Amsterdam

Despite arriving in Amsterdam from Maastricht, we were again blown away by all the bikes in town. Not only were we having to watch for cars and trams before crossing the road, mainly you had to watch out or the bikes. Then there is the multi storey bicycle park at the train station!
Surviving the crazed cyclists, we got to our hostel which is actually a house boat on the docks about 10 minutes walk from the train station. Checking in we met our host, Corrie, who was super-excited to have Australians on board, and promised us the best room on the boat, one of only two with private shower! The hostel (Nova Vita) was great, not just because it’s a boat, small rooms, great breakfast and a self serve bar with 1.50 Heinekens!

Being unusually motivated for us, we spent our first night on a walking tour of the Red Light District. The Red Light District was what I expected with the lights and windows, however I had imagined it to be all on one street, rather than the series of lanes and alleys that it actually is. The tour was good to do as it gave a bit of background into the district, basic services start from 50 euros and the oldest working girl is a mere 86. There are 5 windows that were opened to have men in them for the ladies to visit. When these were introduced, about 1.5 million men applied for the 5 positions, but the windows were only open for about half an hour. We also saw a well hung gnome, the condomerie and all sorts of other items in shop windows! The tour finished in a pub where we got chatting to a group of aussies from the tour and ended up having a number of beers and bit of a late night.

Next morning we were up for the breakfast on the boat and the free city walking tour. Christine, not feeling the best opted out of the tour. It was a 3 hour tour which due to a delayed start and a break took over 4 hours plus another hour or so in a pub afterwards! Was well worth the investment however. The guide was amazing, an Australian girl who has been in Amsterdam for 5 years.
Starting in the Dam near the national monument we visited the main areas of Amsterdam and heard countless stories. This included Neumarkt, Royal Palace, canals, the widest bridge and narrowest house, bikes, coffee shops, the Old Church, New Church and hidden church, public urinals, bikes, hash museum, leaning buildings, old prisons, Chinatown, the oldest Buddhist temple in Europe (built 2002) and bikes!

After the tour and a beer with the guide and a few of the aussies, we headed to dinner in a restaurant recommended by Corrie, and not to far from our boat. The food was good, not too busy and we were able to sit at a table outside on the foot path watching the bikes and boats cruise past. After dinner we went for a walk, through the red light district and had a coffee and muffin in a coffee shop. It was bit of a quiet night, tomorrow is Fri 30th April, also known in Netherlands as Queens Day.
Queensday started being a bit colder than the past few days which was a bit disappointing. Wearing a jacket and carrying a self serve Heineken we headed out at about midday. We had no plan for the day, just wonder around the city, canals and parks and see what happens. We started around Waterlooplein Square, which was crazy. A big DJ stage and people partying everywhere, by the look of some of them they had been there since the night before. There was a huge cheer as the sun came out followed by a wave of orange as everyone took off their jackets to reveal their orange clothing. It was here that Christine was crowned as the Inflatable Queen of Amsterdam.
The canals were full of boats acting as overcrowded party cruisers. Some small boats looked like they had crammed about 100 people on board. We continued wandering and found ourselves in Vondelpark. This park is normally one of the prettiest in Europe, today however it was the sight of thousands of stalls run by kids and families (think car boot sale). There was everything from home cooked cakes, second hand clothes and toys. The most interesting were where groups of kids were doing songs, dances, play’s or pay to throw items (water balloons, tomatoes, eggs, cake) at them stalls. There was also a family dog to be patted for 20p. It was great to see all the family’s involved in the day. We also got chatting to a couple of local old guys, who were kind enough to give us a couple of cans of beer in the park.

Heading back into town we were looking for something for lunch. We found a thai restaurant with a stall selling spring rolls which were good and continued looking but found a band playing in the street. They were really good, and we ended up buying the CD they had with them. Next stop was at a pub, outdoor tables by the canal and a bbq cooking burgers in buns. We sat and ate burgers and beer by the canal and watched the jazz band playing on the street.

The rest of the night we wandered back through the city, dodged all the rubbish and empty cans on the street. A few more drinks in some of the big squares, wandered through the red light district again and pizza and chips on the way home for dinner. It was a great day with so many people out for a good time!

The next day we were feeling pretty good so we headed to a Windmill that actually has a brewery and bar inside it. It’s a big old windmill, so very Dutch, sadly we were too early as it didn’t open until the afternoon. We continued to wander, heading in the general direction of the Anne Frank House. We continued to dodge the rubbish in the streets and the piles of rubbish being swept up by the cleaners. The canals were also full of rubbish and tourist boats taking tours, how nice! We wandered past the Heineken Brewery but sadly did not have time to do the tour.
After a coffee we visited the Anne Frank Museum. This is an old house, where a Jewish family hid during World War 2. They were in hiding for 2 years before being found only weeks before the end of the war, only the father survived. Anne Frank was the daughter, her diary has been found and published. We have not read it yet, but probably should at some stage.
It was about 5.30pm and we hadn’t had a beer or lunch yet, so we headed for a pub by the canals. After a feed and a couple of beers it was time to wind up our stay in Amsterdam. We wandered through another quieter neighborhood, through the red light district, ate brownies and made our way to our houseboat for our final night.
The next morning we were up for breakfast before heading out to the bus terminal, we had an 8 hour bus ride back to London, which included taking the bus on a massive cargo train under the English Channel.

Maastricht - Netherlands

We left Paris in the morning, after I made one last visit to the local patisserie so we could have fresh croissants on the train. The train trip to Maastricht was uneventful but the scenery was nice. We passed by fields of bright yellow canola flowers, over flowing lakes, ruler straight canals and rotating windmills. We also passed through a number of Belgium cities including Brussels where we were excited to see the ‘Atom’ again from afar.

Our first impression of Maastricht was amazement at the number of bikes left outside the station. There were hundreds! Many of them had strange paint jobs or were decorated by fake flowers and bright bags so their owners could identify and retrieve the quickly.

Once we got over our amazement we found a map and started to head in the general direction we thought our hostel should be in. Whilst our packs were feeling much lighter than they had been when we were traveling for 6 months, they began to feel pretty heavy after about half an hour and I was in desperate need of coffee. We found a lovely cobble stone square in front of a church and surrounded by cafes then quickly discovered the Dutch know how to make coffee, thank goodness! Once feeling revived we trundled off again to find the hostel.

This was quite a pleasant walk as it was through the old town with lots of buildings on strange angles, and through some park land. We arrived at the hostel and were pleased to discover it was right on the water and it had a great decking area to enjoy a drink or two. We checked in, dumped our stuff then headed back to the church square hoping to get a bowl of Belgium fries. It turns out that in restaurants you cannot order a bowl of fries by themselves; they are a side that accompanies your meal. We still wanted fries so the waitress told us what meals came with fries and something gave away the fact that we were ‘not from around here’ so she suggested a

local dish. This turned out to be very similar to the contents of a beef and kidney pie, not bad. After a couple of beers, we went for another walk around town, enjoying the canals and the old buildings.

Our second day in Maastricht started with a huge breakfast in the hostel. I didn’t think we would need to eat for hours, until I smelt the waffles! We hoed these down pretty quickly then regretted it almost instantly. This being done, it was time to get down to business. We wanted to do a river cruise which also included a tour of some of the caves in the region. These were the result of centuries of mining but were also used during the war time for discrete transport and shelter. It turns out that tour in English are only offered during peak season, so we saved ourselves some money. We filled in the rest of the day by walking to some park land, getting lost and finding a huge commercial mining pit, walking back the way we came and eventually finding the fort we had intended to visit, which was closed. It was however a pleasant day and it was really nice being somewhere by ourselves rather than constantly surrounded by hundreds of people like in London and Paris. It was getting late so we headed back to the hostel to have a rest. We hit it off with one of our roommates, Amanda who is a Canadian traveling by herself. We ended up having a couple of beers with her then heading out for dinner. A nice way to end our time in Maastricht.

Paris

Well after a pretty non eventful Easter just hanging out in London and catching up with the AFL and a few friends, it was time to get ready for our next adventure. Christine is on holiday and left for Paris on Monday the 12th.
Judy (Christine’s mum) didn’t know it at the time but Christine was going to be waiting at the airport for her arrival on Tuesday. Expecting Christine to arrive on Wednesday, she was very pleasantly surprised to see her daughter after nearly a year.
Damien finished up work on the Wednesday and took the early train under the sea to Paris. We have a bit over a week in Paris, part of this time will be house sitting an apartment while Christine’s mum, aunty and a friend travel through the south of France. The first few days were spent with the family and looking around the area we are staying in, near Place des Vosges. This is a public square, bit of grass and some trees, with a number of art galleries and shops surrounding it. We also discovered the bakery that we would return to every day for some amazing baguette, croissant and cakes.
For a bit of culture we went to Saint Chapelle for a concert. This was all Mozart music, in an old church with amazing stain glass windows. We also visited the Pantheon with its big swinging pendulum and crypts underground and ate lunch in Luxembourg Palace Gardens. We spent a day with Judy and co. wandering through Tuileries garden and along the Champs Elysee.
We saw the funniest/most annoying thing happen. We saw a photographer and a model (possibly amateur) taking photos in the middle of the road when there was a break of traffic. She was tall and blonde in the middle of the street in black lingerie. Then after a break in traffic a French Police Car came around the corner and arrested the poor lass, ruining my day!

On Saturday our friend Mel from London came to help us apartment sit and Sunday the family headed south for their tour of France, after a 2 day delay due to bloody union strikes on the train lines. We headed for some culture at the Musee D’Orsay which is an art gallery in an old train station. Part of the gallery was closed for renovations, which meant that most of the good works had moved to the bottom 2 floors. Lots of Impressionist works including Monet as well as Expressionists like Van Gough. This gallery was very interesting and some people say it is better than the Louvre due to the works in it and its smaller size. Afterwards we walked home via the Louvre, didn’t go in, but took some photos at the ‘invisible’ pyramid.

The following day we had planned on going to the Pompado, another gallery which has a strange design, all the water pipes on the exterior of the building. When we got there Christine changed her mind and went back home not feeling well. Mel and I decided not to go to the gallery and just spent the day wandering through the city, which was quite enjoyable, ending up near Sacre Cour.
The food has been amazing in Paris, the French got something right! Our mornings have been filled with croissants, Christine’s French Toast and Mel’s Scrambled Eggs then the rest of the day has been baguette, an array of cheeses and red wine.

Our first day trip from Paris was to Monet’s Garden near Giverny. This is the house and gardens that inspired a lot the paintings than Monet did, including the bridge, lake and water lilies. After Mel cooked us another awesome breakfast we took the train about an hour out of Paris. From here we were able to hire bikes and take an easy ride on a bike path through the country side, with a detour through a cute little village to Monet’s Garden.
The gardens were one of the things that Christine had to do before she dies (she has a list), so we can tick that off. Lots of tulips and tourists pretty much sums up what we saw. The gardens were nice with trees and a lake, bit very busy. Christine also enjoyed it when a random mechanic stopped her and after a few hurried French words started trying to tighten her bike pedal which had been loose all morning.
Tonight is Mel’s last night with us, sadly. After our ride we got a baguette, beer and picnic supplies and headed down to the Eiffel tower at about 9pm. We sat in the grass for a couple of hours waiting for the light show which Mel hadn’t seen before. We are glad we did wait, as she was super impressed!
In the morning we headed to another gallery, Musee Tokyo with Mel. This was not the greatest place in the world, on the way in we had some French guy yelling at us, he was one of those scammers that tries to get tourists money. After they tried briefly on us, we watched them trying to con some other people, not sure what he was saying, but we got the impression he didn’t want us around! Like much of Paris, the outside of the gallery had a strong urine odour, not nice on a sunny day. The gallery itself had a display that was ok, but having paid to enter it was a bit disappointing.
After walking along the river for bit more we headed back to the apartment for lunch and to lazy about in the sun. We had planned to go to the Louvre tonight once we had seen Mel off, as it is open late, however the day sort of got away from us, so we ended up walking Mel down to the station and then just watching Les Simpsons (in french) on tv.
Thursday we got motivated, out of bed early and headed to the Versailles Palace, about an hour out of Paris. This place was amazing, as big as the tower is, this has got to be the most impressive attraction Paris has to offer. Its where the old king used to live back in the day. The place was packed with tourists, you could hardly move, just shuffle along with the pack. The palace itself is much bigger than Buckingham Palace in London and a lot more ornate (think gold gates). The interior was amazing with portraits, paintings and all sort of treasures lining the walls as well as murals on the ceilings. The hall of mirrors is possibly the most decadent with windows overlooking the gardens on one side of the room, a wall of mirrors on the opposite wall and chandeliers down the middle.
It was all a bit too over the top for Christine who preferred the gardens which we walked around in the afternoon. We came prepared with cheese and baguette so a picnic by the lake was our next stop. After lunch we wandered around the gardens which were green and manicured. As with most parks in Paris, the paths were all gravel so it was quite dusty and for some reason none of the fountains were running, but other than that it was a great afternoon. Friday we relaxed and wandered around the area we were staying in once again. We took it easy in preparation for our big night out on the town. Christine has found a tour that we are doing and will be an amazing night.
The night kicked off at 6pm, and we were taken to the Eiffel Tower for dinner. We skipped most of the queue and were up in the restaurant with a window table (shared with 4 others). The dinner was a bit rushed, and a bit light on as far as quantity goes but it was nice. We then had just enough time to walk around the viewing deck before heading back down to the waiting boat for an hour evening cruise along the Seine. This was nice and I think Christine enjoyed talking to the other Aussies on the boat as much as anything. As the boat pulled in at the end of the tour, the Eiffel Tower light show started up which caused a great deal of excitement onboard.
We were then back on the bus and headed down to the Moulin Rouge for the late show. This was the reason that we did the tour, the whole night cost about the same as just doing dinner at Moulin Rouge. Not really knowing what to expect was possibly a good thing, but we both loved it.
It was definitely the highlight of our week in Paris. The stage was really big, the dancers were amazing and the costumes were incredible. We also enjoyed the other entertainment including a girl swimming with pythons, juggling, shadow puppet and mime. Not to mention the dog and pony’s used in the performance.

The night was amazing and highly recommended. As with any tour (especially since we were the youngest by a good 20 years) there were a few annoying things. Right from the start we were delayed 20min as we had to wait for Indian woman who had ducked off the bus to the souvenir shop instead of waiting with everyone else. Then there were the stuck up oldies who Christine thinks was laughing at us (mainly Damien) as we weren’t overly dressing up, I didn’t notice however. The dinner included2 bottles of red wine for the table, and one guy promptly grabbed one of them and moved it over to his little corner, and was reluctant to share it with anyone. And last but not least the seating in Moulin Rouge, where Christine was pushed out of the way in the rush to sit at the tables, we were a bit shell shocked by that one!
Nether-the-less we had an amazing night and would definitely recommend the show, if not the whole tour.
After a late night, we didn’t get back to the apartment until after 2am, we took it easy again on Saturday. After a sleep in we went for a wonder, along the promenade. This is an old railway line, converted into a narrow walking path, covered in gardens. Was very nice and the weather was good, but after a few hours we just wanted to retreat back home for more wine, cheese and French TV.

Sunday was our last day in Paris. We got up early and went on the free city walking tour. We have done these before in other cities and they have been wonderful. This was not so good! It really felt like the guide was going through the motions and would have preferred to be somewhere else. As for the sites there wasn’t much we hadn’t already see of course. We had hoped it might take us to some more secret parts of Paris off the tourist map. Nevermind, we stuck it out for a while and then decided to do our own thing, getting a croissant for lunch.
We spent the afternoon sitting in the grass of a park near the apartment.
Late afternoon Judy and Co. returned from the south of France. Once they had settled in we headed out to a local restaurant for dinner. The food was nice but the smoke from the cigarettes at the outdoor tables was blowing straight into the restaurant, making it not the nicest! Was kind of funny, one of the smokers was a Dwarf! Proof… smoking stunts your growth!
We are looking forward to Netherlands. We take the train in the morning tomorrow. Paris is a must see place for anyone coming to Europe, the highlight being Moulin Rouge and the Palace. Sadly there is a lot that isn’t nice about the place. We have been abused numerous times, in the apartment block, supermarkets, streets and of course near the Tokyo gallery. Its also very expensive the coffee is crap but they still charge 5-6 euro and Christine managed to pay 9 euro for a (small) chocolate milkshake.