Amsterdam

Reims to Amsterdam should have been an easy train trip, but one small mistake over a station name at the beginning of the day escalated into a series of larger problems. It was all sorted eventually, but took the investment of quite a few more Euro, three extra hours travelling, a detour via Brussels and a lot of stress 😩 

Thankfully Amsterdam was worth it. Loved the crazy crooked buildings sinking forwards, backwards and sideways into their footings, and the thousands of bicycles - twice as many as there are people in Amsterdam, apparently. There was the little kid calmly reading a book in the kid carrier as her mum, pedalling hard, flew round the corner and over the canal bridge. Adults squeezed into the carriers too. And dogs and more dogs. Lots of deconstructed IKEA furniture going home (not much else else fits up the staircases). 

We did a great food tour with Hungry Birds; and then met up with Lou and Paul again for a couple more days for the obligatory (and enjoyable) canal tour; a trip out to the windmill museum, where Lou and I had the honour of posing with cheese; and we all outdid ourselves with an Indonesia rijsfastel, or 'rice table'. We jumped on and off trams, picnicked and played in lots of parks (and saw flamingos in one). 

The World Press Photo exhibition was stunning but sobering as well, capturing the heartbreak occurring in so many places round the world.

We finished the week with another sobering visit, to the attic rooms in which Anne Frank and her family hid for two years during WWII before being betrayed - another reminder that Amsterdam, like the rest of Europe, isn't just all about summer blooms and bicycles.