Our visit to England had been absolutely brilliant. Linda and Mike went out of their way to make sure we had a jam-packed six days filled with fun activities and we couldn’t thank them enough. They did all the hard work – we just had to turn up. Sadly, it was time to say goodbye….
It’s always nice to be shown around a city by a native. Irene van der Rol and I are distant cousins, having a common ancestor several generations back, but we’d met and corresponded through Facebook. The app does have its uses. I’ve re-connected with a number of people through FB – but that’s another story….
We arrived at Schiphol around eleven in the morning and caught a taxi to our hotel. Banks Mansion is a boutique hotel on the edge of the Herrengracht in central Amsterdam. The usual check in time for hotels is 2pm, which is always a pain when you’ve just been en route for well over a…
Introduction Last week I re-created a blog post that I inadvertently deleted, one part of our 2013 Australian walkabout when we drove around the continent in about a month. That meant checking the website to see if I’d mislaid the item and one thing led to another, as these things do, and I found I’d…
The weather cleared a wee bit on Saturday, so we mooched around enjoying the city. We’d spent quite a bit of time up on the eleventh floor admiring the efficiency of Amsterdam’s transport system. From up there you can watch the trains filtering in to the central station via the dozen or so lines and…
Seeing as how we live near the seaside in Australia, a trip to Amsterdam’s local beach at Zandvoort seemed like a nice little expedition. I remember a little Dutch song about going to the beach in summer. Sorry, no subtitles but I’m sure you can rock along with the melody. Maybe I even went there…
Well… we’re back. From Europe, that is. Amsterdam, Rhine cruise and a coach tour of parts of Eastern Europe. Pretty much a month on the other side of the world. It wasn’t the most wonderful trip, on account of happenings. Oh, not horrible, major happenings. No cars jumping the kerb to run people down. No…
We’re back in Amsterdam recovering from jet lag before we catch a riverboat tomorrow for a cruise up the Rhine to Switzerland. It’s amazing, really. We’ve flown 16,200km to take a journey that’s less than 750km by car. But the river meanders, we take side trips and we stop a lot. Long distance travel isn’t…
After the Budapest – Amsterdam cruise finished, we stayed in Amsterdam for two more nights before the long trek back to Australia. Amsterdam is a beautiful city. Those canals really raise it above more of the same, with reflections and views and history around every corner. It’s not an old city, though. Not like Budapest…
We cruised along the canal that connects the Rhine to the city of Amsterdam on the River Ij. The overcast weather threatened rain and there wasn’t much to see, but it was very green and there were cows, all of which is quintessentially Dutch. We tied up at docks just behind Amsterdam’s central station, right…