The view from our hotel room - note the way the tall black building looks like it has fallen away from the buildings on either side. This occurs frequently in Amsterdam and, we discovered, was planned to facilitate warehousing in past centuries
Past a host of cafes and restaurants, we veered off into charming alleyways and found ourselves in Dam Square, the historical heart of the city with its beautiful buildings including the Royal Palace, the King's official reception palace built in the 17th Century.
We stopped for a light lunch at a cafe across from the impressive neo-Renaissance Amsterdam Central Station which opened in 1889, and then finally checked into our hotel. With only a few hours' sleep since leaving home, we were ready for a good afternoon nap.
The next morning we took a train to The Hague, the administrative capital of The Netherlands, home to the Royal Family and the base for numerous international organisations.
In the Old Town at The Hague
The Hague also hosts the best miniature park we have seen, Madurodam, in 1:25 scale. The park opened in 1952, initially to raise funds to assist sanitorium students with tuberculosis. It is an amazing complex, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. Included are castles, public buildings, highways, waterways, trainlines, an international airport, cruise ships, modern city buildings and even a sewerage plant, all with moving parts! A full-sized DC3 called The Flying Dutchman also graces the park.
And some oversized tulips!
That evening, back in Amsterdam, we tried out the local English Pub called London Bridge. Great pub food and drinks.
Unlike the Swiss, the Dutch don't always keep strictly to time. And because we had an early start, we decided to walk the 500 metres to Maccas for breakfast since nothing else was open at 7am. But on this particular day, for some unknown reason, they weren't opening until 7.30am - despite what the sign outside said. We didn't have time to waste so we walked back to the hotel, collected our gear and began our walk to the pickup location for our countryside tour.
According to the booking map, the pickup location was outside Aloha Bowling & Restaurant. The most direct route looked to be via Central Station, so we called into a cafe there and had a croissant and coffee before continuing on. However, Google Maps for some reason took us halfway around the world and we finally arrived at the location 1.4 kms later.
We boarded our packed, but comfortable, tour bus and got underway. Our first stop was Zaanse Schans, famous for its windmills, and we saw a clog making demonstration.
On to a Gouda cheese tasting where we were given a talk by a very drole local cheesemaker who had us all laughing. The cheese tasting was like nothing we've experienced before as there were so many cheeses to choose from. Jim's favourite was an aged cheddar; Penny's was the coconut cheese, closely followed by truffle and green pesto. Just wish we could have bought some to bring home!
From there, we drove to the delightful city of Edam which has a population of 7,300 (yes, it's categorised as a city) and did a walking tour. It is such a pretty place and has some great examples of typical Dutch-style houses.
Much of The Netherlands is below sea level with many structures built on stilts over the water - Edam is no exception. The Dutch and their ancestors have been working to hold back and reclaim land from the North Sea for over 2,000 years by building dikes and using windmills to pump excess water back out to sea. It is an amazing sight - as we travelled through the countryside, we saw canals everywhere and particularly at regular intervals on farming land. Water is definitely not a problem here!
Next, we drove to the seaside fishing town of Volendam where we had the most delightful fish and chips at the Van den Hogen restaurant. Afterwards we walked along the 'dam' through the old town. The 'sea' is actually Lake Markermeer, the largest manmade freshwater lake in Europe, at 700 square kms!
When we finally arrived back in Amsterdam, we had a 1.4kms walk back to the hotel. Perhaps not surprisingly we discovered we had actually walked over 12kms that day.
We took it a little easier the next day with a walk to central station for breakfast (yoghurt, croissant and coffee) and a tram ride to the ARTIS Royal Amsterdam Zoo. What a fabulous zoo! Not a lot of cages thankfully, with moats around many of the enclosures.
Included on the site are a number of large indoor exhibits including an Aquarium, Forest House, Bird House, Small Mammal House, Insectorium, Butterfly Pavilion, Tropical Greenhouse, a Planetarium and several cafes. There is also Groote Museum (natural history) and Micropia (the world of microbes), neither of which we had the energy to visit. Naturally we had walked a lot, but upon arriving back at the hotel discovered we had only walked a mere 8kms!
Pedestrian 'dike' between exhibits
A state-of-the-art lion enclosure has recently been completed, allowing the public various viewing options.
Emerald beetles in the Insectorium
On our final day in Amsterdam, we decided, yet again, to take it easy and just 'wander about'. Down narrow alleyways and over cobblestoned paths we walked, firstly to Dam Square to the Royal Palace, with coffee and carrot cake at a sidewalk cafe. On and on we walked, stopping in at the odd shop or two. There are many wonderful yet quirky aspects to Amsterdam, not the least of which are the tall skinny buildings on a lean one way or the other. Others include a franchise of shops that just sell rubber duckies of all styles and colours.
The original Amsterdam Post Office originally built in the late 1800s, now a modern multi-storey shopping centre known as Magna Plaza
Yet another building on a lean...
Clocktower built in 1620
The start of an enormous flower market that stretches an entire block. Most of the packets contain bulbs (and not just tulips), but there are Bonsais and other flowering plants as well.
Finally, we turned around and headed back to the hotel - only 7.5kms today! Dinner was superb at Sapore Italiano restaurant where we enjoyed fabulous pasta and Italian red wine, only a few minutes' walk from our hotel.
Only in Amsterdam? Note the second-floor window...
We are really looking forward to boarding the ship tomorrow where we can just 'stand still' for a couple of days. But Amsterdam has been amazing!!
Lovely to read your blog and photos are brilliant photos. What a wonderful time you are both having. We have a grandson in Amsterdam, studying. So beautiful thinks he might stay longer. Please keep us posted. "Love your work."
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