Amsterdam

Amsterdam 20/05/14

 

Although it was very sad to say goodbye to Jan and Nick at the train station (their hospitality has been amazing!) we were also excited to be embarking on the next leg of our trip.

 

Barb sampling apple pie Gate 3 Schipol Airport

John in front of glass topped buses

Barb in Amsterdam street

The train ride from Akkrum to Amsterdam only took a couple of hours, and we got off at Schipol airport station briefly to deposit our luggage into the aiport luggage lockers before catching the next train back into Amsterdam Central. This was so Barb could realize her dream of seeing the Van Gogh exhibition there. Van Gogh is her favourite artist (besides Monet) from the Impressionist era and any chance she gets to view his work is avidly pursued.

 

Amsterdam was very busy on a Tuesday morning. The drivers here are not polite (especially those coming up behind to park on the pavement – see next sentence!) and there are also trams to contend with when negotiating the streets. We were very alarmed to have a van mount the sidewalk behind us, horn blaring, especially as we were on a bridge over a canal at the time and there was nowhere to escape other than over the side. The cyclists were not as bad, but only just.

 

Royal Palace

Rijks Museum

Rijks Museum

We walked down through the old part of the city past the sex shops, red light district and Royal Palace. Why are they so close together? We walked and walked until we came upon the very grand building housing the Rijks Museum. We peeked into this building, but decided there was no time to do it justice and still have time for Van Gogh, which was just across the road.

 

Amsterdam park

John outside Van Gogh museum

Barb with large Sunflowers

The Van Gogh experience was wonderful. Barb was in heaven! John was moderately interested and enjoyed it too. We exited via the gift shop and made our way on foot back towards the train station. It would’ve been nice to catch one of the glass covered canal buses, but they seemed very over-priced, full ands elsewhere, so we trudged on.

 

Amsterdam Central train station

John in the park

Walking through Rijks Museum

We did at least take a different path and John had to drag Barb past the shops on the way. We arrived back at the airport in plenty of time to retrieve our bags and await our flight.

 

When we reached Stansted, John picked up the car from the hire place and we headed back to Susan’s home again.