A wee travelogue ah wrote a aboot mah trip tae Amsterdam, ah hope it gies yiz a wee flavour. Ah interspersed it wi photies. :)

Friday 30th September 2011

Woke up early to the sound of blasted pigeons on our balcony. Got out of bed, still tired, had a cup of coffee and a cigarette. I didn't need to be at the airport for another four hours. Busied myself tidying up and dressing. Drove to Heathrow to meet my long time bestest pal from Australia, Sue Hunter. She had come over to comfort me after the death of my beloved husband John. I hadn't seen Sue for around sixteen years and was looking forward to seeing her and spending some time with her. The plane was on time. We picked up Sue and headed back to London through the mid morning traffic. London looked resplendent in the hot sun, unusual for October. We had been experiencing an Indian Summer for the past week, and today the sun was glinting on the windows of the buildings like the jewels in a royal crown, giving us a good feeling as the sun always does.

Our plan was that Sue should sleep after her long journey with the aim of off-setting her jet lag. She had been delayed at Melbourne and had an long wait in Singapore for her standby flight. We would cook at home tonight and she would get adjusted to our time zone and be refreshed in the morning.

Saturday 1st October 2011
Saturday morning, we both dressed and showered, and after breakfast we jumped in a taxi and headed for Portobello Road Market, where we were meeting Sue's brother Andrew and his wife Judy.

We arrived on time and joined them for a coffee in one of the trendy coffee shops which litter the Notting Hill Gate area of London. Andrew and Judy were on a trip through Europe and had limited time. We had a pleasant chat for around an hour, and all too soon we were parting company, they were going to St Paul's Cathedral. Sue and I took a stroll through the Market.

Portobello Road Market had been a haunt of mine when I first came to London, John and I went there frequently, it had a buzz about it and on this beautiful sunny October day, the market was busy with tourists snapping photos and milling around stopping in their tracks to watch the antics of some of the stall holders trying to sell their wares. Portobello Road had been one of the hubs for hippies in the sixties and early seventies. The place was buzzing in the morning sunshine and we spent a pleasant couple of hours browsing the market stalls with their cornucopia of items for sale.

Bought some Peacock Feathers for my granddaughter Tamsyn, sue tried to get something for her husband Michael with the Hunter tartan in one of the several Scottish shops, but to no avail. We had lunch in one of the many gourmet pubs dotted up and down the market. Changed days from when John and I shared brown rice and chicken from a market stall as that was all we could afford in those days. Another stroll through the rest of the market and a taxi back to Fulham, a quiet night in and early bed.

Sunday 2nd October 2011
Sunday was bright and sunny again, out of bed, breakfast, shower and into the car heading for Mortlake Cemetery to visit John so that Sue could pay her last respects. The cemetery was quiet and peaceful in the beautiful morning sun, shafts of sunlight piercing through the trees and a gentle breeze rustling the branches of the arboreum of trees which were in abundance, their russet and brown coloured leaves falling gently to the ground and rustling underfoot. The heather I had planted the previous week was looking strong and beautiful. We sat on the nearby bench in quiet, tearful reflection and thought of John. We left John in the sunshine and headed back to the car and the hurly burly of the London traffic, even on a Sunday, it never stops, always busy. We headed towards Knightsbridge as Sue wanted to go to Harrods and Harvey Nicks. Amazingly we got a parking space just behind Harrods.

We only wanted to visit the food hall and then lunch. Harrods food hall is a must to see when visiting London. As well as the amazing decor, all sorts of food is there and beautifully displayed. They boast you can buy anything in Harrods, so I put it to the test and asked if they sold squerr sausages, they didn't, and even if they did they wouldn't have been as good as Merlot's. Sue bought a gift box of fine teas for her Mother and some Harrods chocolates, I bought some chocolate for my granddaughter. After a couple of hours browsing around Harrods we went outside into the bright sunshine and had the most beautiful, but expensive, lunch in an Italian restaurant across from Harrods. After lunch we were a bit tired and decided to give Harvey Nicks a miss and just go home for a nap before going out for dinner that evening to the Blue Elephant.

A famous Thai restaurant on Fulham Broadway. I hadn't eaten much Thai food before, so ordered their banquet, which is a little taster of several Thai dishes. The decor in the restaurant is an experience in itself, like walking into a forest with little wooden bridges taking you to the different sections of the restaurant, the service was impeccable and the food was beautifully presented and tasted wonderful, together with the good company of my happy, bubbly friend Sue, a perfect evening. Home to bed early as we were off to Amsterdam in the morning.

Monday 3rd October 2011
Awoke refreshed after a good night's sleep. After breakfast we telephoned a taxi to take us to St Pancras Station where we were catching the Eurostar, through the channel tunnel to Brussels and then on a Thalys train to Amsterdam.

Sue in St Pancras waiting for the Eurostar

We looked like a pair of backpackers with our laptop rucksacks on our backs and our suitcases. Sue had booked us 1st class which meant we had free internet and were served lunch on the train. Sue said to me "do you think we are in the tunnel yet?" and just as she said it the tannoy announced that we would be arriving in Calais in the next few minutes, it was a very quick journey through the tunnel to France.

We arrived in Bruxelles and were immediately lost, there seemed to be no station staff, and no one we spoke to could speak English. However, needless to say we eventually found our connecting train and resumed our journey to Amsterdam, arriving around 3:00pm European Standard Time.

Sue outside Brussels Station

Sue's cousin-in-law Allan was there to meet us. Allan has lived in Amsterdam for 23 years and speaks Dutch fluently. He lives with his partner in central Amsterdam. He took us to our hotel as we were tired and just wanted flop out before going out later for dinner.

We arranged that Allan would pick us up from the hotel on Wednesday as he had the day off, and would spend the day and evening with us. The hotel was a little way out from central Amsterdam "The Blue Cube", a Best Western Hotel, our room was enormous and the hotel was beautiful, which was a surprise after seeing it's inauspicious exterior.

Our Hotel Room

It just looked like a big blue cube, hence the name I guess. After unpacking we thought we might have dinner in the hotel, but after looking at their dull menu, we decided to go for a stroll around the area and found a nice Italian restaurant where I had rib-eye steak and Sue had Shoarma, later we were to see, and laugh about that word many times. Not too much to see near the hotel, typical city surburban area. We were almost run over a million times by cyclists.

Bicycles at the side of the road near the hotel with a bus in the background

Amsterdam's roads are split, cyclists have their own road separate from the cars and trams, and with the traffic going the wrong way, we took a little time to get used to it, hence our encounters with cyclists, we kept thinking we were on the pavement, but we weren't. After dinner, back to the hotel, where I sat on a wall overlooking a stream and had a cigarette before going back to our room.

View from my wee cigarette wall

Laptops out, GlescaPals and Facebook then a fitful sleep, I never sleep too well when away from home.

Tuesday 4th October 2011
Woke up still tired, got out of bed made a coffee and went down to the wall overlooking the stream for a cigarette, taking my coffee with me. Sue showered and when I got back I showered and we went down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. Buffet style breakfast with the usual continental fare. Cold meats, cheeses, fruit, cereals. However, unusually there was bacon, scrambled or boiled eggs, tomatoes and mushrooms. Needless to say I had bacon, egg, mushroom & tomato, Sue had fruit and boiled egg on toast. Chatted about what we would be doing that day.

We bought a public transport ticket 7 euros for 24 hours on any tram, metro or bus, good value I thought. We caught a bus into the central area. The public transport system in Amsterdam is clean and the buses and trams are frequent and not too crowded, a million miles from the dirty, crowded buses and trains in London. Alighted the bus near Central Station and strolled around getting our bearings. Sue had booked us on a canal tour of the city, so we made our way to the canal side and caught one of the many canal tour boats for our first glimpse of Amsterdam's history and architecture.

Amsterdam is an old city and is best seen from the many canals which meander through the city.

The architecture is plain, with tall narrow buildings with Flemish detail. All of the buildings have a long flag pole protruding from them, but it's not for a flag, it is to get large furniture into the apartments, as the stairs are too narrow to allow large furniture. As we sailed along we saw a demonstration of this as some Dutch people were hoisting a bed up to the top flat. The look of the city is olde worlde and very pleasing.

We passed the tall ship "The Amsterdam" berthed in the enormous harbour.

The guide pointed out the many side canals with their frequent bridges, a beautiful sight looking down through the canal with the bridges forming a perfect perspective, and the sun glittering on the water and the small craft busily too-ing and fro-ing up and down the narrow waterway.

We chatted with a nice German couple, who spoke perfect English. We got off the boat and by this time we were ready for lunch.

We strolled aimlessly and found ourselves in the hippy, cannabis area and went into a Tapas Bar for lunch.

Nice lunch and served by a Spanish waitress who also spoke perfect English. After lunch we strolled around browsing the "head shops" and "Coffee shops", their main produce is not coffee or heads. Enjoyed this area, lots of rock and hippy memorabilia.

Caught the bus back to the hotel and just flopped out, watching TV and on lap top to GlescaPals.

Decided to go out again for dinner, this time we went to a Turkish Restaurant, where I had steak (again) and Sue, didn't have Shoarma. Nice dinner and back to my wee wall by the stream for a cigarette and then to bed, looking forward to meeting Allan and spending the day with him. Slept a bit better.

Wednesday 5th October 2011

Got up around 8:30, feeling refreshed, coffee, fag, shower and breakfast. Allan was picking us up from the hotel at 11:30. He arrived a little early and we set off in the car. Allan said he would like to take us out of the city to a quaint little village called Broek in Watterland just outside Amsterdam. What a beautiful place, we would never have seen if not for Allan and I thank him for that. It was the highlight of my whole trip. Some of the buildings dated back to the 13th century, but most dated from around the 17th and 18th century.

It is difficult to do it justice with words. The houses are small and the few streets there, are narrow, with room for only one car. All of the houses are, by law, painted in one of three colours, A sort of moss Brown, cream and a light sage green.

There are bridges everywhere, crossing the obligatory canals, and in the centre there is a large lake surrounded by typically dutch houses painted in the three colours, with little boats moored in front of the houses, very picturesque. We spent several hours there and Sue and I bought some postcards and stamps, needless to say, Sue wrote hers and posted them, mine are still in my handbag, written and stamped but not posted, typical of me.

Back to the car and Amsterdam. Allan took us to lunch in a Home Baker Shop, where I had the biggest sandwich I have ever seen. With home made meatloaf, and masses of salad. Sue had the best salad she had ever tasted with dutch cheeses and fresh beetroot, and a dark brown bread, perhaps pumpernickel.

After lunch we caught the bus back to our hotel and arranged to meet Allan and his partner Jan, at Dam Square for dinner. Because I had never eaten Indonesian food, they all decided that I must. Allan and Jan took us to their favourite Indonesian restaurant and we all had Rijstafel, again a feast of different tastes, I loved it all, especially the coconut curry. After dinner Jan had to go home, up early in the morning, and Allan took us for a stroll through the red light district, my gosh!!!!! Nuff said :o :o :o

We then caught a taxi back to the hotel and straight to bed.

Thursday 6th October 2011
Had a bit of a lie in, we were supposed to be going on the cannabis tour, but since we had found it all ourselves we cancelled the tour. Caught the bus to Dam Square and walked around the back of the church to the canal-side house of Anne Frank, a typical Amsterdam house unremarkable except for it's famous resident.

It was too many stairs for me so we took some pictures outside and had a stroll around the area.

We then caught a taxi to the Amsterdam Hard Rock Cafe for lunch, and took some photos of it's famous patrons and their rock memorabilia. Typical American Style food, and Sue said that the food in the Hard Rock Cafe is the same the world over, like McDonalds, only dearer.

Enjoyed sitting there watching the tourists and reminiscing about the bands and singers of my youth.

Got a bus back to the central area after lunch and bought some T Shirts and Clogs for my grandchildren and some Dutch chocolate for my daughters. Thought about buying cheese but thought it would be off by the time we got home.

We were supposed to catch a tour bus around Amsterdam but we decided not to do it as our feet were getting sore and we wanted to have a shower before dinner.

We caught a bus back to the hotel and showered and changed. We went out and walked around the area a bit and went into an Egyptian Restaurant call Toetanchamon

Me in Toetanchamon

Guess what? They had the ubiquitous Shoarma on the menu, but we both had steak (again).

Sue in Toetanchamon

The steak was lovely and we

chatted for a while and sauntered back to my wall, where I had a cigarette. Slept well dreaming of Little dutch boys, tulips, Anne Frank and windmills.

Friday 7th October 2011

Our last day in Amsterdam. Allan was picking us up at 11:30am for our train at 12:30 to Brussels and then onward on the Eurostar to St Pancras, where my son-in-law Doug was waiting to meet us.

I loved Amsterdam and will go there again, and thank my good friend Sue for taking me there.