Amsterdam

This trip has been about contrasts. Languages with too many consonants (Croatian) versus those with too many vowels (Dutch). We have had some of the best food ever and some of the most mediocre. We have experienced a wide variety of weather: hot, cold, humid, dry, rainy, sunny — even a bit of higher altitude snow. And reveled in the geographic contrasts only hours apart of coastal sea vistas to the shear verticality of huge mountains with rolling hills and flat scrub in between. We’ve had great internet and no internet and thankfully no TV ever. And, we really have enjoyed almost everything.

For the last leg of this trip we woke up to a glorious morning in the middle of the Dolomites of northern Italy, got in our car and drove through Slovenia to Zagreb, Croatia, boarded a plane and flew to Amsterdam all in about 10 hours.

Amsterdam is a city that was much as we expected but did serve as a huge changeup from our mountain excursion. We were overwhelmingly impressed by the Van Gogh Museum and certainly enjoyed the other museums we could access, especially Rembrandt’s house. And we enjoyed the canal boat tour more than expected, just know that it should only be done in good weather!

The city was packed with tourists with more English being heard on the streets than we’ve experienced the whole month. Public transport was not quite as convenient or extensive as advertised or as we expected. Easy enough to figure out but miles of walking and fairly time consuming to get around. It’s much easier if you ride bikes but that is not for us at this stage. Way too intimidating, just walking around with all these bikes whizzing every which way is crazy. So happy we visited and explored this interesting city, but are also glad to be heading home tomorrow for the domestic comforts there.