We flew out on Wednesday and I made sure we did it right - flying business class. Having saved up many miles over the years from work travel, I cashed them in for deluxe hotel and flight accommodations. The eight hour flight went much faster with fully reclining seats, lots of great food and wine, etc. We landed in Amsterdam on Thursday morning and despite the early arrival, our hotel allowed us to check in at 7 a.m.
It's true! These Nederlanders like their bicycles!
Did Anne Frank House day one. Arrived from the airport to our hotel at 7:00 AM and Holly went straight over to get in line while Kevin took a short nap. The line moved much faster than she had anticipated, and got in in a little over an hour, rather than 1:45 like she was expecting. They will have 4000 visitors daily in the high season of July and August. It was good, but very `'herding cattle" like. Self- guided, so you more or less go at your own pace, along with the 100 other people in front and behind you. Eh.
Westerkerk Tower. These are the bells Anne Frank writes about in her diary.
The Frank house. It's the one with black siding on first floor, next to the red shutters.
Manneken Pis are the famous frites served with mayo. We couldn't quite stomach straight-up mayo with our fires, so we mixed ketchup and mayo together.
We had a micro architecture lesson on the boat tour. These are very typical Amsterdam buildings- narrow and tall- as people were taxed by the width of their dwelling. One and two window-wide buildings were very common. More than two meant you were wealthy. At the top of each building is a hoisting beam with a hook to bring furniture into the residences.
This is for you, Ben!
St. Bavo Church was absolutely gorgeous. Both Mozart and Handel played on this organ.
Ration cards stored in the stairwell of the Corrie Ten Boom house is what eventually exposed the underground railroad operation and had her arrested.
The hiding place.
The wooden Alpina clock sign that was used as the secret symbol to let people know if it was safe to come inside the house.
Although the Ten Boom family no longer own the shop, all owners since then have kept the Ten Boom shop name.
On Friday night, our friend Gary arrived as he must not have had anything better to do. For those who remember him, he works with the Purdue radio network and taught me everything I needed to know about frequent flying points, tips, etc. So, we went out to a nice dinner and walked around the main square, red light district and back to our hotel. Saturday was the middle of "Gay Pride Week" in Amsterdam and to say there was a large party in the streets would be an absolute understatement. There was a four hour long boat parade through the canals and lots of music, drinking and good times.
It was so crowded and loud we ventured back to Haarlem again (a mere 20 minute train ride). There we got to see a great Farmers Market in the town square, the St. Bavo Church and talk with a couple of locals who were extremely kind and willing to converse with the visitors from the States. The day was quickly passing us by so we hurried back to Amsterdam have a nice dinner and hit a comedy show. Little did we know how hard it would be to get to our new digs.
We stayed Saturday at the luxurious Waldorf Astoria - aka the most expensive hotel in the Netherlands. It was unreal - so beautiful. A former bank, it's an adjoined home/office turned into a 5-star hotel. Details and staffing are second to none. The only problem, other than trying to choose which of their 10 different pillows on the "pillow menu" we wanted, was getting through the crowds to the hotel. It should have taken 20 minutes, but ended up taking 1 hour and 50 minutes. We got separated in the crowds/mayhem and truly was an exhausting experience.
The sweets table. They had Turkish Delight, just like in the book, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.
We had the only rooftop terrace in the entire hotel!
We missed the comedy show but went to Momo - an Asian fusion restaurant that was great. Sunday morning meant moving out of the expensive Waldorf and into a houseboat on the Amstel River. It was right in the center of the craziness from Saturday. How do we know? Well, other than the ridiculous amount of trash on the streets and sidewalks, our houseboat didn't have any electricity upon arrival.
Relaxing on the houseboat and watching the boats troll by.
Our property owner said it should be fixed by the time we finished our Mike's Bike Tour, so we thought "no problem." Unfortunately we returned sweaty and tired from the two hour ride and still had no electricity. Wouldn't have it, in fact, during our stay. So that meant no hot water to shower and no lights to walk around this unfamiliar overnight lodge on water. It ended up being just fine since it didn't get dark until well after 10 PM, and by then we were exhausted and ready to fall into bed. Here, though, are some of our favorite pictures from the bike tour:
Brewers Canal (Brouwersgracht) was one of the prettiest areas of Amsterdam. It's easy to identify this canal because many of the windows have functional open-shut shutters on them used to keep sunlight and heat away from the brewing beer.
We made it just fine, though sleep was few and far between. And the experience was definitely worth it, but we had to hop a train for a few hours and head to Bruges, Belgium. Once in Bruges, we had one more 5-star hotel to stay in, a beautiful new city to explore and new language to decipher. The Belgians didn't seem quite as outgoing and kind as the Netherlanders, but it was still a fun 28 hours in yet another country. We had a delicious meal at a small upscale restaurant that was owned and operated by a husband and wife.
Just your typical Belgian breakfast buffet.
Market Place, Brugge
Belgian art??
Enjoying a Fanta in a Market Place cafe.
Just your typical Belgian beer shop.
Rooftop view from the Halve Maan brewery
Roomba-like lawn mower on the side of the steep hill of the windmill.
Self-guided bike tour around Brugge led us to some windmills.
We saw this and knew Bryce would love it.
The husband made the delicious food and the wife did everything else! They seat just 24-28 people per night between 7-10 and it was so relaxing and awesome to just hang out and be fed so well. Tuesday was a late return trip to the Amsterdam airport for an early morning flight home. After just 4 hours of sleep, we went to the airport to take KLM from its home hub to London. Once in London we hopped on Virgin Atlantic for an "Upper Class" flight home to O'Hare.
It was luxury at 38,000 feet. More of the same - flat seats to sleep on, nice TV with movies, incredible food and a bar. Yes, you read correctly, a BAR. Four seats and a flight attendant to pour drinks, it was a nice switch as opposed to only sitting in your assigned seat. The staff was amazing. I told them it was our anniversary and shortly before we exited the aircraft we were given a bottle of wine and all kinds of local London snacks. So nice!
And just like that, our week away from work, children and reality passed us by. It was a wonderful week together filled with spoiled luxury we don't normally get… and worth every penny (or frequent flier mile).
