The End of Our River Journey — and a Visit With Dear Friends
We ended our Viking River Boat Journey in Amsterdam harbor. The Viking Ve docked at Ruijterkade Oost D sometime during the night. We had breakfast on board and waited for our friends Gert and Astrid to pick us up and bring us to a the Fletcher Het Witte Huis Hotel in Amersfoot, which is close to their village Hoogland. We were all looking forward to this visit.
Astrid wanted to know if there was anything we wanted to see in Amsterdam before we took left the city for their Village. Barb wanted to see the Anne Frank house and the Diamond Museum.
The first impression I had of Amsterdam was thousands of bicyclists seeming to converge on us from all directions. I remembered Kane Davies our Viking program director telling us that the red that indicated the bike lanes was not paint, but the blood of tourists. The Amsterdam cyclists seemed equally cavalier about autos and pedestrians.
Amsterdam seemed to be straining to contain the sheer number of people that live there now. It actually seemed more crowded than New York City – my former benchmark for claustrophobic living.
When we got to the Anne Frank house the lines were around the block, so Barb decided that a drive by was good enough. The Diamond Museum was in the same neighborhood so we pulled in and got ready for a “Diamond are a Girl’s Best Friend” moment. After we wandered around ‘all that that glittered’ we head across the street to a park to people-watch and rest.
This Amsterdam park is the home to the fattest, boldest pigeons I have ever seen.
After a bit a pastry and a cup of tea we headed over to the largest Casino in the Netherlands – Gert and Astrid’s friend is a manager there and thought Barb and Paul might like to compare Amsterdam’s Casino to the Las Vegas Clubs. The oddest thing was that you had to show ID and be register at the front desk before going onto the floor. After the tour we left the Big City and settled into the more rural and quite part of Holland. There were still cyclist in Amersfoort and Hoogland —just not the maniacal, death-defying breed that inhabits Amsterdam.
We closed out our first day in Holland at the Hotel restaurant with a very good, quite dinner. As we were planning an early day at Gert’s Dog Club on Saturday we got to bed early to rest up for our last full day of vacation.