Despite being over 20 km from the sea, Amsterdam feels very much like the port city that it is. The morning rain was again chased away by a fresh breeze whistling over the polders from the north sea. We checked out of the hotel and headed for the Stedlijk museum which is in a temporary home on the Osterdock, but disappointingly none of the major exhibits were on show, with no Picasso and no Beanery, so we gave it a miss (having resolved to come back again in a few years time).
Instead, we headed for the Scheepvaart museum which details the history of Dutch sea faring from the earliest days of the age of discovery to the rapacious mercenary activities of the Dutch East India Company. There were plenty of model ships, historical maps, globes and charts, (sword whore alert!) naval sabres and cutlasses and the fabulous gilded Royal barge. The highlight, though, was the Amsterdam - a full size replica of a Dutch East Indiaman fitted out to give an idea of what ship board life would have been like. It brought the whole experience to life far more effectively than any number of museum exhibits or multimedia audio visual displays ever could.
Lunch in the museum cafe and then a final stroll through the Waterloopein flea market before heading back to the central station to buy our rail tickets - it cost just €10.60 for four of us to travel on a fast, regular (every ten minutes), clean train service. The UK equivalent would cost at least three times as much and be dirty, slow and probably late. Just time for a last cup of coffee before heading to the departure gate which was of course at the far end of the terminal building. Hmmm, is 'terminal' really the word I want to use when writing this blog whilst flying on a rather turbulent flight across the North Sea? Will we all end up on a mysterious desert island with only a polar bear for company? Tune in next time ... :-)
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