Amsterdam

Amsterdam is exhausting.

We caught the train from Spaarnwoude out in Haarlem which I would highly recommend if you are planning to do Amsterdam in a motorhome because there is simply nowhere to park in the city and its hectic.

For this we stayed the night at the Windmill De Veer carpark and walked through the lane to the Train Station, a mere km away. The tickets cost us 10€ one way and the trip time was maybe 20 min.

Once your in Amsterdam then it’s all on.

We headed to Jordaan first as I had read it was a nice neighbourhood to be in. It was.

How cool that these houseboats permanently reside in the canals right in the centre of town, hard wired and everything.

We practically stumbled upon the Anne Frank house, the crowds being the giveaway to its location. Actually it was more the Pancake House a few doors down with a queue down the street that first caught our attention. Too bad the wait was horrendous because apparently the pancakes are legendary.

The haphazard architecture is the best, with the houses leaning this way and that and the windows jutting out onto the street.

I would have loved to do The Museums either the Van Gogh or the Rijksmuseum but honestly the queues just killed the moment for me. There’s not much we didn’t see however including the Red Light District which was actually rather tame. In fact the whole “ugly side to Amsterdam” that you read about really wasn’t that ugly during the day – maybe it’s a different story at night.

In total we wandered the streets for over 8 hours, there is just so much to see and I don’t believe we saw any of the same sights because the place is just endless.

We could have easily done 2 days however I think I would have needed a week to rest afterwards and we both felt that we had given it a good bash, as did our feet. Doug forgot to change out of his jandels before leaving and my sandals literally fell to pieces pounding the pavement.

Which reminds me, the other thing we gave a good bash was “cheese tasting”.

So Henri Willeg has a lot of cheese shops, practically every second shop infact and at one stage we just walked shop to shop, toothpick in hand, scoffing samples of cheese. We possibly ate so much cheese that it satisfied our appetite all day apart from a slice of homemade Dutch Apple Pie with lashings of whipped cream. Delicious.

We had a quick look at bikes but that was abandoned after I was nearly squashed by a car, it’s so easy to forget which way the traffic comes at you and that includes push bikes!! That will be another days adventure.

We have arrived in Volendam which is right on the coast tonight to a storm. The clouds are racing across the sky and it’s as dark as the ace of spades outside and yet we are cosy and warm in our lovely motorhome.