We woke up this morning (always a good start) feeling quite refreshed after the incredibly long day yesterday. We’ve managed to get the better of the lethal stairs by wearing the very sexy Hotel Indigo sauna slippers instead of going up/down barefoot 😂😂.
We slept very well, although we did hear some rain in the night, but fortunately the weather turned out fine for the day. I had been bitten in the night under my left eye and hoped it wouldn’t ruin my day – it didn’t, but as the day went on and the bite subsided, another bite came up on my cheek – I’ve no idea what they’d come from, but they obviously found me tasty 😋 ….
We had a 09:30 start to get the bus into Amsterdam Centraal, then a tram to The Van Gogh Museum. Jezza was so excited about this – he simply loves trams 😂😍.
The Van Gogh Museum was a great success. We hired an audio tour to take us around which was well worth it. We learned so much about Van Gogh’s life – yet another life cut short through tragedy ….
Little did I know what I have in common with Van Gogh – he kept a box of different coloured wools so he could make up his colours – it was cheaper to buy the wool and mix the paints to match them, than buy all the different coloured paints!! But maybe my boxes of wools are a little bit bigger than Vincent’s 🤭🤭- and of course, I don’t paint 🙄.
Jezza was really getting into all Van Gogh’s painting techniques, taking his glasses off and looking close up 🤨, so much so that I’m thinking of getting him an artist’s starter kit for his birthday …. 🤫🤫🤫
Whilst I was looking at one of the paintings, a young girl (about 30) stood in front of me and waved – at first I thought she may be waving at someone behind me. She continued to wave and I must’ve given her a funny look as she said “Hi, we were on the walking tour with you yesterday!” I wasn’t sure that I recognised her, but I politely said “oh yes – what a coincidence seeing you here today – are you stalking us?!!” 😂😂. She found this amusing and we went our separate ways.
We read that it would take 2-3 hours to go round the museum, so we thought that would tie in nicely with lunch. 4 hours later 🤦🏻♀️, we were feeling quite peckish and, as we had a table reserved for tonight at the restaurant we went to on our first night here, we thought a sandwich would suffice, so we went to the little snack shop in the Museum. We could’ve bought a Van Gogh biscuit for 5€ or a piece of cake for 9€ 😳😳. So, we went up to the proper restaurant in the Museum to find something decent – having queued for a table, we were informed that there was a 30-40 minute wait to be served 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️. Needless to say, we gave up on that and, having seen everything, we decided to leave and get a snack elsewhere. We went into a mini supermarket and got something to tide us over which we ate on some seats nearby.
We were sitting not far from some bins and noticed men going to them and taking out the cans and plastic bottles and putting them in their bags. We have no idea what it was all about – maybe a recycling initiative where the collectors are paid per bottle/can…. 🤔🤔
By this time it was about 15:30, so made our way back to the tram stop. The tram was pretty full when it came and so we had to stand. Jezza tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to the couple next to us – it was the girl from the walking tour and her husband!!!! We couldn’t believe the coincidence – Amsterdam isn’t huge, but what were the odds of us being on the same tram today? 🤔😂. We had quite a chat with them- they were from Toronto and had come over for a wedding and hired a car driving around Europe. The husband said he’d studied at Kitchener University, which is where our Canadian friends are from!!! When we parted ways, I said we probably wouldn’t see them again – unless they were following us to Berlin 😂😂😂
We must’ve got back to our AirBnB at about 16:30. It was sooooooo nice to take our trainers and socks off!! I think yesterday was beginning to catch up with us – it certainly was with Jezza – he stretched out and was knocking out the 💤💤 within minutes 😂😂😂.
I sorted out the suitcases in preparation for our onward trip tomorrow and then got ready for dinner. We were looking forward to an early night, (but got waylaid – you know who you are….) ahead of a very early start tomorrow 🙄
We ate in the same restaurant as on our first night and our meal was excellent!! I drank a Savvy B from The Aude (next department along from us) but didn’t look at the price tag 😳🙄.
Jezza took a liking to the beer mat holders on the tables and the restaurant owner kindly gave us one – something to look for on your next visit to rue de la Bastille 😜
Having finished dinner, we walked back towards the bus stop, passing the museum in the village of Monnickendam which looked spectacular at night. At the bus stop, a young Dutch lad helped us with what bus to get and was very chatty – on the whole, we have found the Dutch to be very polite and friendly.
My only disappointment with today was that I didn’t see Starry Night by Van Gogh – it’s in New York. Jezza – that’s next on the bucket list 😜🤭😂…..
Once home, we watched Palace progress in the Conference League, I finished today’s blog and we called it a night.
Thank you for a fun few days, Amsterdam….😘
(The top picture in today’s gallery is a hotel in Amsterdam Centraal. Originally the site contained lots of houses that were bought and demolished to make way for the large building there now. However, there was one house, occupied by an elderly lady who said she wouldn’t sell for any amount of money, so the new building was built around the old lady’s house!! You can see it to the left of centre of the picture- it has a brown surround and a balcony.)
Total steps: 11,236
