Amsterdam to Brussels

Our first early morning (6:30!) because we’re on a three-hour train to Brussels, home of the sprout. It’s another cold, sunny day and our early start gave us a chance to watch the sun come up as we dragged our bags to the train station. The weather’s been one of the best parts of this trip and we got it for absolutely nothing. Amsterdam shone like this our first two days before showing the fog and grey it’s famous for but it didn’t rain so our cycle tours were unimpeded.

We didn’t see everything Amsterdam had to offer but all we wanted to see. Well, all we could see without stressing out ourselves and Luka as we marched him through yet another museum. Our daytrips were liberally interrupted with frisbee breaks and snacks but even so we managed to cover a lot of miles on our six wheels.

The 10,000 windmills that used to be here were used to pump out water, saw lumber, grind grain and more but electricity came along and now there’s less than a thousand. And they’re still working. We rode out to the one at Sloten for a tour of their mill that moves 60,000 litres of water an hour when the wind is right and they’re not hosting a wedding. The tour guide explained that the mill had been moved from its present site a hundred years ago but the locals, suffering windmill withdrawal, held bingos and such to raise the money to buy and move another that was slotted for destruction. For $60,000 they were able to buy, barge and buff up a windmill to tour/wedding/working status...and Sloten’s back on the map. If you’re lucky enough to be there on the 2nd Sunday in August you can get strapped to one of the sails for a taste of how they dealt with criminals 100 years ago. Apparently a little nausea is all it takes to extricate the criminal within.

Another day, another bike ride and this time to the Van Gough museum. We’d bought passes that had a-e levels (‘a’ gets you into cool stuff, ‘e’ you could likely get for free) but the Van Gough is so popular they don’t need to get involved package passes to be seen. We (Deb) bought our passes online which didn’t save any money but did speed up our entrance. The museum has many of his works though not all (Starry, starry night wasn’t there) as well as those artists that had the most influence on his work. I only managed to snap one foto before the stern security guard spotted me.

For the ‘a’ portion of our pass we visited the Amsterdam Dungeon. It’s a 500 year old building with sets designed for different periods of the past and had actors re-enacting the Spanish Inquisition (it went on for a few hundred years), getting waylaid into servitude on a ship and more. Fun, silly and a gruesome glimpse into Amsterdam’s past.



The Artis zoo is too much to see in one day - especially if it’s cold. It was sunny but not warm the day we rode over so interspersing visits to the insectarium and aquarium (both indoors) with the polar bear and apes (both outdoors) kept the frostbite at bay. We saw about half in about four hours which worked out to about $20/hour for the three of us. It was longer than we’d intended but as we’d had the bikes for a few days, the guys at the bike shop didn’t charge us for a few extra hours.

De Beers has a ‘contract’ for getting diamonds out of Africa and most of them come here. Tours of the many diamond factories are at the ‘e’ level and offer complimentary sparkling wine - even if you don’t visit their gift shop. We skipped the wine but Luka couldn’t skip the gift shop where he found his first watch, purchased with his gramma christmas money. We got a quickie private tour that left me educated about how the stones are graded and cut and feeling I need to make more money.

But not all our time was spent out and about. We always enjoyed getting back to our barge and cracking another bottle of wine to go with our books. Wine’s even cheaper here than Wales; less than 4 bucks at the supermarket for something reasonable. We bought steaks one night and fish for the other two nights we were home with Chinese and Argentinian being our choices for dinners out. Our exposure to Dutch cuisine was limited to mayo with our fries and Deb’s deep fried cheese. Loved the Belgian waffles which are eaten more as a hand-held pastry than the knifeforksyrup variety I’m used to.

And now I get to compare them to the Belgian waffles in Belgium. We arrive in another hour or so (so glad I’m not driving) where we’ll meet Guillaume for a tour of the city and a drive to Bruges, the location of our B&B. More as it happens (or soon after...)