Scandinavia - Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Up at 6:00 this morning.  Down to the lounge area of this barge/hotel for our choice of Good Breakfast, Continental Breakfast, or English Breakfast.  We picked one English, one Continental and two Good.  The food was excellent and well presented.  This place never ceases to amaze.

Our car and driver, Mercedes and Jan respectively arrived just before nine, and we set off on a 5 hour tour of Amsterdam and surrounds.  According to Jan, there are 800,000 residents in central Amsterdam, 800,000 bicycles, and what seems like an equal number of vehicles and motor scooters.  Copenhagen's bicycle traffic was enormous, but compered to this, much more orderly and civilized.  Walking in central Amsterdam is hazardous.  I thought the bicycle storage in Copenhagen's streets was vast, but Amsterdam's is mind bending.

According to Jan, the rule in Amsterdam is that a collision between an auto/truck and a bicycle is always the auto's fault.  Although the bicycle always suffers the most, the auto pays.

I am sure glad that Jan was driving, as the narrow, crowded streets were harrowing just as a passenger.  We eventually toured outside the city, into the suburbs by about 15 kilometers, and the scenery, greenery and water were amazing.  All of Amsterdam is approximately 4 feet below sea level, so there is constant pumping of ground water into the lakes and drying of the land for farming. 

We went to a small cheese making operation and learned how the cheese was produced, sampled a number of varieties, and then made some purchases.  We will see if we can get it home to the U.S. for sampling.

We ended our motor tour around 1:30 and were dropped near the Ann Frank House to stand in line for the tour of the house and museum.  Tickets were not available in advance, although Deb had been trying for months.  The ticket line was anywhere from 45 minutes to several hours.  Our wait was approximately 45 minutes. 

The Ann Frank story, though familiar is a truly inspiring one. To see the size of the rooms and hear her words  from the diary, and to understand her father's perseverance in getting the diary published and the museum established was well worth the wait.  We spent approximately 2 and one-half hours doing this tour and shop. We ended with a glass of wine and a shared sandwich in the museum cafe before ambling back via the winding streets along the canals to our hotel about 6:15.

We ended the evening with a 2 hour dinner cruise along the canals.  The food was very good, the wine copious, but the tour portion lacked much depth.  Although we had earlier faulted Jan, our driver, for not imparting much knowledge, the dinner cruise proved that we had learned much more than we thought. Home to hotel and bed by 10:15.  A good long day.