Due to the length of time the night parade took to move all the floats along the parade route, we didn’t get back to the airport until after the last bus had returned to the hotel. Consequently, the first thing we did the next morning was return the hire car to the airport. This would have happened earlier if our night hadn’t been disturbed at 2am by the fire alarm.
After returning the car and partaking of a hearty breakfast, we took the familiar route back to the airport. Before we caught a train into Amsterdam, we took the opportunity to arrange to switch to an earlier flight the following day. Originally, we’d opted for a late flight, as we had expected to spend much of today waiting for and watching the flower parade. Given we’d seen all the floats yesterday, we chatted over breakfast and decided we didn’t need two more days in Amsterdam.
We emerged from the station, which is a lovely-looking building, into the glorious sunshine. As this was our last day in Amsterdam, we spent the remainder of our morning exploring. We walked to a large outdoor market where the ladies sampled one of the largest cheese twists they’d ever seen. On our way back to the city centre, we spotted a sandwich shop with some seats that looked comfortable. I had a delicious pastrami on dark grains, and my travel buddies had roast beef and cheese and ham. They were washed down with a combination of drinks which almost certainly included another cappuccino!
After lunch, we walked back to the harbour beside the main station, where several boat tours had their base. Given that it was such a nice day, we decided it’d be a good plan to experience Amsterdam from the water.
Our host guided us around the canals, showing us all the sights, explaining things like the houses have large hooks near the roof apex, so they can winch large loads up to the second floor and in through the windows. Even today, the houses continue to be built with the roofline hooks. He also explained about the different rooflines being part of a trend to personalise your property and keep up with the Jones’s.
A little further along our route, he slowed so we could take photos of a series of bridges which can be seen one though the other from a specific point on the canal.
His calm nature was soon to be tested to its limit when we cruised across a large open lock gate and caught the skipper of a smaller boat by surprise. Unlike a road, it’s very hard to stop something floating from continuing to move forward. And stopping the engine’s forward momentum won’t help. Only quick thinking and reversing all propellers will provide the smallest chance to escape the inevitable. Unfortunately, the skipper didn’t have fast enough reactions or a working knowledge of handling boats and sat open-mouthed as his boat glided into the side of our craft. Needless to say, the Captain wasn’t impressed and some international arm gestures, hand signals and lots of shouting quickly followed. Once we’d moved away from the smaller craft, they took their opportunity to escape and put as much distance between us as possible. Personally, I think we cut across the lock gates a bit too close. But when you’ve got a long, wide craft that you want to turn around, I guess you need to create the largest turning circle as possible. On our return leg, the Captain called out a floating Chinese restaurant, which we’d walked past on the first day.
We also saw an old merchant ship, but unfortunately, it didn’t have any of its sails on the ship’s masts.
The passengers on our boat were interesting, one group had been spending too much time in the coffee shops as everything they said, saw and did was completely hilarious. And others, despite being told categorically not to hang out of the windows or glass roof to take photos, ignored the warnings and did just that. Thankfully, no body parts were amputated by the low, narrow bridges and everyone returned to the jetty in one piece.
Having disembarked, we began hunting for magnets and other souvenirs. I had been inspecting some small vases of wooden tulips, which were really pretty. During my investigations, I’d noted that the vases in some of the shops didn’t have any markings on the bottom. And the overall quality of the decoration was slightly off. My conclusion was that they were cheap Chinese imports. Aside from the small vase I was looking for, we saw many examples of the classic tulip vase. Back in the day, tulip bulbs were extremely expensive and their flower were something to be displayed in their front room with pride. Hence, the vases are designed in a way to keep each specimen separate from the other. Unfortunately, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the person who’d designed the round one had taken inspiration from an upside-down cow’s udders. (And now, dear reader, you can’t unsee that either!)
Souvenirs bought, we returned to the hotel for our evening meal. We’d pre-booked in the main restaurant as the city guides we’d read had noted the hotel’s evening buffet was worth sampling. We planned to get back early enough for pre-dinner drinks. But many of the best-laid plans don’t always work out in reality, and we barely scraped into the dining room on time for our booking. (And no, Luke, we weren’t late.) The buffet was expensive but amazing. There was a superb width of choice and everyone found things to try. I picked up a Greek Dolomade and promptly chopped it into three parts so we could all try it. Due to the restaurant being so busy, it wasn’t possible to take any photos.
But that changed when we took the elevator up to the skyview bar, which boasted excellent views of the airport and also a birds-eye view of the 747 which was outside the hotel. (Don’t ask. We’ve no idea how they got it there, or why they thought it was a good idea.)
