Amsterdam. July 8

Today we slept in a bit and then headed into the city to have an explore before we met our walking tour at 2.15. We began at the main train station and headed past the biggest bike park we had ever seen and were sufficiently scandalised. Eventually we found and walked around a nice area of the canals just out from the main centre and found a nice ceramic shop and studio and little boutiques while ducking out of the rain. We stopped at a nice looking café from lunch and both had a meal that incorporated avocado because we have been missing it way too much.

Just one section of the bike parking lot

Clearly in shock

Note the many bikes EVERYWHERE

Pottery gets us everytime

After meeting our rather large tour group, which thankfully got split up as there were so many people, we headed off following our Australian guide, who had been travelling and after taking tours in his ancestral home Ireland, moved to Amsterdam and never left. He was a pretty good guide and told us fun stories about the way the city and its people functioned.
(any other stories?)

We ended the tour right by the long line for Anne Frank’s house and our guide suggested that we come about this time any day (5-6pm) as most people have the same idea that getting up really early to line up will help skip the lines, which of course, means that it’s actually the busiest time of all! So we decided to come back this time tomorrow. We walked the length of the line to the front of the house to have a look before heading off.

Anne Frank house

It was getting pretty chilly and so we decided to have dinner at 'home'.

Love A&E