May 10 Wed. day trip to Amsterdam

A better day today!   A good night's sleep, a filling breakfast, it's NOT raining, and we're off to the Haarlem train station to travel to Amsterdam .. it has 60-miles of 160-canals.   It's the most watery city in Europe.   It may also have the most bicycles on the road at any one time!   Keep your eye out for them!

Arrived at the Amsterdam Centraal Train Station, it's massive!  And started walking down Rokin Street.   My first time walking in the city .. wow!   We're on our way to the Rijksmuseum for our timed-entry slot.   My head is spinning looking at all of the architecture from the 1600-1800's.  More of these pic's later, after the museum.

Here it is, we made it, about 2.7km later.   We joined hundreds and hundreds of school field trips and many other tour groups.   But ... it's a huge place with many galleries.   RA & David-  doesn't this look a little like the British Museum?   They also had a wonderful cafe we sat at to have coffee and a treat and look out at part of this magnificent structure.

Up the staircase we went to start from the top.

Time to look at a couple of paintings. (and .. people, of course :))

After several hours of enjoying paintings, ceramics, fine wood cabinets, and many other historical works of art, we ventured out to the other side of the museum to see the park and where the Van Gogh Museum was.   On our way out of the museum we merged with another group that was leaving.   It was a group from the AmaCerto ship, they were in the midst of their 7-river cruise, 45-days.   One of the Ama staff saw my hat and asked if we had just departed the AmaPrima.

It was now time to enjoy a more leisurely stroll back to the train station, taking in the sights, sounds, and smells of this watery city.

We needed to visit the floating flower market on the Singel canal.   It's been selling seeds, fresh flowers and bulbs since 1862.

Across from the flower market :

We saw a church tower ..and.. we just had to go peek inside!   'De Krijtberg Kerk' is a Roman Catholic church.   Since 1654 there's been a Jesuit church at this location.  The current neo-gothic church was built on the same space in 1881.    Wikipedia describes the interior as 'exuberant'.   What do you think?

We continued to stroll and appreciate this very visual city.

See the cheese shop and the large blocks stored in the 2nd story windows?

We didn't make it to the Red Light District (I wasn't allowed) so we headed back to the train station for the trip back to Haarlem.

After a brief rest we visited Haarlem's main square again for some last pics.

We found a nice little Italian restaurant and enjoyed some ravioli and cannelloni.

A much better day today!    Thoroughly enjoyed walking around Amsterdam, and spending two nights in Haarlem.   We'll take the train to Delft tomorrow and enjoy some more adventures!    We may encounter some more rain.

Take care,

Jan & Joe