Amsterdam, part three.

On Monday morning, we sadly packed up, and set out.
We dropped our bag in the storage at the station, then went for our complimentary boat trip. In one of the Dan Dare boats!

We sat out the back - where it was open - despite the cold.
The boat set off round the harbour, then up one of the canals into the city.

This is the best houseboat EVER!

And now for lots of pics of canals and houseboats and pretty scenery...







After our little cruise, we set off around the city again, as our flight back wasn't until the evening. We found Hermitage Amsterdam, which had a rather impressive exhibition of paintings by Picasso and Matisse and so on. I loved it, and Matt was rather bemused by some of the more Cubist ones.

And then Matt was on a bridge.

We then headed up to the FOAM photography museum. Fascinating stuff, especially the Vrolik Collection (info and some of the pictures at the link. Probably not suitable for the squeamish - medical science anomalies).

From there we went to Rembrandt's house. Beautiful. It was really interesting to see how he lived, and where he peddled his paintings (one of his front rooms), and there was a guy there showing people the methods of etching and printing that Rembrandt would have used.

After that, there was time for us to do a last bit of wandering about before heading back to the station.

The most awesome bike I saw, I think, in the time we were there.

This house made my eyes hurt.

Gorgeous architecture...

Garden in the middle of the city...

Windows full of globes and plants...

And most of all, bicycles!


So we picked up our luggage from the station, and set out for the airport. Everything was going well until our plane was delayed for two hours. There's really only so long you can play I Spy in the airport at night. We eventually got on the plane at about 11.25 (Amsterdam time), so we didn't get home until 1am our time. It was worth it, though.