Those of you who have been will know what I am talking about. Those of you who havent, after reading this will be dying to go. But first let me give you a warnining - AVOID Eurostar. A member of my travelling party, who had never been on Eurostar before, insisted that we take this means of transportall to Amsterdam.

Well, if you fancy sitting on a train for seven hours, and if you fancy hanging around a train station for another hour to make your connection, then take the Eurostar.

I flew to Gambia in the same time it took me to travel to Amsterdam by train. The Eurostar train stopped in Brussells, dumped us off unto a rickety old train which took us into the heart of Amsterdam. So my advise to you is to fly, fly, fly!

We reached Central Station, Amsterdam, and immediately felt the relaxed atmosphere, and the most amazing site greeting you was the thousands of pushbikes parked along the entrance. I can only assume that Amsterdam is full of fit fit people, everyone cycles. It's mad but good.

The transport system was a joy to behold, the trams were easy to use, the buses were regular, and bycycles are everywhere. A weekend's travel pass for use on the buses and trams works out to be approximately £5.00 for unlimited travel. We decided not to slum it this time, so we stayed in a Japanese 5 star hotel by the name of the Okura Hotel. Our crew consisted of two girls and two guys dressed London street style - baggy pants, trainers, fleece, dreadlocks and caps, rucksacks stuck firmly on backs....you can imagine us walking into the foyer of a 5 star hotel. They didn't know how to take us, but they still called us sir and madam and everytime we turned around, there were a pair of eyes burning into our baggy pants. But we stayed cool, gave our details and then decided between us to flash our Gold Amex cards just to put them in their place. Once we had dumped our belongings in our rooms, our first intention was to head straight for a coffee bar.