Beautiful Amsterdam

We are a bit behind with the blog so here comes a big catchup. The flight over was wonderful and we are really sold on business class. Marvelously comfortable and superb food. We arrived in Amsterdam feeling in remarkably good shape after the long journey and were met by a chauffeur who took us to the Aitana hotel. The Aitana is a new place built on the side of the Ij river so we had a wonderful view from our 10th storey room. We spent the rest of the afternoon armed with map walking around the older part of the city and really fell in love with it. It is riddled with canals, making it very easy to lose direction but we did manage to stumble across the red light district. We didn't see any ladies of the night but we did see some interesting shops in that district selling some highly imaginative wares. Dope and dope seeds are freely avaliable too. No, we didn't try them. The architecture in the old part is lovely.  Very narrow four or five storey brick houses for the most part, all crammed together, many decorated with carvings or shuttered windows, making for really attractive streets. But the biggest memory we will take home is the bikes - gazillions of them and they are truly king of the road. They take precedence over everything including hapless pedestrians. No helmets, three piled on a bike, anything goes!
Friday afternoon we went on a tour of some touristy places - a clog making demonstration, a working windmill and a place that sold gouda cheese. Then later in the afternoon we boarded the boat and it is every bit as good as we hoped. Lovely room, incredible food, just superb in every way. I think will both be looking a tad fatter when we come home.
Saturday, today, we spent the morning on a canal cruise which was very good. And now we are heading for Cologne, watching the lovely Dutch scenery go by.
Now for some piccies with a bit of luck.

Rembrandt house on the left

Map master