June 9 & 10, 2017

June 9 - 10, 2017  

  We met most of our group at the airport, our hosts Bev & Don, Bill & Sharon, who have been on several trips with Bev, and Andy & Lucille, who have been on two of the same cruises as us.  Don & Marion will be meeting the group in Amsterdam.  Before leaving Toronto we changed our pedometer times to Amsterdam time so that we could determine the walking steps count for the day 12,322.

  The overnight flight from Toronto was 30 minutes late boarding, but the 7.5 hour trip was quick compared to flying to Australia. During the delay, we noticed that the plane at the next gate was an Emirites Airline Airbus A380.  It is a huge fuel efficient wide body double-decker airliner, first produced over a decade ago. It can carry over 520 people with first class and business class on the higher deck and Economy class on the lower deck.

  Dinner was served after an hour in the air with wine, juice or water.  Several times during the 4 hours of dim lighting the crew members offered water to anyone awake who was interested. Larry got a few hours of sleep but I was only able to doze. Passengers were asked to lower their window blinds as the plane would be flying into sunrise. So on the several times I peeked to look out the window, there were hints of yellow and orange escaping along the horizon. Two hours before the Irish coast was visible the sun had risen above the horizon (around 1 a.m. in Toronto or 7 a.m. in Amsterdam). About 90 minutes before landing the lights were brightened and coffee, tea, juices and water were served with a piece of banana bread. We flew from Toronto overnight touching down at Schiphol Airport about 10:30 am. The temperature in Amsterdam was 19 C with grayish clouds and a light wind.

   There is a six hour time difference between Toronto and Amsterdam. Norway is in the same time zone.  We will be getting sunsets later each day until approaching the Arctic Circle and travelling north to North Cape which has 24 hours of daylight near the Summer Solstice.

   It took about an hour to walk over a kilometer of corridors to the Passport Control hall for a short wait to greet a European Union officer, find our luggage and meet the person transferring the group from the airport to the centrally located hotel by minivan.

  By train it would have only been 20 minutes to Centraal Station, which is a 6 minute walk to the hotel.  Traffic was light and we were driven from the airport to the hotel in less than 20 minutes, normally about a 30 minutes ride.  We were greeted by the staff and each offered a warm generous sized chocolate chip cookie in a little bag.  The partly melted chocolate chips stuck to our fingers.

    The group was checked into our rooms at the DoubleTree by Hilton Amsterdam Centraal Station by 12:30 p.m.   Several were going to rest and then take a canal tour.   However, our routine, to have a good night’s sleep after a long plane journey, is to go out and see the sights.  So off we walked with our list of things to do. The first objective was to find the hidden church museum.  It took 20 minutes of trying to decipher three maps to find the exact location passing familiar places from our previous visit, including a street of the Red Light District, almost two years ago.  The Red Light District was very quiet devoid of its notorious activity on a Saturday afternoon. Our Lord in the Attic Church Museum is located in attics stretching over three of the many 17th century canal houses which a Catholic linen merchant owned back in the 1660s. It was used as a worship place for over 200 years before a new Catholic church was built and the canal houses became a museum, in 1888. It is the second oldest museum in Amsterdam. Our Lord in the Attic Church Museum has been restored to show it as it was in the later 19th century.  We were each given an English language Audio Guide to explain the history of the church at 21 stations.  Some of the five or six staircases were original and winding, quite steep and narrow. We spent over an hour exploring the connections and stairways of the three connected houses.  After the Reformation, only Dutch Reform Churches were considered the country’s official church and all other religious churches were seized by the state.  Ruler William of Orange established freedom of conscience and religion during his reign and his sons continued the practice of tolerance of other religions as long as they were not visible. Thus, many people met in their homes and “hidden” churches and synagogues were tolerated by authorities.  This building also housed the office and living quarters for the priest while the original owner occupied the house.  The church takes up the top three storeys of the houses.  The floors of the church and its adjoining chapels are covered in woven reed mats. Amsterdam became known in the 17th and 18th centuries as a haven for all religions to practice without state interference.  

  We stopped at the church museum’s café for a cappuccino and shared a delicious piece of apple pie as our lunch.

  Next was a visit to Dam Square and the Royal Palace which is open to the public this weekend.  The clouds had thinned and the temperature was a lovely 24 C with a 15 km/hr wind as we walked the short distance.

   Dam Square was easy to find and it was full of people enjoying a beautiful Saturday afternoon.  There were performers acting like statues of Star Wars characters who would pose for pictures to earn some money.  We spotted at least five.  There were also horse drawn carriages waiting for tourists to hire them for sightseeing.  We saw several groups of young women wearing the same shirts or sweaters and one wearing a bridal veil. We also noticed small groups of 5 or 6 young men on other streets dressed alike with perhaps the future “groom” dressed differently. 

  Like Buckingham Palace, the Royal Palace Amsterdam is used by the royal family, but only occasionally.  For ceremonies and state visits, it is closed to the public.  Here, also, English language Audio Guides were included with the € 10 admission fee.  There were about 26 stations of explanations, some having several parts if you wanted more detail.

    During the Dutch Golden Age, in the 1600s, The Netherlands, and especially Amsterdam, was becoming a trading power and the construction of a massive City Hall was begun taking over ten years to complete.  It housed the offices of the four mayors of Amsterdam, the sheriff, his judges and their offices and meeting rooms. The four corners of the main interior corridor have marble sculptures of Greek or Roman gods four meters above the floor. Rembrandt van Rijn’s famous painting the “Night Watchmen” hung in a third floor room for more than 100 years.  It has been housed, for over 200 years, in the Rijksmuseum, which we visited before our Grand European river cruise in 2015.

   When Napoleon Bonaparte invaded, he was impressed with the building and established his brother, Louis Napoleon, as King of the Dutch in 1808.  Louis took over the City Hall and converted it into a luxurious Royal Palace and commissioned furniture to be designed and made to complete the conversion.  He only reigned for two years.  With the French defeated, the Dutch decided to keep it as a Royal Palace.  The furnishings are still used today and have been refurbished in the early 19th century French style.

  The main floor of the building even had a room for executions. You can still see the administrative names of some of the original rooms above the doorways. The library has red drapery, hung at the top of the 4 meter high bookcases. It completely covers the more than 3,400 books. Today they are used as sitting rooms and bedrooms for visiting heads of state or royalty. The balcony, that Louis Napoleon added, has been used by the royal family for ceremonies and celebrations.  In this building in 2013, the Queen Beatrix abdicated the Dutch throne, so that her son could become King and take over the royal duties.  He was invested as King Willem-Alexander in the nearby New Church. He, Queen Maxima and their three children waved from the balcony during the celebrations.

   We ran out of time to see Rembrandt’s House Museum.

   We returned to the hotel along busy pedestrian streets lined with cafés, head shops and retail stores looking for a place to have dinner.  We met Bev & Don and Bill & Sharon in the lobby and were introduced to Don from Quebec who was there as well.  Don’s wife, Marion, was feeling tired and was resting. After checking with Andy and Lucille the remaining three couples walked into old Amsterdam and had a delicious fish and chips dinner at the small De Verguide Lantaarn restaurant.

   After dinner, with the sun shining and the temperature at 23 C, we all did a bit of souvenir shopping.  We walked part way back to the hotel with Bev, Don, Bill and Sharon so they could see where they should go to return to the hotel and we left them to explore the Red Light District at 7:30 on a sunny Saturday night.  Although there were lots of people enjoying the warm weather, it was way too early for the red draped windows of the small one chair boothes to be occupied.  With lack of sleep starting to be noticed, we returned to the hotel.

Total steps for the day 20,612

Once the cruise starts tomorrow, the blogs will be posted, when possible, when we are is port.

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