Amsterdam
19th June
After we had got settled in at Amsterdam marina, Carole caught up on the laundry while Chris looked after some work issues. We then showered and bathed and located and took one of the free ferries into central Amsterdam (a ten minute journey). We were hungry so found a restaurant quite quickly – an Indian, where we chose one vegetarian and one meat thali, which is a selection of small dishes on one big tray each. We both enjoyed this meal, which was very well cooked, if a tad spicy, but the portions were again very big and much was left. Chris then got a phone call from a friend and colleague, David, who works and lives most of the time in Amsterdam and we met him for a drink and interesting chat. By the time we headed back to the boat it was dark and cold and we were glad to get back in the warm.
We wanted to pay a visit to the Anne Frank house and museum and luckily, we were able to buy some tickets online for later that afternoon. We decided to have lunch on the boat, then caught the ferry into central Amsterdam and took a tram to the street it stands on. There were many people waiting, so we checked out what we had to do and then went for a walk round until the appointed time. We joined a group of different nationalities for the 5 o’clock tour. It is difficult to describe this tour, but it was certainly interesting and very thought provoking and the one thing I did notice, was that most people did the tour in silence, thoroughly reading all the exhibits and listening carefully to the video and audio presentations. Later generations like ours still find it difficult to believe that something as awful as this could have been allowed to happen. The saddest thing is that similar things are still occurring somewhere in our world.
After the tour, we visited their coffee shop and enjoyed drinks and a shared slice of apple pie, which was delicious. We then walked back to the ferry, which was quite a trek, and got blown back across the river. Chris cooked dinner tonight after which we settled down for a quiet evening and an early night, as all that walking had knackered us.
Next morning began with the banging of the piling hammer from about 7.30, so we crawled out of our beds for some peace and a shower. Carole then did the final laundry load for a few days while Chris did some work. We then readied ourselves for our canal trip round Amsterdam. However, we had a look in the marina restaurant and after a nice salad with fries lunch, we felt an afternoon nap was more appropriate for how we felt, so we deferred going in to Amsterdam until Friday.
Friday morning began again noisily, so we showered, breakfasted and headed to the local supermarket to top up our stores. After making our packed lunch, we headed into Amsterdam and bought our ‘hop on, hop off’ canal tickets. The day turned out to be quite a grey, wet one, so at least we were able to do our tour of Amsterdam and its canals in the relative warmth and shelter of the canal buses. We took our last walk through Central Station and caught the ferry back to the boat. Following supper, we got our charts and books out and had a look at our next destination, as tomorrow we were leaving Amsterdam.