Woop, the birth place of my father. I have been looking forward to this.
Day 1:
We crossed the border from Germany into the Netherlands and stopped at a truck stop for some food. We stepped off the bus to the beautiful smell of silage. “Yep, smells like home!”
I was unimpressed that I couldn’t buy a croquette here and had to settle for a sausage roll. Not a good first impression of the home land.
After our quick food stop we continued north and into the small town of Edam where we did a bike tour around the canals, over the dijks and passed a decent sized windmill.
It was nice to see a small town like this as it was very different to Amsterdam later in the day.
Before leaving Edam we had a demonstration on how wooden clogs are made and an insight into the cheese making process before sampling a number of different cheeses.
We soon got back on the bus and reached our accomodation in Amsterdam. We had enough time to get changed before dinner was served in the hotel restaurant.
After dinner we yet again got onto the bus where we were dropped into then Red Light District. Most of the bus went and watched a live sex show while we used the hour as free time to ‘relax’ over a ‘coffee’.
We soon met with the rest of the group and headed back to the hotel for some much needed sleep. I also found croquettes for sale just below our accomodation 👌
Day 2:
We started the day with breakfast in the hotel restaurant before venturing into the museum district for a group photo on the IAMsterdam sign.
The rest of the tour went on the canal bikes (they all regret that choice) whilst Chrissy and myself checked out the Van Gogh museum.
After the museum we had a small lunch at a local cafe before walking along to the Heineken Experience. I will save the details for another post.
We left the Heineken Experience after around 10 beers and caught a taxi back to our hotel. Tonight was the last night our Contiki group was together and everyone was determined to make it a big night.
We started with a canal cruise, then had dinner (both of which included two drinks per person).
We ended the night in a shot bar. This bar was amazing, 250 different shots to choose from.
Somehow we made it back to the hotel ok.
Day 3:
I had arranged to spend the next two nights with some family in Rotterdam. My father’s cousin Joost and his partner Karen were kind enough to not only offer a bed for a few nights but also collect us from Amsterdam and show us around.
We had a lovely lunch on the beach, complimented with a fresh Heineken of course. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t really in our favour.
We were lucky enough to relax for the afternoon talking amongst the four of us as if we had only seen each other last week (it had been around 20years).
We had an early night as Joost and Karen wanted to show us around Rotterdam in the morning.
Day 4:
We had enough of a sleep-in to feel kind of sane before eating a lovely breakfast to start the day. I must also mention this was the first time we had a cup of tea with fresh milk in 4 weeks. Mmmm lekker.
We went into the city after breakfast and looked around. We also went to the museum which showed before and after shots of the city around the time of world war 2. Rotterdam is very well known for the huge bombings during this time.
We walked to see the huge cathedral and the market hall.
There really is some cool architecture in this city.
Speaking of cool architecture, they have a building that looks like a pencil and strange cube houses mounted on a pedestal. Yes, they are lived in.
We then had lunch and a coffee by the water.
We made it home for a brief rest and to walk the dogs before getting a water taxi over to the port area where the Holland – Amerika boats used to depart from.
This is now a beautiful restaurant we were lucky enough to dine in. We had a few photos outside first.
Once home, we had a quick night cap and headed to bed.
Day 5:
The last day of our holiday….
We left the house after breakfast with our suitcases packed and got some cheese from the market hall to bring back with us.
We then stopped for a coffee and stroll around an older part of Rotterdam. There were cool old boats and windmills littered along the canals. Typical Holland.
Karen then drove us to Utrecht where we met with some more family that were kind enough to travel and see us.
Out came some old photos and some stories of fond memories from past trips to New Zealand. It was nice to see everyone in person after 20+ years.
We walked around the city for a while before departing toward the airport.
I can’t thank Joost and Karen enough for their generosity and I can’t thank the rest of the family enough for taking time out of their weekend to see us. Truly a highlight of our trip!
At the time of writing we are currently somewhere over India travelling at 577mph with 11h 33m left to arrive in Auckland.
Our 6 hour flight to Dubai was easy. The stopover was consumed with purchasing food and cough lozenges. So this is the hard part.
See you soon Auckland – back to reality.
PS. Thanks to those that I have stolen some photos from for this post. (Bryony, William, Willem & Karen)