Day 9 Amsterdam

This tripping around is rather tiring. We were in bed before 10 and I slept until 6.30. We had a leisurely start to the day and were on our bikes by 8.30 and on our way to Anne Frank’s house where we had booked tickets for 9.30. We got there successfully except an encounter with a thorn bush for Trisha. As we were early I went off to try and find an ETOS chemist for some anti bacterial cream for her, but got a bit lost so returned so I wasn’t late.

Anne Frank house was very moving, and reading all the stories again just brought it home how horrific that time was for people. There is now a video at the end saying that 30 years ago about 50 % of the world had democratic rule, in 2021 that had shrunk to 30%. So there was quite a message about protecting our democracy which was a sobering message.

Across the road was the tulip museum so we had a look at their nick nacks which were all pretty cute and then onto a cheese shop next door where we tasted a lot of cheese. On the way to Anne Frank I had noticed fresh stroopwaffles, so then we went in search of those. Biked quite a way before we found one, but while biking down a busy street I spied a croc shop. I have been getting sore spots on my feet from all the walking in the heat. I thought about bringing my crocs from nz but changed my mind last minute. Fur lined wouldn’t have worked here though. I was very pleased to find some bright yellow ones on special and wore them for the rest of the day.

After our stroopwaffle we realise there was a Hard Rock Cafe in town which is somewhere Trish had been keen to try. We had a really nice lunch there with a cool drink and the best thing was the air con. Then it was off to a local park for a lie down on the grass. Lots of traffic there, foot and bike. The most interesting was the guy walking about 10 large dogs while he was on his bike, just around the corner they all ran off chasing something, no one seemed to care.

I was pleased that I managed to navigate the 5kms back to our place without the help of google. The canals help a lot with the orientation.

After a couple of hours rest, we departed on our big night out in Amsterdam! Managed to find our way to the metro station, bought tickets for there and the way back and we were off! There were loads of people around. We did visit the Museum of Secrets which had insights about the prostitution industry which was very interesting. Then we roamed around, saw a few people who possibly had been eating the special cookies. There were some ladies in windows who were ready for business. We didn’t buy anything to eat or drink while we were out and no prizes for guessing how long we were out for! But we managed to get the metro back with no issues and had dinner in our room.

Packing up time again as we are off to Ghent and some Belgium chocolate tomorrow.

30 degrees, 12, 094 steps and around 20 kms on the bikes.

I really enjoyed the biking. I should tot up the near misses…
1. Trisha getting spiked on her lower leg by a thorny bush after riding into the bushes
2. Me riding totally into the info centre when I forgot I only had back brakes which didn’t work well
3. Trisha nearly arsing off coming out of the park when someone biked to close to her and she lost her balance
4. Motorbike hooning around the corner in the bike lane nearly taking me out and yelling imbecile as he left
5. Very fast guy on a black bike that I just didn’t see having to take evasive action
6. Trisha following me when the sign changed to stop and getting abused

But we lived to tell the tales!Read more