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suitably regal way to travel. We settle back and kill our
first hours with a DVD of
The Wire
and card games (the
first of many) as the fields of France give way to Flanders
and – impossibly quickly – we’re in Brussels.
Guinness’s guidelines state that, if we don’t take an
adjudicator with us (at a cost of thousands of pounds), we
need video footage as well as witnesses and snaps from
every stop. You could say this makes it the perfect
challenge for the Facebook generation: taking a succession
of international selfies. So Thijs and his colleagues look on
as we throw ourselves on to the platform to take photos,
even lending their hats for us to pose in. Back on the train,
they point out the landmarks of Brussels as we pass – the
Atomium and gold-domed Justitiepaleis (Palace of Justice)
– and debate with us a crackpot scheme to ‘pop in’ to
Amsterdam’s main station to take our total up to seven
capitals. Eventually, we decide it’s too risky time-wise, so
we wave our friendly helpers goodbye at Schiphol station
and head off towards eastern Europe.
04:43
ARRIVE AT AMSTERDAMAIRPORT
As surreal moments go, our brief time at Schiphol must
be up there. Going through the new, full-body security
machines, my sister sets off a series of bleeps, her scan
revealing a red mark on its lower abdomen. When she
asks what’s caused the problem, a member of airport staff
jokes, “That’s your penis”. Is this an example of the
eccentric Dutch wit? Almost adding injury to insult, we
overestimate the time we have for dinner. ‘Go to Gate’
flashes up mid-meal, leaving us running for the plane,
due to take off at 5.05pm, my sister munching Caesar
salad from a paper bag, latte cup gripped in my teeth.
A few hours later, it’s dark when we arrive in Prague,
and that’s not the only contrast. As we hop a local bus into
town – no cabs allowed, as per The Rules – the eastern
European architecture and trademark trams are
unmistakable, especially as our crazed bus driver insists
on swerving into the tracks of the latter. We’re relieved to
jump off at Praha hlavní nádraží, the main station, where
we have two hours to kill. Time to stretch our transport-
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