Netherlands 2018 – Day 9 / Amsterdam

Steps today: 24 130.  This may be a little inflated because I usually check the number as soon as we get into the room, and tonight I forgot. We’ve been puttering around packing our suitcases for a while “earning” more steps. I’m pleased with the step results of this vacation. Yeah us!

So, this was it, our last day

Truth be told, I am ready to go home. It was a great time, we loved it, my mom can’t get over how much we did and saw, the weather was great (ok, a little too hot at times but I can’t really complain since we had beautiful blue skies), but I miss home and all good things must come to an end.

Today was our worst weather day, and that just means we had mostly overcast skies. It doesn’t make for great pictures, but it was nice for walking and sightseeing.

We started our day with a visit to the Our Lord in the Attic church. I visited with Frank in 2008 and have vague memories of it being an interesting site… but this time I was really impressed. I found it so much more intriguing since the last time – I wonder if there just were no audio guides then? Whatever it was, it’s improved over the last 10 years.

I especially remembered these steep stairs. Frank has a picture of me climbing up them which is really the only way to understand just how nuts they are! The insanity does not translate in a picture.

Next, we went to the Amsterdam History Museum and just scratched the surface of what there was to see. We didn’t really do it justice, but we were getting hungry and museum fatigue was setting in. If ever I come back to Amsterdam, I will plan better for this one and spend more time there.

For lunch, I wanted to cram in as many Amsterdam food clichés as I could, so I had some Old Amsterdam Cheese with Amsterdam Croquettes. It was crazy filling and I’m not entirely sure it was worth it. 

Then again, I suppose it could have been worse... We could have eaten here!

The rest of the day was just a lot of aimless wandering, saying good bye to Amsterdam.

This crooked house really caught our attention!

I had to almost lie flat on the ground to get this one… I wish it was better centered but I am not familiar with the correct yoga position it takes to get the picture right.

Here are some random pictures of our day, you can tell that the weather was not as sunny…  they are all so gloomy!  Still, we enjoyed ourselves.

We left around 6:30PM and when we got back to Haarlem we went out for a last good-bye drink near our hotel.

And so, another one done. Next up is Paris in 161 sleeps… see you then!!

Netherlands 2018 – Day 8 / Delft

Steps today: 17 221

We didn’t purposely set out to take it easy today, but for some reason we didn’t hit the 20k mark.

We hit the road just a little before 8AM and found a place open for breakfast in the main square! All this time it was so close! AHHHH how nice it was to have a real morning meal.

Plus, it was cat friendly…

Today we went to Delft and it was just fantastic! We both agree it was the best day-trip of the vacation EASILY. Our minds were blown right from the start by the amazing town hall, it was so beautiful we decided to sit on a terrace and just gaze at it for a while.

  

Once we were all fuelled-up, we climbed the tower to the viewing gallery 85 meters up (376 stairs) to gawk at it some more from another angle.

The rest of Delft looked pretty good from up there too…

I found this half-house interesting.

But the stairs were pretty scary, some looked like fan blades.

After, we visited the Churches. The New Church:

… and the Old Church is where Vermeer is buried.

Really interesting grave stones on the floor!

The Old Church is also famous for it’s leaning tower which leans by 2 meters! Sadly, this was my view instead.

The weather today was a lot cooler than the last few days; in fact this morning when we got out of the train we needed our gloves and hoods! What a change from the past few days. When the wind died down and the sky cleared up, it was nice enough to eat outside so we had lunch on a terrace barge moored on the canal.

We walked off lunch with a wander around town and then went to the Vermeercentrum for a very interesting and informative hour or so.

The rest of the day was just spent wandering.

Look how close the waterline is to the bottom of the doors!

This is supposed to be the site from where Vermeer’s “View from Delft” was painted, I was hoping for some similar outlines, the Old Church is 800 years old after all, and the Town Hall was around his day… but it’s not even close.

We got back to the hotel around 6, and then went to the bar across the street for a drink and onwards to a restaurant in the main square for supper.

How cute is this?

Last day tomorrow….  Good night!