Day 27 - Amsterdam last one

Today we did all the things we wanted to do in Amsterdam: Anne Frank  house and Van  Gogh exhibit/museum.  It was a beautiful day here.  Walked to the Anne Frank house, only stood in line 40 minutes to get tickets.  While in line we met two young women from Ireland -- both in University -- one from Kerry and the other from Belfast (photo to follow).   Both were really charming!  Then we met an Israeli businessman who works for Cisco.   He invited  us to visit his country -- said it was not as dangerous as they make it sound.

Anne Frank house was worth the time in line.  I read her diary when I was in high school so this really brought it home to me how tough it was to live in that space or two years.  It was spacious until you realized 8 people lived there for two years.  Anne died one month prior to the release of the concentration camp inmates.  It was another moving experience.  From there  we wandered over to the royal palace and Amsterdam center.  Then we hopped on the tram to go to the museum district where we purchased tickets for the 3 pm showing at the Van Gogh museum.  We found an outside cafe and ate lunch (not that good) and then watched people for a while before going to stand in line for the 3 pm showing.  What a hoot!  We were in first in line for the prepaid ticket line so we got to hear the museum spiel over and over -- this line is to buy tickets, this is for voucher exchanges, etc.  We were helping sometimes when there were so many people asking questions.  We talked to one museum worker for quite a while.  She was darling!

The Van Gogh museum was wonderful.  He is one of our favorite artists and they had a lot of his works plus several of his artist friends' work (mostly on loan from other collections) when it showed connection to his own works.  It took us two hours to go through it and if it hadn't been so crowded, we might have stayed longer.  He did some amazing work!

Then we headed back to the Renaissance on the tram.  We ate at the outside cafe next to the hotel.  We ate there when we arrived and tonight -- the last night.  Seemed fitting!

This is the last blog on this trip unless we don't make it home tomorrow!

 Hotel

Hotel

hotel

Not sure if you can see how this building has settled

 Same view with two buildings

Along walk to Anne Frank house

Along same path

Not sure you can see the hooks at the top of the building to move furniture, etc. 

Lots of plants along this street

Prinzegracht canal

Same

Same

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Same

Gate to a house boat

House boat with beautiful flowers

Line for Anne Frank house

 

Mary with the two Irish young women

Crown on top of light post by Anne Frank house

John

On way to Royal palace

Magna shopping center

Inside shopping center

Same

Royal palace

Mary with mime

Royal church

Mary at museum plaza showing how big this planter is

Museum plaza views

Same

Same

Same

Same

Same - Rik museum

Sculptures at museum plaza

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Van Gogh work

 Claude Monet work

Van Gogh

Van Gogh - dark period

Last known work

From Van Gogh museum

Same

Mary in Van Gogh chair

tilting building close to hotel

garbage truck working on Sunday

Day 26 - Amsterdam but no Brussels

Getting on the train was no problem.  In fact, not all the sleeper cabins were occupied!  The conductor sounded just like Peter Sellers in the Pink Panther.  Cracked me up every time I heard him talking in the hallway -- especially when he was  speaking Czech!  The sleeper was small with two bunks and several places to store bags up over the doorway and bathroom.  The shower was quite small and the sink was on a rotating rod so it could be in the shower or toilet area.  Very compact but very functional.  The lower bunk flipped up and three seats could be pulled out.  There really  wasn't that much to do so I fell asleep early forcing John to give up his watch by the window of the scenery/train stations.   I slept really well -- the motion of the train was soothing to me and the bed was very firm so I was content.  John not so much!  We were up at 4:30 because we thought we had to be off the train by 6:17 a.m.  The morning conductor brought us breakfast about 5:30 a.m.  He pulled out a table from a locked compartment in the hallway and hooked it into a pocket under the window.  Cool!  About six he informed us that the train was running about an hour late.  What???

When we got to the Cologne  main train  station and got off the train, we saw that our train to Brussels was canceled.  So off to the ticket office where we learned that the train was a Thalus which no longer had a relationship with other eurorail providers so even if she were to make a reservations the next train, there was no guarantee they would honor it.   The train from Brussels to Amsterdam  was owned by the same carrier.  They only allow a few slots for eurorail pass holders so we were concerned if we could get from Brussels to Amsterdam.  We figured God was sending us a message to go to Amsterdam so we made all the necessary changes -- train, hotel cancelation, hotel reservation change, etc. and headed to Amsterdam. Snag again:  we had to change trains just before Amsterdam and that one was canceled because they are doing work at the Amsterdam central station.  We finally got on a milk run train which was packed by the time we got to our destination but, at least, it ran!  Then our room wasn't ready at the hotel so we had to go out to do things for a while.  But we are in our room, it's spacious and we think an early bedtime is in our future!

Met a nice woman from Chicago on the train headed to Rotterdam to take a 14 day cruise to Norway. She just retired from All State.

We are tired of lugging the suitcases and sleeping in so many different beds so think we will be ready to come home Monday!

 Sleeper car

Bathroom

Same

Same

Leaving Prague

Leaving Prague

Along the way to Germany

Along the way

Same

Same

Same

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Same

Smae

Same

Cologne

Cologne cathedral

Love the pink hair that looks like cotton candy

Dutch home

One of the two old windmills we saw

Beer wagon in Amsterdam

Amsterdam