Amsterdam

One reason, possibly, why I’ve fallen so far behind with the blog, is that I’ve struggled to know what to say about Amsterdam. TBH and I have wanted to visit Amsterdam for a very long time, but when we got there is was extremely busy and much, much too hot. I didn’t want to go to the Anne Frank house, the kids weren’t really struck with the idea of the Rijksmuseum, and we couldn’t book a boat to tour the canals despite all of TBH’s efforts.

I took lots of photographs of massed bicycles, and impressive architecture and canals and such like, but looking at them now – they’re a bit rubbish to be honest. My heart can’t have been in it. So – just a couple of photos. The first, taken by a waitress, is from a little road side cafe where we had a superb lunch. Decent vegan food even! The boys had burgers, which became a bit of a theme for a while, although in Germany they discovered the delights of Schnitzel, which became their new favourite. I had a delicious salad and really enjoyed the cafe’s soundtrack of 70’s reggae and 80’s rap. I even managed to smile for a photo, which is virtually unheard of.

We did walk ‘through’ the Rijksmuseum – there’s an archway/tunnel which walkers and cyclists can use – and were all impressed by the giant spider sculptures in the gardens…

These are the work of Louise Bourgeois apparently – you can find out more here.

We were on our way to another, much smaller gallery, of which more to follow…

Wormerveer

Wormerveer was the first stop off on our summer tour, chosen due to its proximity to Amsterdam.

I rather liked the place. The river Zaan flows through, and there’s lots of traffic on the river to watch. Canals abound too. Chocolate is made there and the smell of cocoa is pervasive.

We didn’t book breakfast on the overnight ferry and by the time we’d found our accommodation, settled in and had a bit of a wander, we were all starving. Time to find something to eat. The boys tucked in to huge burgers whilst the vegans had lettuce and chips – from our limited experience, not all restaurants in Holland are geared up to serve vegans.

I had the house special…

…a croquette, a glass of onion soup and carpaccio, which I enjoyed, although it seems like an odd combination with hindsight.

Our home, for the couple of days that we were in Wormerveer, was an old wooden house, by a canal. Charming, but quite small. The kids loved the fact that it had a pinball machine and an arcade machine with lots of old games on it – Pacman, Space Invaders, Defender and probably lots more. It was hard for me to get a look in, but I enjoyed the pinball, at least, that was, until the boys started posting scores which exceeded my own best effort, at which point I found that I much preferred to hide behind the book I was reading – ‘The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet’, which, fortunately, was very entertaining.

The temperatures were a bit crazy whilst we were there, which made sleep a bit elusive. A late night stroll did bring some relief – and some interesting views of the Zaan.