Amsterdam 2018

 Travelling is a good thing.  I just read over 50 quotes about travel.  The consensus is: "Go.  It's good for you."

So, we went.

This time, our travel centered around a 14 day Viking cruise around the Baltic Sea and on to Norway that they call their "homelands" cruise.  We extended each end of the trip a bit adding in Amsterdam and Stockholm at the start and Scotland and England at the end.

First stop, Amsterdam.  We've been there before, but flying Delta direct from Atlanta and then on to Stockholm on a separate ticket the next day was SO much cheaper than flying the whole way one ticket that we decided to stay over in Amsterdam.

We arrived at Schiphol, shuttled over to the hotel near the airport, dropped out bags and grabbed a train to Centraal Station.  We walked over to Dam Square and grabbed a "free" walking tour - the tour is free but you tip the tour guide what you think it's worth at the end.  These types of tours are generally excellent and this one was no exception.

The tour looped around over the canals, through the red light district, past the Oude Kirk (old church), Nieumarkt (new market) and then over to the Jordaan near the Anne Frank House.

Royal Palace on Dam Square (used to be Dam on Amstel River here.)

Royal Palace

Oude Kirk.  Oldest building in Amsterdam.  You can see centuries worth of construction in this photo.

Original University

Before street names and numbers, this was how you identified your house.

Westenkirk in the Jordaan

Bikes and canals.  Amsterdam has lots of both.

Blomenmarkt - floating flower market.  Need any tulip bulbs? 

Obligatory stroopwafel.

We spent the rest of out day wandering over to the floating flower market and then strolling back toward Centraal Station and called it a day.

How can a place with four kinds of chocolate to add on your breakfast be bad?

Off to Schiphol airport and Sweden

Next up:  Stockholm