite pubs with a great beer garden, more time to catch up with friends about the latest goings on in London.

Too many early mornings in a row, but we had a flight to catch so were up early on Monday and out to Heathrow for the flight onto Germany...