We took off to Vollendam, a fishing village where the women still wear traditional dress. To see all the Dykes, the cows, the farmlands again was such an emotional journy for me. I was amazed to see how many yachts were on the dam sailing. It was a gorgeous warm day. The sky was by no means blue. Another amazing observation was all the vapour trails constantly in the sky from all the aircraft activity. Vollendam was unfortunately so totally crouded with tourist you could hardly move, but nevertheless, it was just a beautiful place. Small home right on the road, everyone so houseproud, as they display all sorts of trinkets, candles etc to brighten up windows. People sitting on tiny tiny verandas (no gardens) just sitting in the sun, sipping tea and enjoying the warm sun.I hooked up with Carole (one of the group ladies also from Perth I met before we left as we both first timers in Europe) walked around, and then finally found a typical dutch restaurant and had some fish chouder and wine....they do not call it that here, but it was so delicious! Being in Vollendam, fishing village, one had to have something fishy!
Then it was off on a canal cruise in Amsterdam. The buildings are just so amazing with so much history. Loads of buildings actually are scew and leaning over, because in the 'old' days they used wooden posts as foundations, and they are rotting, hence the buildings are leaning over quite visually. People just sitting next to the canals after work drinking a wine. The windows full of people leaning out watching the world go by and having a quiet wine or beer. Seeing the houseboats on the canals were also quite amazing, people living amongst the hustle and the buslte, bycicles EVERYWHERE, busses, pedestrians taxis...it is truly a remarkable city. One day does not do it justice, it is an extremely busy, confusing city and very vast! I really think I would love to come back here for a proper explore. I have not even seen anything yet!
We went off the the diamond factory and was shown how they cut and polish diamonds, very interesting indeed....did you know it will take up to 3 days to cut and polis a 1carat diamond into 57 facets....since 2008 they are doing 121 facets, we were also shown how they rate diamonds.....
Tonight we went for dinner at a typlical dutch restaurant called 'Haesje Claes', I HAD to have the pea and ham soup for starters. I always am proud to say my dad taught me well in how to cook a pea and ham soup, and I must say, my soup tasted pretty much the same!, then I had a typical dutch stew made with left overs, and it too was amazing, finishing off with Cinnemon icecream/Advocaat and brandy raisons (could not eat much of it as I was chokke block full already)......then.......
We all took a walk to the famous RED LIGHT DISTRICT....oh wow, that is all I can say.....it was truly gob smacking! Being with a tourgroup we sort of rushed through, but I would like to go through again and actually like to sit down and just do some people watching, and see what actually happens there. We were not alloud to take photos, but sneaked in a couple of the 'Thin alley' the girls parade in next to nothing, knocking on windows to lure the guys in, you can actually see the beds, the creams, toys you name it.....apparantly there are a few allys one would not venture into, but WOW is all I can say
Tomorrow morning is an early strat, we off to Heidelburg.....on the way to Innsbruck in Germany...we will be doing a 2 hour Rhine cruise...so ta-ta till then (ps: I appologise for spelling-no time to spell check)
Very nice to read and interesting,the photos are nice,lovely place, Enjoy xx
ReplyDeleteThe tulips are exquisite!!!
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