amsterdam

A masterpiece of human achievement

My Europe Tour 2025 – Blog #28 – Summary of my 44day Tour

The below blog can be more detailed in referring to Blog #1 by scrolling down beyond my 27 Europe blogs in my website of https://bhlifestyles.travel.blog for this amazing tour. My website has this recent Blog #28 first. My life mantra is to always make a positive difference/ improvement to whoever I meet & a slight twist to a Pericles quote (Died 429BC). “What you leave behind is not what is engraved on your headstone, but what is engraved into the minds & lives of others”

My initial passport was obtained in March 2016 at 60yrs old … yes, a late starter. Since then, in the last 10yrs I have been in 9 countries, such as, USA, Japan, Sth Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Peru, Ecuador, Chile & New Zealand whilst also travelling through my own country of Australia.

Europe is one region I thought was well beyond my means & capability, plus the currency killer however, it is time to be selfish & take time out from my ongoing extended family renovations & repairs assistance I’ve been providing over the years in my so-called retirement. LOL!! As I’ve aged, I had realised it is not the amount of moments that I breathe .. but the amount of moments my breath is taken away & that, as you will read on is how this Europe tour unfolded.

I am an ‘owner’ in Wyndham Resorts & through my credit level I can use their in-house Travel Club for assistance in compiling my tour proposal. I was blessed to have Nilli help me out where she organised my Sth America trip years prior & she remembered me too. I first compiled a list of my ex-backpacker friends I wanted to see over there in various countries & checked their availability for timing. Looks like 1st October 2025 to start my trip. From this list I was able to source the expected route & see what I can achieve to link up with everyone. This was quite a challenge to be practical & make it all work. Nili was impressed with my Excel spreadsheet & information provided & made her role much easier she said.

My friends live in Nuremberg, Munich, Amsterdam & Bristol UK. Drawing this out on a Europe map & checking the major places & sights I’d like to experience near to this route, plus keep my mum & youngest brother’s (both dec’d) wishes of places they never got to see. From this, I had to work out how many days I would need to use in each place of stay & to analyze what activities & tours to undertake to fully activate each day. Easy .. sarcasm. One could never do enough research, for there is so much to see & do.

From the above paragraph my tour now included Rome (1st stop), Nuremberg, Amsterdam, Paris, Amiens (brother for WW1 experience), Barcelona (my wish), Lisbon, Dublin, Bristol & London (mine & Mum’s wishes). These places were my most wished places to visit & the transport was relatively easy to address. I had to obtain entry requirements with the new ETA for England at £16 (2yr approval) & took 7mins to gain their approval, plus the upcoming 12th Oct 2025 new EES for the Schengen area entry.

With all this compiled information, Nilli set into action & also gained the best travel insurance which isn’t cheap at my age + still have the COVID part covered due to remaining world uncertainty. She made a few adjustments & upon my approval booked all the flights & most hotels stays & left me to do the train ticket purchases & a couple of accommodations where she couldn’t have access to. From my hometown to Europe & back will entail 44days in total, starting from Brisbane & leaving on 1st October 2025. If you review the calendar photo you can see most of my itinerary.

Europe, for me was always in the too-hard basket & when you throw all the current events we are fed on our media & travel alerts stemming from mass immigration to Germany, France & Italy to name a few then the anxiety steps in & for me I’ll be on my own even though I had done most of my travelling on my own over these past 10years.

My flight out from Brisbane entailed a 14hrs 50mins 1st leg to Doha & that is stretching my flight endurance limit & with a 3.5hr layover left a 5hr flight to Rome, arriving at 7.25am on 2nd Oct. I had obtained an eSIM with Saily within 30days of my departure & they had an excellent plan & with a set VPN too which activated the moment I landed in Rome, albeit my flight mode on my phone kept interacting after landing which knocked me out of internet until I had it sorted, via WiFi later in the day.  As you can see, I managed to do 28blogs for my Europe tour so keep scrolling down on my website to get the full itinerary tour & massive volume of photos to view.

From my blogs you will notice I never took a bus in cities to do the sightseeing like a Hop on Hop Off bus as it never suited me & I was watching my AUD to Euros (2 for 1) comparison, noting my pensioner status. Overall, I managed to travel 47,474klms through 8 countries, by 9 plane trips & 7 train trips using my Polarsteps App (you can follow my trips through this free app too). I highly recommend Polarsteps for travelling where people can trace where you are in real time plus you can write up your blogs & whatever photos you wish & when the trip is over you can get a deal to review & change your entries into a high-quality bound tour book at a set rate. In this 44day tour I walked 609,651 steps which was compiled by my Samsung Health in my phone that equals 475.23klms so that’s a lot of walking. I endeavoured to undertake a city walking tour wherever I can but sometimes the timing doesn’t work out so it’s back to my research & city walking. Hope you like this summary & please refer to my blogs for even more information, facts & statistics.

Rome – Italy

Rome was beyond amazing & you could spend countless days there & still not see everything. I would return to Rome in a heartbeat. That is the major thing to overcome; to realise you can’t see everything. The next thing is to assign a good travel time. I fluked October, being into Autumn mode where it is far cooler at around 20°C, less people but still packed in certain sights whereas in Summer, June to August is really hot in Rome for the pavements are black basalt paving everywhere & the streets & lanes are slightly narrow with the added tourist numbers.  The Piazzas (plazas) offer open spaces but are packed with tourists, especially, The Pantheon & Trevi Fountain. Always best to see these in early morning or late afternoon including the Colosseum, Roman Forum & Palantine Hill due to potential crowd crush & high temps.

There is an underground train station adjacent to the Colosseum & that should be looked at, for it’s also an underground museum which I didn’t know at the time. Same for The Pantheon in having an underground museum. The original street level of Rome is some 7m below the current street levels.

The Vatican is always busy & don’t sit at a table for coffee along the streets getting there as you could be slugged the table fee of some €20 for the pleasure. Take notice of the local laws for some fines are hefty including any train trips to validate your ticket, etc & don’t get confused with economy or 1st class trains. I got stung with an economy ticket on a 1st class train & was conned by the platform lady guiding me to the 1st Class train. Felt like a planned tourist trap. This was the train from the airport to the CBD Termini Station. They have since installed a ticket verification system & with substantial fines so be very diligent.

I spent a full day (13hrs) undertaking a bus guide tour to Positano (Amalfi Coast) & Pompeii which was amazing & on Blog #4. Most of my activity & access tours were through Viator, City Wonders, Get Your Guide, & Crown Tours. To repeat, Rome I would go back in a heartbeat.

Nuremberg – Germany

I was staying for 6nights with a young friend, AJ (privacy) who I helped tour New Zealand back in 2017 when she was backpacking & her & her family were keen to spend time with me seeing I had looked after her so well. I flew into Munich, then caught a 1hr train to Nuremberg. AJ took me to Tegernsee (South of Munich, a perfect getaway resort area) via a quick tour of the Audi Production Factory prior. We spent half a day in Munich & more time in Nuremberg which is a city that is amazing & so much history. Later I spent a night at AJ’s parents’ home NW of Nuremberg in the wine region & it was fantastic to enjoy a loving family’s home & cooking (lots of it!!) & to see such great countryside & very cute villages. Thoroughly enjoyed this friend week & hope to see AJ again soon for she really looked after this old man.

Amsterdam – Netherlands

I was able to fly direct via Nuremberg airport which was a bonus & getting through a tiny airport for a change. Airport train from Schiphol Airport was a breeze to Centraal Station (correct spelling). This city takes a while to get your bearings seeing it is a canal city so be patient. Amsterdam has a very expensive City Tax to pay when you check in to your hotel. My 5night stay & value of hotel rate plus a coefficient in a formula calculates a €128 fee. OUCH!!

Amsterdam is a tram & bike city, so I booked a bike tour & while riding a bike is simple you have the added pressure of avoiding people, cyclists & above all, the dreaded tram lines. Trust me, I saved a woman from getting hit by a tram she didn’t hear or see & most likely saved her life. It was a good way of covering a good distance & to see sights relatively easily. You can hire bikes, but I chose the foot walking mode for flexibility & ultimately safety. This city of freedom is so relaxed & at times I was quite ‘happy’ returning to my hotel for I could not avoid the constant fumes of weed throughout the day where it is legal in public, taverns, etc. You can’t avoid it.

I was so blessed to have my dear friends; Ayla & Renske who could meet with me over 2 separate days. It was like yesterday to seeing them again. 2 lovely women I met back in my hometown when they were backpacking. They both have children now but of course they were all in school. Both these 2 days I never wished to end. Such a great time to see them again & both are so gorgeous & haven’t really changed at all. Amsterdam is so unique & well worth a visit in seeing a city built on top of a forest of trees (tree piles) with slanting houses & buildings. To see Ann Frank’s house, you must book well in advance & I challenge you to handle the maze of the Rembrandt Museum.

Paris – France

I caught a regional train from Centraal Station – Amsterdam to Gare du Nord (Northern station of Paris) 3.5hrs & not a bullet train. The train was good, but Gare du Nord is one of the worst & complicated stations in Europe & I really found that out. It is HUGE & has 5 Halls (Sections of platforms). You have to get a cab, bus or another suburban interstop train to get to the Eifel Tower & main city area. I eventually got a ticket (4 RER B Sud) for €6.30 to Saint -Michel- Notre Dame Station & then changed to Champ de Mars Station, being the closest to the Eifel Tower & my Mercure Hotel. The City Tax was far cheaper at €25.35.

I only wanted to see the Eifel Tower, The Louvre, Notre Dame, Champs Elysees & Arc de Triomphe. If you read my relevant blog on Paris, you will note I was at The Louvre the morning it was robbed so I missed out on that plus the associated Seine River cruise & with the thousands awaiting to see inside Notre Dame I missed that too, but I got my outside photos at least & a good blog & life story. I found Paris to be rather dirty & slightly unkept of appearance, lots of Somalian market vendors selling Eifel trinkets, etc & would only return to see those missed internal landmarks mentioned above, possibly an overnight stay. My blog of the Eifel Tower shows the incredible history & statistics for this wonder of construction.

Amiens – France

I took a dreaded taxi to Gare Du Nord for the early set train departure. I was totally ripped off by an extremely rude French driver. I left by stating we (Australia) saved you (France) twice in 2 world wars & this is the shit we receive. I should have dropped the fare into the gutter for him to pick up. I was thankful my train was in Hall 1 (Ground Floor upon entry).

Travelling to & staying at Amiens is firstly for the train runs through it, has more accommodation available & is a bigger city than the village of Villers-Bretonneux (closer to the war section I am preferring to see). For my accommodation I selected La Pléiade Dorée from my Booking.com provider at my Genius Level rate. Travelling to the war locations I wanted to see involves a bit of hardship + hiring a car is a bit risky for me & to firstly obtain one, so I booked the best war tour available through Tripadvisor for a full day. It wasn’t cheap but goes for 8hrs & includes a private vehicle with a guide.

My WW1 Tour is an extra special day thought about long ago. It is about a ‘promise’ I secretly made to myself to visit the war area surrounding Villers-Bretonneux & The General Sir John Monash War Memorial just out of town. The promise came about when I was trying to organise a trip in 2017 for the 2018 opening of the underground War Museum at The General Sir John Monash War Memorial with my youngest brother, Rod but I won’t go into why he couldn’t agree to go, but it wasn’t his decision not to. Not long after my first planning of this trip & discussing it with him Rod suddenly passed away (at only 54). Rod was an avid reader of books on WW1 & knew a lot more than I on the subject. After he passed away, I made that promise to myself to take him with me .. much like I’ve done on every trip since 2017.

Our greatest ever Australian, General Sir John Monash who landed on Day 1 at Gallipoli 25th April 1915 & through his efforts & strategies saved countless lives & later ensured the safest retreat from the bloodbath of Gallipoli & in 1918 took control of the whole alliance armed forces of countries (England, USA, Canada, NZ & other countries) in an orchestrated front to defeat the German army. He was the only one to ever achieve that chief honour of such a combined force. Only cruel politics & jealousy kept him from being rightly called Field Marshall, for he was born in Melbourne of German Jew parents & as he grew always called Australia his country despite his heritage. He designed & constructed several rail bridges & the electricity network & brought concrete to Australia. A very famous Australian & forever remembered.

I am forever grateful for having the full day with my guide, Bridgitt on a Tripadvisor 8hr tour – Australian Battlefields Tour. She totally looked after me & spoke wonderful English & had supreme knowledge of the war & more recent history of the region. Totally blessed. The tour was well worth the money plus I added a good tip of €s too for driving me all the way back to my apartment.

Barcelona – Spain

My timetable & the rail timetable had me forced to stay overnight in Paris, back at Garde du Nord & then onto a hotel (Tim Hotel) near my departure point of Garde de Lyon for an early 3.5hr bullet train to Barcelona.

Almost every day my breath has been taken away in seeing such amazing sights but to see the Basilica de la Sagrada Familia is beyond any senses & imagination. I was just in awe of its magnificence & to know just one genius Antoni Gaudi at 31yrs old of age designed & engineered this amazing structure before my eyes. Beyond words & comprehension. I bought a booklet in their museum to grasp the many details, etc in this basilica.

How can anyone design the engineering, physics & still get the construction right when it comes to geological construction. If this is not the paramount of human design/ construction on earth I don’t know what is (forget the pyramids, Great Wall of China, etc). I hope you can get a grasp of this basilica, inside & out. The stats are beyond comprehension; there will be 20 towers when completed & with the central tower (under construction will reach 172.5m high, named Tower of Jesus Christ) & the 2nd highest tower, St Mary’s Tower at 138.5m high. 12 of the towers will represent the 12 apostles. I was able to take the tower lift option located within St Mary’s Tower & that is high!!! For a great city viewing & you are welcomed to exit by taking the spiral stone staircase all the way down, to which I did gracefully & carefully. June 2026 this basilica will be completed, making it the tallest church in the world & an observation platform showing 360 for the public within the Tower of Jesus Cross, recently installed.

Gaudi was killed by a tram in 1926 after leaving the basilica where he spent most of his life on-site. His funeral was massive & is body buried next the main altar in The Crypt below the main floor. Through other architects, engineers & sculptors he commissioned & trained carried on his innovative project. The Tower of Jesus with its upper arm of the 56-ft-tall four-armed cross, installed in late March 2026, making it the tallest church in the world & providing a full 360° view of Barcelona city. The cross was built in Germany using white enameled ceramic tiles, stone interior and glass that were made in the Spanish region of Catalonia. It was then transported in parts back to Barcelona by ferry and trucks and finally assembled at the church with precision crane work.

The outside of the basilica is fully biblical, with statues, symbols, nature & about everything else whereas the internal of the basilica is dedicated to light & peace & the stone columns representing trees of life. The colours of life (blue, yellow & green, etc) occur through the glass windows every morning & then changes to red/ orange for the setting sun. Every night, since the Cross installation the basilica has an amazing light show.

Barcelona is a must-see city & there is a lot to see but the Basilica de la Sagrada Familia totally did it for me. Blogs 14 & 15.

Lisbon – Portugal

I had a short flight into Lisbon from Barcelona & took a city bus into the Restauradores (CBD of the historic area). Not a great deal to see in this city however taking a full day bus tour to Sintra, Pena, Regaleira, Cabo Roca Coast & Cascais plus the additional Full Pena Palace and Regaleira really made this stay worthwhile. I was really surprised of what this day uncovered & was well worth the expenditure. Blog #18

Dublin – Ireland

A 3hr flight from beautiful sunny & mild Autumn of Portugal to the usual Dublin windy, rainy 11°C was not fun. Best to get the Dublin Express bus that takes you into the city for 30mins trip at €10. I did a very average walking city tour the next morning for 2hrs, but I’m sure there must be better ones so do your research. The Guinness Brewery Tour for ($52AUD) was well worth the long afternoon tour. Once you find the entrance, the facility is a great experience venturing up to the 7th Floor Guinness Gravity Bar for your free Guinness pint & mingling with a hundred or so thirsty drinkers & a great view of the city of the weather is fine. The history & statistics will blow your mind. 4hrs of free roaming can be over in just ‘minutes’.

The next day was my Walking Pub Tour & I wished I had done this before the city walking tour. Kevin Adams was an amazing guide with so much knowledge & he also does food tours http://www.walkingfoodtours.ie. There are 798 pubs in Dublin alone. He told us The Brazen Head on Liffeyside Bridge St is Dublin’s oldest pub where it started beer moonshining in 1198 & now on the same site the pub was built in 1754. Smithwick’s (Irish Red Ale) is traced back to 1710 as the first official beer produced in Dublin by John Smithwick’s Brewery at St Francis Abbey (Kilkenny) adding on to the same beer produced by the then monks. Pls read my respective blog of this tour to learn some old sayings of drinking & how they came about. So funny & forever in my memory. Blogs 20 & 21.

Bristol – UK

Leaving Dublin was easy for me being close to the River Liffey where I walked over in the dark to the Custom House bus stop (800m) for the Dublin Express to Dublin T2 (€10, booked online for 4.05am) for 06.35am – 07.55 BA (British Airways) on Aer Lingus flight to Bristol Airport, UK (1.5hrs) to stay with my married friends my eldest son & I met doing the Machu Picchu 4day Trek in Peru in 2019. This is where my ETA came into play (new entry tax for Britain).

David picked me up at this small airport & for the next few days, saw lots of Bristol & Bath which were quite surprising & enjoyable & had lots of Roman buildings & infrastructure plus the famous Roman Baths. Sue really looked after me & David at times had soccer commitments. I finally got to inspect the last operational Concorde aircraft jet where my last opportunity was missed back in 1986. Despite staying with great friends my blogs had plenty of info & photos. Sue managed to get me to my train after a 4day stay for London too which was amazing & so thoughtful. Such treasured memories with great friends.

London – UK

The train trip was such a breeze from Bristol (1hr 40mins) to Paddington Station (a very busy station) & it was just a simple 15mins walk to my Thistle Hyde Park Kensington Hotel on Bayswater Rd aligned with Hyde Park. The walk had a mixture of shops, apartments, pubs & basically everything else of a busy suburb. A great location.

Hyde Park is a fantastic green space & HUGE!!!! Kensington is a great suburb & rather close to most of Westminster CBD landmarks & then onto London CBD. Quite a few blogs on this major world city & our birthplace of Australia. Lots of photos & of course I was aligned to not seeing everything. No use writing more as you need to read my blogs. London was brilliant but had to watch the British Pounds against my poor AUD. So much history & architecture.

Home – Australia

I took an iconic taxicab to Paddington Station. The driver was a pleasant surprise to experience a real taxi driver & cab. Without a hassle I caught the 4.30am direct train to Heathrow Airport T2/ T3 platform. At this terminal stop I must disembark but stay on this platform as per the platform announcement & digital signage for the next train in 5mins that took me to my required Terminal 4. So easy.

After my 5day stay in London I was back onto the long-haul flights back to Brisbane & then more travelling to my birthplace of Grafton, then to my new home of Yamba (40mins bus). All in all, my travelling time getting home was in total (allowing for layovers, hotel stay & waiting times) at 44hrs 20mins. 37hrs directly associated with travel & all of a sudden, it hit me … I had just completed Europe Stage 1 & saw so many things I thought were out of my reach in life. At some point I’ll be focussing on doing Europe Stage 2 asap. I quickly reviewed my Polarsteps App of all my Europe blogs & ordered 2 large volumes of my blogs & photos (high volume of writing & photos) & they arrived quickly & are such a blessing to review them to prove I did this tour.

I’ll finish this summary blog now, so please stay safe, happy & healthy & my usual quote I used to put at my endings follows.

Eckart Tolle – “If I am not the hero in my life .. who the hell could it be”? Ciao for now. Stay safe, happy & healthy.

My Europe Tour 2025 – Blog #9 – Ayla & Renske 15-16/10/25

Today, 15/10/25 (Day 14) I have my usual huge breakfast at my hotel & headed off to Amsterdam Centraal to take a train to Naarden Burrum train station (€6) to meet up with a very close friend, Ayla who I met years ago at my new hometown of Yamba at my cousin’s then Yamba Backpackers. Ayla sent me an app 9292 which was so easy to book my rail eticket & see the rail timetable. A breeze. They send you the eticket 40mins before your departure. I caught the 9.40am train which provided the required 10am arrival for Ayla to drive & pick me up there & to show me her hometown region. Seeing her was such a thrill & she hadn’t changed a bit. Still gorgeous & vibrant. After such a wonderful greeting she drove into Naarden & did a quick walk around this quaint village & stumbled across a WW1 cannon. Photo opportunity of course. The first photo is in 2022 on her revisit to my Yamba.

At Naarden there is an ancient canal setup from 17th century, called Bastion Katten which is a quirky maze of levee walls & water in very odd shapes. It is very difficult to understand this construction & for what purpose it was intended for other than it was a water designed fortress with 15 cannons. The buildings were constructed between 1873-75. https://www.vestingnaarden.nl/Bastion_Katten.html

Following on, we travelled to Monnickendam & by chance along the way we entered a dairy farm of jersey cows that specialised in all types of cheeses. It is called Henri Willig Cheese & what a great little tasting & shop they have there. It is the original farm where Henri was born. He took it over in 1974 from his parents. If you planned correctly, you could see them do the milking too however, the cows were happily out on the farm grazing. Around 150,000 visitors per year come here & now with their other farms have 1mil attend/ year. They also have 24 stores in 8 cities. They certainly know how to do this business correctly.

Ayla & I tasted almost every cheese on the wide range of samplers. Eventually, we both loved the Old Gold cheese & Date ‘chutney’, so I insisted on buying that for her to enjoy as a memory of our catchup. I had a strong feeling she was thrilled & I could see her opening it straight away when she gets home. The Date Chutney I found was her real weakness. LOL! She took a photo of us & then me, in the giant clog shoes. Everything was so spontaneous with Ayla when she sees things. How can you refuse Ayla?

The next stop Ayla planned was to see the dyke at Volendam just up the road, but confusion reigned. The road signage was weirdly partly blanked off but the gps said keep going, so we followed the bus in front of us. Things became hysterical, where we found ourselves travelling through the roadworks under construction. For those 10mins it was priceless, so much laughter & what tha?? Finally, we came to where we supposed to turn off but barricades prevented that. Ayla pulled over when she saw a worker at the barricade. Using her Dutch language & no doubt her great smile, I could make out the story & laughter & what can we do comment? The worker then looked around & said do a quick circle & he will move the barricade & we can go down that street. Obviously, he was doing us a big favour. With more laughter, we found a parking spot & went into the info store where they guided us up the street to the dyke & food places.

Volendam is a beautiful seaside spot with fishing boats & the like. Ayla ordered some traditional finger food of various types with sauces & a soft wine & me a lager beer. It was just enough food intake & we sat & talked for a bit. Ayla also had spotted a traditional pancake treat, so we decided to share that with fruit & cream & again, that was certainly enough. Very tasty, but of course sweet. Time was getting away & Ayla had mother duties & things to be done at home so we both agreed to find the nearest train station for me to head back. Traffic was starting to build & with our talking & a small screen gps we missed the required turn off, so we had to venture back (more laughter). We didn’t find Dieman Station but somehow stumbled on Weeps Station, so that was fine being on the same line.

For me, saying good-bye was very hard, for Ayla is a very close friend that has done life the hard way & continues to move forward juggling all that she encompasses. I truly wish her dreams to come true, for that is a wonderful future I do see for her. Hugging & waving lessened the pain & I’ll check later if she arrived home safely. Today I managed 16,840 steps = 13.1klms so another big day of walking. Ayla continues to contact me to see how my trip was going & sent me photos of the cheese & chutney demolition. Such a wonderful human .. so kind & thoughtful.

16/10/25 Day 15 I met up with another gorgeous lady, Renske who I also met at my cousin’s backpackers many years ago. After my hearty breakfast I hit the road back up to Amsterdam Centraal to meet up with my close friend, Renske who lives way out of the city for our scheduled 10am catchup. I have since learnt, the quickest way to Amsterdam Centraal was to follow the tram lines. Der!!! With this method I maintained my consistency in being early, plus standing outside the front doors in front of the huge signage stating to myself “She can’t miss me!”. I thought it was smart of me to send her the photo of my blue wind jacket I wore when Ayla took my photo (minus the big Dutch clogs). I did stand out in the crowd. After a while & without any warning Renske had come up from behind & had the greatest smile, hello & welcoming hug. She had exited the station at the side. . Renske had not changed a bit since we last saw each other back in Yamba with her husband. She is still gorgeous & fit & enjoying life, although slightly hectic work life. We were both thrilled to see each other. 2nd photo is the Theater Tuschinski Pathe, a very unique building. 3rd photo is the foyer area of Amsterdam Centraal.

Our first decision agreed upon was to walk a bit & find one of Renske’s favourite coffee shops, Zettle _ Coffee & Cake where we both eyed off the Carrot Cake (apparently, both our weaknesses). With Renske having her own Auditing Consultancy & Process company, she deferred her day to come & see me. So blessed she gave up her time & work commitments, just for this old bloke. She must get home too later & do some mum & house stuff as well as pack for her family trip away tomorrow, so time is valuable.

After 2 straight coffees, we still chatted like it was yesterday & then it was time for more walking. We headed off to the left of Amsterdam Centraal area & then it struck me, with all the walking I had done I hadn’t walked this section before. Renske had a laugh at that & the took control of the navigation & I was very happy she did so. Saw some great neighbourhoods, canals & museums & then down to the ‘Green Ship’ area. With time now pressing, I made sure Renske could leave at a good time if we went straight to Amsterdam Centraal. Where did the time go?

Again, saying good-bye was very hard but with the hope she will bring her whole family over to Australia & call into Yamba again, possibly next year. Fingers crossed. We had quite a few memorable hours together today, so it’s never about the quantity, but the quality.

Waving good-bye, now from a distance I retraced our steps back towards that neighbourhood, particularly to find the Rijksmuseum Art Museum (Rembrandt, Van Gogh & others) for Renske said it was amazing what is in there. Eventually, I found the huge museum & paid the €25 entrance fee. In the foyer, you can go to the museum shop, cafeteria & then head into the museum. It was here I found the layout map in English .. but I have to say I should have thrown it in the bin. Totally stupid set out. Very small room #s high on the wall & then no signage telling you what is ahead of you. Yes, saw some amazing things, like Rembrandts renowned paintings & others that came a close 2nd. Some paintings were the width of the entire wall & as high, like 20 or so m2.

I saw some great paintings, silverware, ancient woodwork, 1/24 scale Dutch ship with its 74 cannons fitted, coloured glass windows that define the true masters of this craft long ago. An artillery collection of swords, guns, etc that a 13yr old boy started collecting after the revolution.

I picked out the famous Van Gogh self-portrait to view .. but after quite a few hours, couldn’t find it in this art maze of a building. Hence, why I call it a pathetic layout of a museum So many floors & focussed on making it a maze of walls. In the end I called it quits, for I had to fit in a canal cruise yet & that was up near Amsterdam Centraal. Walking back, I saw Rembrandt Square where there is a large statue of him.

The best one, but not the cheapest canal cruise was Lovers Canal Cruises (no it is a perception with that name). It cost €17.50 for 1 hour. The cheapest I found, but not now in service was €14.50. The boat was full & I found the last seat available & of course I was sitting backwards which made the landmarks seen after the commentary & going into the next sight. Anyway, it was good to sit down for an hour at least. The worst was that I could not take one photo due to my sitting central on the aisle & backwards. After the cruise, I decided to head back to the hotel as it’s been a big day & was getting dark. Arrived at 7.30pm & noticed I had done 28,180 steps = 22.06klms of walking, Yikes!!! & still my blogs to do.

I’ll end my 9th Blog here & many thanks for reading them. My next blogs will be leaving Amsterdam for Paris. Please stay safe, happy & healthy.

My Europe Tour 2025 – Blog #8 – Amsterdam 13 & 14/10/25

If you read my last blog (#7), you would see the journey, I had in getting to my Eden Hotel in Amsterdam. With that said, I slept very well, my room was excellent for a king single bed unit with ensuite with the hottest water for a shower I’ve come across. 13/10/25 (Day 12) With my room cost the buffet breakfast was included & WOW! .. it is a full breakfast. For the insane City Tax incurred (€128) when checking in the hotel it should be a 5star to justify that expense.

Amsterdam is a city of about 1Mil people; it is full of bikes, trams & tram lines, cycleways, roads in every direction, canals you can’t get your head around for direction, etc. You quickly learn where & when to walk & use your 360° vision. For a bustling city you can get around quite easily & just about everything goes within reason. Not too much policing, but they are about everywhere. Certain road & tram etiquette is required but people walk like ants in a colony. Another thing that hit me was the frequent strong smell of weed. It is legal here on the streets & in pubs, etc.

My first task was to pack my day bag ready for a bicycle tour & to head to the required meeting place up near Amsterdam Centraal, about a 22min walk away. Today & by the looks of the week it is going to be a very cloudy day, with misty rain. I walked past Magna Plaza which is a high-end shopping centre under renovations so there’s very little inside. I eventually found the bike shop but of course I was 25mins early & they were shocked to see me well ahead of time. I explained my diligence in being early in everything I attend. I went up the street & found a great little café (Caffe Vergnano 1882) where I was able to unwind very quickly & even did a review on it while I was there.

Again, I was right on time for my bike, but we had some very late commers, so we had to start the introduction & safety criteria again. So frustrating & it’s starting to rain. Must remember to not follow parallel with the tram lines, for you will come undone very quickly & violently. Baylon was our guide, but he was over cautious & it was harder to ride much slower. He showed us several historical buildings and their facade effects of shutters, gantries, etc even after major restorations. A couple from Scotland were my adopted partners, for they seriously needed watching over. I opted to ride last so I could keep an eye on the couple plus allow Baylon to easily see my bright blue wind jacket. As time went on, the group surged ahead of us at one major road crossing on a bend leaving the wife & myself behind. I could read her mind where she was going to take a direct short cut to catch up to her husband & I sped up a bit to catch her right arm & yell stop!!! She didn’t hear the tram coming up from behind her & she was just about to ride in front of it. The tram missed her by 600mm max. Catching her emotions, she was extremely thankful I saved her from the thought of a tram run over. Now the group was just about out of sight with no visual of what had happened. With a bit of collective confidence, we crossed the tram lines & took up the street & made good time. She could not wait to tell her husband of that near-miss. Very lucky & still Baylon was none the wiser.

We stopped in the huge natural forest park Baylon calls Amsterdam’s NY Central Park (Vondelpark) due to the same landscape designer used here. The lady (wife) shouted me a coffee for sticking with her & before long we were back on our bikes. We did get to see Ann Frank’s house externally & to see inside it is booked out for months. Not far from Ann Frank’s house is Westerkerk, a protestant church (1620 – 1631) which is Rembrandt’s burial place. Amsterdam is basically built on an extensive pine tree forest of some 13million or so trees due to the area being swamp land. Amsterdam Centraal Station is built on about 9,000 trees & fill. A lot of older buildings are early 1904 – 1940s (war period) & some are leaning in on a corner, but no-one worries about this. There are lots of houses (3 storeys high) that have a gantry out from the attic with a pulley wheel for getting stock & furniture up from the street. Houses were even built intentionally leaning out from the 1st floor to help with the lifting process so they wouldn’t hit the frontage or glass windows. You can see this in my photos. Very unnerving for me.

Going to another nearby & smaller park we stopped to see the Turkey & US Embassies next door to each other & diagonally opposite is the Concert Hall in all its grandeur. After that we cycled back to the bike shop & within a few minutes everyone had gone, all without any commentary or safe travels, etc. Really weird. I did see the Scottish couple some 80m up the street & managed to get them to wave back. Oh well, Go Figure? Anyway, I hit the pavement again to see more of Amsterdam. The canal boats, Victoria Hotel & St Nicholas Basilica built in the same years as Amsterdam Centraal. I didn’t manage a visit inside .. seems to have the big doors closed all the time.

I had to do a Dutch pancake thing before I run out of days, so I found this great cozy pancake café (lots of them but not everyone is cute & welcoming) called Milky Pancakes & they were so accommodating & really enjoyed my time there. The banana & hazelnut topping on the pancake was yummo!!!! After that, I had to do some serious walking to wear down that pancake & walked into the large plaza with the Royal Palace & the central sculpture where they have a dedication ceremony on 4th May each year & then Liberty Day on the 5th, so it’s a huge giving thanks & then celebration time.

14/10/25 (Day 13) Along the canals there are many permanent canal homes (old boats & barges) that have strict city & maritime controls on them. They eventuated when housing was extremely rare straight after WW2 & most have remained in that way of living. After that canal I went down to another canal to see the now famous ‘Skinny Bridge’ which was used in a James Bond film a few years back. Walking over it you can see how it works to raise the wooden platform for the bigger boats. Very ingenious & many more types can be found.

In the photo of the little black house next to the canal was the home of Rembrandt when he was painting. It is now a little café & looks very good for its age even though it is tilting slightly. Moving on you can see the green ship like structure. That is the NEMO Science Museum. I walked up along its ramped roof to take better view pictures but a bit expensive to go into it. I did take a photo of the insane engineered water clock in the foyer that was designed & completed by a physicist. The architect of the ‘green ship’ never designed it as a ship structure but something about light & dark .. (too much weed, I think) but so many Amsterdam citizens call it the ‘Green Ship’. Looking back down the ramp, you can see the Naval Museum with an old bounty ship moored there. This building also stored all sorts of ammunition & arms there for the defending of Amsterdam & now is a museum.

I checked out a souvenir shop (so many to see) & in broad daylight at a small child’s eye level was the rude section & my photo only took the less dirty section, so it can be full on here. I don’t believe any prudes live in Amsterdam. Also, walking past certain shops, bars especially I often get a full lung of weed smoke. Cough. Also, people all around are smoking the stuff, so you can’t avoid it plus the smell. Explains why I was painless, sort of happier when I arrived back at the hotel each day. LOL!!!

My first full day here took in 10,915 steps = 8.52klms on 13/10 & 15,009 steps = 11.63klms on 14/10, so not bad. Tomorrow, 15/10/25 (Day 14) I take a short train trip to Naarden Burrum train station to meet up with a very close friend, Ayla who had to postpone from Tuesday (14/10) which was totally fine & understandable. So blessed she could still make it for this old man.

I’ll end my 8th Blog here & many thanks for reading them. My next blogs will be more of Amsterdam & catching up with 2 of my much-loved backpacker friends I met years ago at my new hometown of Yamba at my cousin’s then Yamba Backpackers as well. Please stay safe, happy & healthy.