The sun does not rise in this country before 8:30am either. We woke up to an overcast day, although no wind or rain. Wandering the streets looking for a place to have breakfast we found that it is not a commonly offered meal at many restaurants and cafes, but we managed to stumble upon a lovely little outlet where you could buy healthy and organic produce for eat in or take away called Stach. The workers were once again extremely welcoming and friendly. We selected cups consisting of yogurt, granola, fruits and nuts and enjoyed our mandatory espressos before heading off to find Anne Frank’s house. We did not have to walk far, however, the queue was ridiculous (and we’ve seen the photos in the book) so we decided not to go in and walked to the Van Gogh museum instead. Walking the streets, it was a delight to take in the local scenery and culture, which is very different to ours back home. The buildings are tall and very narrow, and on a slight angle, with steep stairs that lead upwards and also to doors that are below street level. It is a very pretty city. The cobble stone roads open up into the more common tar roads once you get further away from the canals and we noticed that there are lanes for bikes, trams and cars going both ways, this is a city that knows how to do transport!
Once we reached the Van Gogh museum we realised that we were not going to avoid enormous queues anywhere (and we’ve seen his pictures too) so we resorted to wandering the streets and enjoying the sights. We found a place for lunch that was just magnificent in food, service and atmosphere with the added bonus of a resident pussy cat and free wifi! After a bit of shopping we found the Albert Cuyp, which are apparently the biggest and most famous markets in Amsterdam. What a treat! We walked and walked and walked and the markets seemed to stretch forever. Teresa bought a scarf but we mostly window shopped as we plan to do most of our shopping in Poland. On the way back we walked past Anne Frank’s house again but she is a very popular girl and the line had not shortened a bit! We did stop in to Stach again to treat ourselves to some gourmet chocolates and were greeted with warm and familiar helloes from our new BFFs we had made that morning.
After such a long day of walking a couple of Baileys were in order before settling in for the night.