A good plentiful breakfast at 07:00 for departure at 08:30, for what looked like a fairly straightforward journey of around 6 hours to Kolding

Not so!

It appears every German city and several other locations are plagued by traffic jams. Not your normal everyday traffic jams; something more on a biblical scale. We enjoyed 5 such entertainments adding around 90-120 minutes to the journey.

One also imagines Germany as a well ordered and efficient nation. Again, doubtful.

The service stations were minimalist. A fast food outlet, a coffee shop and a “shop” for chocolate, sweets and snacks. Chaotic layouts and queues for anything and everything.

All-in-all today was not the day we’d imagined, and not one we particularly enjoyed. Even our drivers showed (by subtle comments) they weren’t best pleased either.

However, the Scandic Hotel in Kolding is another decent 4* business hotel with a clean, well equipped room. Dinner at 19:30… fingers crossed.

Another buffet, and once again a very good one (again,exclusive to our group of 27 diners). If this is going to be the pattern, and if this how Scandinavian hotels do buffets, it may be a positive feature of the tour.