Had a good nights sleep and woke to a cloudy but non rainy day. Today we had a tour booked to Zaanse Schans Windmills, Marken and Volendam.
Stepped outside and realised if may have been sunny but it was a very chilly 10 degrees with a nasty little wind. The bus was packed to capacity and we both inwardly groaned at the thought of being herded about like sheep, but knew we had to suck it up if we wanted to get into the Dutch countryside.
Our first stop was Volendam to see an authentic cheesemaker. Um, well they didn't even bother telling you how it used to be down just a 5min talk on how cheese is processed. Bit disappointing but we did get to sample some of the cheese. We wandered the streets and admired the tradional houses of the area and poked around in the tourist shops. I was on the lookout for some Speculaas Moulds (Gingerbread moulds) for Nic. No luck at this stop.
From here we boarded the ferry to Marken. The ferry service has been running for 80 years and even though there is now a land bridge to the island the ferry is still popular. The island still has the original style of housing which we walked around. It is very picturesque and we finished with a demonstration of 'traditional clogmaking'. Again interesting that there version of original used machines! But we did get see and hear some of the traditions of the clogs. Again looked for the Speculaas Moulds with no luck. Starting to think they realy don't exist any more.
From here it was back on the bus and off to Zaanse Schans Windmills. Only 8 are still in existence/working in this area and they have been turned into a tourist event. Nevertheless they are interesting to see and wandering around the village was very pleasant, if not bloody freezing. I ventured into every shop asking for the Speculaas with no results - even had it written down on paper so they would know what I was after. Eventually found a bakery museum who pointed me to a shop that had some. Finally managed to get last few moulds left in the shop. Will look forward to Nic making me some gingerbread in them!
It was a quick trip back to Amsterdam where we walked back to the hotel to collect our washing and set out to find a laundromat. Found one in the main shopping centre and wasted a couple of hours do the laundry, but did get a good coffee whilst we were waiting.
Back to the hotel again for a quick wine and then we will head in the opposite direction to the flowermarkets and dinner at a highly recommended Indonesian restaurant.
Unfortunately the Indonesian restaurant was fully booked so we wandered around the flower market - oh how I wanted to bring home the incredible selection of tulip bulbs available. We continued to wander around the streets and canals and eventually came across a Thai restaurant. Well we thanked our lucky stars as we had the best Thai meal we have ever had - and thats including the meals we had in Thailand - the satay sauce was to die for as was everything else. Very happy with this meal.
We eventually dragged ourselves out of the restaurant as Alan wanted to walk thru the red light district. Must say I found it rather disturbing with these beautiful young women wearing nothing more than a couple of elastic bands standing behind glass doors really saddened me. They all looked bored out of their minds! The one thing I had noticed here were the number of men travelling in groups and seeing them in the red light district I found rather intimidating, I do hope they all go home with a nasty itch!
The streets are absolutely crowded at the moment and we realised today that all the road blockages and building sprucing up etc were due to Queen Beatrix abdicating and Prince Willem being coronated on Tuesday. Pity we wont be here for this once in a lifetime event, which we would have had a grandstand view of from our hotel.
No photos in the blog again. Have decided this laptop is going in the bin. Have now lost all our Paris photos off it and I can't even blame Alan for it, in fact may have to eat humble pie over losing the blog. Now too scared to save anything on it. Hoping Anto may be able to recover stuff from the harddrive when we get back.
Stepped outside and realised if may have been sunny but it was a very chilly 10 degrees with a nasty little wind. The bus was packed to capacity and we both inwardly groaned at the thought of being herded about like sheep, but knew we had to suck it up if we wanted to get into the Dutch countryside.
Our first stop was Volendam to see an authentic cheesemaker. Um, well they didn't even bother telling you how it used to be down just a 5min talk on how cheese is processed. Bit disappointing but we did get to sample some of the cheese. We wandered the streets and admired the tradional houses of the area and poked around in the tourist shops. I was on the lookout for some Speculaas Moulds (Gingerbread moulds) for Nic. No luck at this stop.
From here we boarded the ferry to Marken. The ferry service has been running for 80 years and even though there is now a land bridge to the island the ferry is still popular. The island still has the original style of housing which we walked around. It is very picturesque and we finished with a demonstration of 'traditional clogmaking'. Again interesting that there version of original used machines! But we did get see and hear some of the traditions of the clogs. Again looked for the Speculaas Moulds with no luck. Starting to think they realy don't exist any more.
From here it was back on the bus and off to Zaanse Schans Windmills. Only 8 are still in existence/working in this area and they have been turned into a tourist event. Nevertheless they are interesting to see and wandering around the village was very pleasant, if not bloody freezing. I ventured into every shop asking for the Speculaas with no results - even had it written down on paper so they would know what I was after. Eventually found a bakery museum who pointed me to a shop that had some. Finally managed to get last few moulds left in the shop. Will look forward to Nic making me some gingerbread in them!
It was a quick trip back to Amsterdam where we walked back to the hotel to collect our washing and set out to find a laundromat. Found one in the main shopping centre and wasted a couple of hours do the laundry, but did get a good coffee whilst we were waiting.
Back to the hotel again for a quick wine and then we will head in the opposite direction to the flowermarkets and dinner at a highly recommended Indonesian restaurant.
Unfortunately the Indonesian restaurant was fully booked so we wandered around the flower market - oh how I wanted to bring home the incredible selection of tulip bulbs available. We continued to wander around the streets and canals and eventually came across a Thai restaurant. Well we thanked our lucky stars as we had the best Thai meal we have ever had - and thats including the meals we had in Thailand - the satay sauce was to die for as was everything else. Very happy with this meal.
We eventually dragged ourselves out of the restaurant as Alan wanted to walk thru the red light district. Must say I found it rather disturbing with these beautiful young women wearing nothing more than a couple of elastic bands standing behind glass doors really saddened me. They all looked bored out of their minds! The one thing I had noticed here were the number of men travelling in groups and seeing them in the red light district I found rather intimidating, I do hope they all go home with a nasty itch!
The streets are absolutely crowded at the moment and we realised today that all the road blockages and building sprucing up etc were due to Queen Beatrix abdicating and Prince Willem being coronated on Tuesday. Pity we wont be here for this once in a lifetime event, which we would have had a grandstand view of from our hotel.
No photos in the blog again. Have decided this laptop is going in the bin. Have now lost all our Paris photos off it and I can't even blame Alan for it, in fact may have to eat humble pie over losing the blog. Now too scared to save anything on it. Hoping Anto may be able to recover stuff from the harddrive when we get back.
Yay for the speculaas molds! Did you get them in one of the spice windmills? Now also remember seeing them there.....
ReplyDeleteForgot to warn you the cheese demonstration was pathetic, we were also disappointed in that. The tour did serve it's purpose though.
Glad you found a nice place for dinner. Amsterdam looked like it had lots of nice restaurants but we ended up at a dodgy sports bar with an overtired child one night (although we found a really nice cafe the other night).