Our trip is winding down and today we are in our final port of call, Amsterdam in the Netherlands. At some point during the night, the clocks fell back an hour. Nana and I headed down to the dining room around 8:15am and were joined shortly by Karen and Marie. After finishing breakfast, it was back to the cabins for a rest. We decided to take the Canal Cruise excursion and it was not leaving until 9:30am.
We left the ship and met our guide Herman on the pier. I could not believe that it was another sunny day. It was only a ten minute walk to the boat dock which is where we met our Captain Hans.
The tour lasted about one and a half hours and was a fantastic way to see the city. As we were winding through the various canals, Herman made sure to give us so much information about life in Amsterdam. For example how bikes outnumber cars. He told us that he personally has two bikes … a weekday bike that you leave outside and a much nicer weekend bike that is locked inside the house. He also explained that houses were built so narrow because they were taxed by the width of the property.
After arriving back at the boat dock, the four of us ventured into Old Town. The first thing that struck me was how crowded it was. This was the most people I have seen this entire trip. We walked through the cobblestone streets checking out the various stops. At one point, Nana and Marie had had enough and decided to go back to the ship. Karen and I decided to keep exploring.
We came upon a long line up at Van der Linde, an ice cream shop that has been in business since 1937. We made sure to follow the posted instructions on how to order the ice cream. It is a combination of ice cream and whipped cream, very light and airy. As we were walking along, we noticed that many people were having frites (fries) in a paper cone. I knew we had to have some so we found ourselves at Mannekenpis, a favourite among locals and tourists. The fries are hand cut and fried to perfection. But what sets these fries apart are the over twenty sauces you can get on them. I had mine with BBQ sauce while Karen had the tangy Mannekenpis sauce. It was a very short walk to Dam Square where we found a bench to enjoy our snack.
What flower is most synonymous with the Netherlands, tulips of course. Lucky for us, Amsterdam has a large flower market. There were many stalls selling many varieties of flowers. We quickly learned that we had to look for the flowers that had a health certificate since they would be the only ones allowed into Canada. At least this narrowed down our scope. After spending some time going through all of the stalls, we each walked away with some bulbs that will be enjoyed in the spring.
My friend Marcel (who is Dutch) said we had to try Poffertjes while in Amsterdam. They are like tiny pancakes. Across from the flower market, there was a restaurant serving them so we decided to give them a try. I am glad we decided to take Marcel’s advice because we thoroughly enjoyed our strawberry and banana topped Poffertjes.
It was time to start heading back to the ship. The walk back had me stopping frequently to take pictures of the canals. There was one more area we thought we should go and see … can you guess what it is. If you said the Red Light District you would be correct. All I can say is that it was an eye-opening experience. After all of our meandering, we were back onboard the ship by 5:15pm. Since dinner was not being served until 7:00pm, we had time to relax.
Our final dinner in the Crystal Dining Room was just as enjoyable as our first dinner. The food has been outstanding all week. Because our flight is in the morning tomorrow, we need to leave the ship early. Therefore we finished up our night packing.
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