Woke up in Amsterdam this morning. An English speaking guide met us for a bus tour around the city. Just as I pictured – canals, bridges, waterfront buildings. We had an hour to spare before our booking in the Van Gogh museum so the cork lads wanted to do some walking, the Laois couple and Fiona decided on some retail therapy. I stayed on the canal bank soaking up Amsterdam atmosphere and watched the world “sail” by.
Van Gogh Museum was so informative – another excellent guide– exhibitions of all his work as a timeline … I probably never appreciated his genius – and it was great to have previously known about the Arles (France) connection
Fiona and I decided to see some of the countryside and signed up for a trip to Edam and the Zaanse Schans windmills (all operational) and traditional village – who could think of Holland without windmills and cheese????
Just imagine that most of Holland is below sea level and yet they have designed a system of drainage and land reclamation that allows farming on a grand scale. Will think of these polders when i hear about the annual flooding in Ireland!!!! Many of the farmers have their own windmills to drive the drainage systems!
Amazing that Zaanse, realising that Irish is an official European Language has produced a guide leaflet “as Gaeilge”.
Onto the village of Edam next, one of the centres for the CHEESE industry- lovely little town – traditional Dutch houses – the rest of the gang walked through …. I slept on bus – it’s a busy day!!!!!
We visited a dairy farm on way back and Auntie Antje, the farmer’s wife, showed us how cheese is made. Then we got a chance to sample – would have loved to bring some home but case weight is a consideration. So just feasted here!!!
Barely an hour for dinner, then out again for the Grachtan tour of the canals by night. As the tour was designed for the predominantly German contingent, Marie Claire (designated minder of the Irish) accompanied us to translate – unfortunately she thought most of the information was “irrelevant” and we had to make do with our limited knowledge of German!!!! We have the poor girl totally confused with our humour; she’s trying so hard, BUT!!!!!!
