I’m writing this from the room in Amsterdam in which I’ve recently caught a much-needed few winks. Walk we did. Yesterday morning at around six, we landed at AMS, and decided it would be prudent and wise to hit the ground running regardless of rest reserves. We started catching trains. Catching them can be easy, but figuring out which ones to catch is Rather More Difficult. The Dutch language doesn’t help us out too much with that. Titus set a good pace and kept us moving the right direction.

Amsterdam is beautiful old city of canals, bridges, tile-roofed brick buildings, and bicycles.

Tram rails and bike lanes make it absolutely imperative to look both ways. I didn’t always.

A list of things randomly interrupted by descriptions:

Friedhat’s cafe (not coffee shop) where we tried some excellent coffees.

A doner kebab shop at the wrong time of day. A dish called Kapsalon is delicious (think Turkish spin on poutine, with Gouda) but apparently not breakfast.

IKEA, accidentally

Haarlem

An impressive old church complete with 1500s brass pelicans, and 1700s ship replicas.

Savory crepes made an excellent lunch.

Adriaan’s mill, a working windmill perched atop the old city tower of Haarlem. The original burned down but was replaced in the 90s. Windmills are a feat of engineering. Here, there’s dedicated operators who keep them maintained.

Utrecht-

Amsterdam isn’t the only city with canals, or even the most beautiful. Here there’s restaurants and cafes below the street, with a walkway along the canal. A nice cafe advertised Brave Dutch Food. It was supper time. The shellfish bisque was capital, the service friendly and relaxed. After we polished off these vittles, a good walk along the lighted canal-side cobblestone streets got us back to the bus. The bus took us to the train station. A very crowded train brought us back to Amsterdam.