Amsterdam - Arrival Day

Here we go again on another adventure.  This time to Europe on a Viking River Cruise. The dates of this trip are:  Sept 11 - Sept 27. We are traveling from Amsterdam to Budapest. Our 1st stop, Amsterdam. What am interesting city. We're in the heart of town with tons of people and bikes. Soooooo Many Bikes !!!  They have a floating bike parking lot with thousands of bikes parked near the Central Station. And yes, coffee shops everywhere. Cannibis open for smoke and sale all over. Just walk and sniff. Also erotica shops displaying all their wares in the windows! For ALL to see. And the Red Light District??? Not even going there.... Well it was a short day because we were really tired from the flight so we retired early to the room to sleep. I think we were dead to the world by 8 pm. Tomorrow is a long day. Night!!

Amsterdam - Day 2

Ah finally refreshed from a great nights sleep. Now out to the tour company for our all day tour. First northern Netherlands in the morning then we head south. We boarded a large double decker luxury bus. Dibs on the Front Seat !!!  Our first stop was an open air museum consisting of real grain grinding windmills from the 17th & 18th century. Not many of these are left throughout the country. Also here was a wooden shoe maker. He gave us a demonstration on how the shoes were made originally, then how they make them now. They use duplicating machines like making keys. It cuts an exact copy of the shoe onto the block of wood. They use Poplar trees for the wood. Then hand paint them.

The land here is 6 ft below sea level throughout the country. So there are canals everywhere. We drove then to one of the last home made cheese factorys to see how it's made and tastings, of course. Lot's of interesting flavors. Aside from cheese, smoked eel is the specialty of the region. We walked around a very small fishing village, had a drink, snack and some shopping.  We then boarded the Maarkam Express (Ferry) from Volendam to Maarkam over the Eiselmere fresh water lake.  Back onto the bus to head to Delft to visit a Delft porcelain factory.  Here we were given a personalized tour of the factory.  At this factory it is still done all by hand. 

Amazing how the paint changes from black to blue when glazed and fired. Also..... Very expensive! We toured around Haag where the Queen lives and Parliment resides. Lastly we spent some time walking around Madurodam, the miniature city. All the buildings are exact replicas of building in Holland only 25 times smaller. Including the airport, ships, etc. What a long, but very interesting day.  We now head back to Amsterdam for a quick dinner and early to bed again. Weather is cool and nippy. Around 63F. Jacket weather. Busy day again tomorrow!