Day 7 – April 22 Good Friday

Tereza’s birthday today, so a nice early wake-up call at 6.15 for a 6.30am breakfast before heading off at 7.30am to Keukenhof, a dutch flower showcase, set on around 40 hectares of beautifully cared for gardens.  This was really special, with magnificent water settings, pathways & tulips of every colour & shape imaginable in their prime.  In one large glass house was a display of the very best orchids that Holland has to offer, on show after recently being judged, they truly were exceptional. We were the third bus to stop in, by the time we left there must have been over a hundred, the queue to get in was long & the gardens were getting more crowded by the minute.

Next adventure was a canal boat trip around some of the narrow canals in the old city.  This was very interesting with a lot of the buildings dating from the 1600s, some with amazing side leans, all very narrow & tall, with a hook at the top to haul up furniture.  There is a lot of restoration work being carried out to save some of these buildings.  The canal boat driver did a great job steering the long, thin canal boat around & through some of the narrow bridges & turns.  There are so many boats tied up beside the canals the whole length of them, there are not too many free spots to tie up at.  Its amazing how many people were out boating, walking & cycling, all enjoying the beautiful warm weather.  There are so many bicycles everywhere, I can’t imagine how they can find them again, they all look the same.

The next stop was to a beautiful old seaside village of Volendam on the ZiderZee, we had 2 hours there for lunch & to wonder around & take photographs.  It is such a shame that we tourist all pile in there but I suppose we boost their economy.

Our tour guide Brad from Australia is very knowledgeable, professional & patient, it’s amazing how he herds us all together.  There are 19 Australians, 2 Canadians & 2 Americans, a great bunch of people. Our Italian driver Raffaello is unreal how he manoeuvres that big bus through the narrow streets amongst all the cars, people & even more bikes. So far we are enjoying the tour, it is so easy to sit back & let it all roll by.  Next we stopped at a diamond cutting house, Gassan.  It was very interesting to see how they polish & cut the diamonds, also to find out about the colours, grading but not the price.  Unfortunately I didn’t come away with one of those sparkling rocks on my finger.

We had an hour to get ready to go out to an old Dutch restaurant where they served us wonderful original Dutch food.  To finish the evening we all strolled along the red light district where they don’t serve coffee in the coffee shops.

I had a wonderful birthday as a special bonus my children & grand children remembered me – my day was complete.