Amsterdam 2nd Day


 A fairly good sleep last night. Our room is on the back side of the hotel, so it was nice and quiet. We went down to breakfast about 9am in the train-themed breakfast room. Fun to look at all the memorabilia as you have your breakfast. Standard simple breakfast with coffee, juice, , cereal,croissants, toast, meat, cheese, eggs and fruit. 

We headed out for a walk about 10:30am. A little cooler and overcast today. We did a walk alongside a variety of canals, mainly staying to smaller streets that weren't too busy. So many interesting buildings, there are quite a few that look crooked including our hotel! We did see several barges cleaning the canals of garbage, one was only picking up bikes and had collected a huge heap of them.

We decided to get frites from one of the many shops that only sell frites. (we got spicy mayonnaise with ours) then walked over to Anne Frank House for our 12:45pm ticket time. I had toured the museum many years before, but decided it was time for a re-visit.  We did the option with the introductory talk, which I would recommend.I'm really glad I went again as I've been doing some more reading about Anne Frank and felt I got more out of it this time. She was such an incredible personality.

We took a different route back to our hotel, and walked along the river near the main station where the River Cruise boats tie up. It had started to rain by then, so a good time to head back to our hotel for a cup of tea and a rest.

We headed out again about 5pm. The rain had stopped and we decided to go for a canal cruise. The last one I had done was an evening one where you saw the bridges lit up. It's quite a different cruise in daylight. A very laid back way to see the city. From there we walked over to an "Eet cafe" a typical casual Dutch bar with food. Karen had Satay, and I had the daily special - Zuurkool stampot met spekjes and rookwurst , which is mashed potatoes with sauerkraut and bacon, and a sausage. so the Dutch version of bangers and mash! A very good dinner for a coolish evening.

On our walk back to the hotel we saw lots of Dutch soccer fans wearing orange celebrating. So obviously the local team did well!













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