Friday 13th September - Amsterdam

We've gone flat knacker all night and arrived in Amsterdam at 1.30 pm. After lunch we disembarked and boarded buses to take us to the canals for our ride through Amsterdam. What a wonderful city! Full of bikes - the riders are not lycra-clad, but they are quite manic.  No helmets, because "it's not the law", and they have little kids in a wheel-barrow-type of construction in front and another kid holding on behind.  It is a truly amazing sight to see.

 

This will be a very quick post as it's after 1 am and we've got to be off the ship early in the morning.  The past few days have been overcast and drizzling, if not raining.  The blue skies and warm temperatures we enjoyed last week have certainly deserted us this past week which is such a shame.  The lounge on board the ship does not cater for the full compliment of passengers, and with not being able to use the upper deck - the sun deck - it has been quite squeezy.

We got to see some of the sights we were scheduled to see, however, we've had to be bussed to them and then back to the ship as it has motored its way onwards  towards Amsterdam.  Some of the trips have been far too long for many of the passengers - 1 1/2 - two hours on a bus hasn't been the best, but we've all tried to make the most of it.  There's nothing the crew or Cruise Director could have done to make things any easier.  I reckon Gudren, our Cruise Director on this trip has certainly earned her money - there have been many, many hurdles for her to overcome.

A farewell dinner was 'celebrated' last night.  A "President's Cocktail Party" was "celebrated" earlier in the evening - we basically missed it as we'd only got back on board from our bus trip to Koblenz at 8 pm. Angela Merkel was speaking in Koblenz at 5 pm, but our tour took us beyond her meeting place unfortunately.  The police presence was enormous.  We enjoyed the beautiful city and her cathedral.  The city is famous for the "boy pissing" - that's what the statue is called.  The water spurts every 30 seconds.

Koblenz - "boy pissing" fountain

Koblenz man-hole cover depicting "boy pissing".

 There are lots of statues in this town also, we couldn't read the inscription but it's of a woman selling fruit and vegetables and a policeman who appeared to be writing her a ticket. Not sure though, they both had huge smiles.

I know, I'm going straight to hell for laughing at the sculpture of Jesus Christ but I swear he appeared to be doing yoga on the cross - my apologies to all who are offended.

There are many stories of our second last night on board, but they're not for the blog! 

We have certainly missed Terry and Lorraine who unfortunately left the cruise in the first week - we have missed Terry's sense of humour and we hope to be able to be in touch with them both.

Anna and Wayne also left the cruise earlier this week and we hope to be able to touch base with them too.

We did a tour of the canals this afternoon and saw some wonderful sights.  Amsterdam, known for its canals, bicycles, cannabis and of course Heineken.

City parking - for bikes!

The Heineken cart

Back on board for dinner then we went out to tour the Red Light District - wow! What a sight! No photos allowed! We spent the evening with Bruce and Jenny, our "dancing queen" and Glenda and Ken and we had some good laughs.  We saw one transaction being organised and a bloke stepping through the window and the curtain being drawn.  There were many, many people smoking dope during the afternoon and with the passive smoking we've all done, I reckon we'll sleep easy tonight.

Back on board for some night caps and dancing at 11.30 pm - and it's all shut up - everyone's gone to bed!  Ludo has a sore throat so he can't sing ... so a night cap with Jenny and Bruce and off to blog at midnight.

It's an early start in the morning so till next time ...