just another morning here

Our last full day in Amsterdam so we maxed it out. Drove into Amsterdam, Steve likes the challenge of driving through foreign cities, and actually the car park cost wasn’t much different to the price of tram tickets for all five of us. We parked near the Vondelpark and walked down to the Museumplein.

Went into the Van Gogh museum and all of us really enjoyed it; the kids followed a treasure hunt trail thing which helped them get lots out of it, and they received stickers and postcards at the end so they were happy.

Had a toastie from a cafe on the Museumplein, and then popped back to the car for the scooters, and spent a couple of hours walking/scootering through the Vondelpark, again very pleasant.

After that we decided to drive up to Zaandam to see Zaanse Schans, a very touristy little village where a number of windmills have been moved. Walked round admiring windmills and a little cheese-making place, and had an ice cream there before heading back to the campsite for dinner.

Most of our day was very lazy; we helped a caravan squeeze into the plot beside us, and lay around reading, playing DS & card games, and eating snacky food from the campsite shop.

Mid-afternoon we got ready and took the tram into Amsterdam all the way to the Westerkerk and Anne Frank’s house. Wandered around the surrounding streets for a while as we were a bit early; we had planned to climb the Westerkerk tower but ended up with not enough time to fit it in before Anne Frank (plus it was expensive!) so we abandoned that plan. Steve and Josiah went off in search of a toilet so the girls and I ended up in the Amsterdam Tulip Museum where we were sucked in like real tourists and bought some bulbs for presents and our own garden.

We were very glad to have booked online as there was an absolutely massive queue for Anne Frank’s house. We skipped the line and took our printed tickets straight into the museum. Steve and I agreed that it was very moving, and I thought it was presented really well too. I had re-read Anne’s diary recently so I particularly enjoyed seeing the house, if it is possible to enjoy something that is essentially a tragic story.

We had dinner in an Italian restaurant just opposite the Westerkerk, which was very nice, then took the tram back to the campsite.

Today we headed for the city centre. A five minute walk from the campsite took us to a tram stop – interesting to see all the graffiti under the bridge we had to cross – the kids were surprised about it all but we decided we all quite liked it. Interesting to discuss the implications of a more libertarian society. The Netherlands seemed to us to be a strange dichotomy of a very ordered society, and yet with this laissez faire approach to some things … anyway. We went straight to Dam Square and looked around there for a while, the children desperate to spend their holiday money! Anna bought a bag, Abbie got a necklace, and Joe bought Spiderman 2 on DVD!!

We went into the diamond centre and looked at expensive jewelry, then found a a friendly diamond cutter who showed us the diamond he’d been working on.

Had a picnic lunch afterwards, stopped to watch a really good band in Dam Square, then walked down a shopping street looking at the similarities and differences in shops.

We went into the Amsterdams Historisch Museum and looked around there for the afternoon, which was really interesting, if a little big to be able to take everything in! After that everyone was fairly tired so we had an icecream then jumped on another tram to Central Station – a beautiful building but disappointingly mainly behind scaffold at the moment. From there we went back to the campsite.

After tea we sat around writing postcards, eating sweets, visiting the goats, the kids went off scootering round the site while we sat enjoying a beer and intervals of child-free time! It began to rain during the evening and didn’t stop until mid-morning the next day.

On our first day we decided we needed to do something relatively peaceful, so after a slow start (that is taken as read while on holiday, all our starts were slow!), we headed out to the Amsterdamse Bos for the day, helped along by the fact that we had read rave reviews about a pancake restaurant there, so the children were instantly attracted by the idea!

We parked up at the top of the Bosbaan (university rowing lake), which was free – you could rent bikes there but we walked. It was about a km walk down through the park to Boerderij Meerzicht. The pancake house didn’t disappoint, it was great. In Argos style you picked up drinks, placed your order and then sat and watched for your ticket number to come up on the screen, then you could pick up your pancakes. The kids had pancakes covered in icing sugar and sprinkles, and theirs came with a toy and a box of sweets, which they ate throughout the afternoon. Our pancakes were fabulous too A big hit all round, and definitely recommended to anyone doing Amsterdam with children.

During the afternoon we had a long walk back through the wood, taking in a couple of play areas, paddling pools, and an ice cream stop at the end. Saw lots of interesting bikes while we were out, I was particularly interested in all the different child seat combinations! Spotted one bike with a baby seat at the front and twin toddler seats on the back – and everything through to bikes with big carrying trailers on the back, and back-to-front trikes (ie 2 wheels at the front, 1 at the back) with big carrying boxes on the front, big enough for 2 children to sit in – fascinating.

Back to the campsite for dinner and veg-out time