The Fairy Tale Ends

Got up early after being woken by the rubbish trucks cleaning up after yesterdays special festival.

The bread deliveries were in getting ready for the breakfast crowd

The canals were calm and the boats moored

It was truly magical with nobody else much on the streets or waterways......

 and around every corner a new "Ahhhh..." moment............even ones sans colour....

I ran out of batteries so headed back to the hotel for breakfast, where we had one of those breakfast/lunch feasts.....then back out again. Our aim to get up the Belfry tower. We were a bit early so we wandered around a bit.

I loved the free bike parking........

....and the ornate buildings......

....but soon we were tramping up the narrow circular steps up to the top of the belfry tower, with everybody starting in good humour and getting a bit puffed half way up and wondering if they would make it on the last stretch. Very interesting to see the big bells and most of all to see the music drum at the top, like a giant music box really

The view from the top was pretty but spoiled a little by the wire mesh that is probably there to stop suicides. Still we could see Bruges trading past in its connection to the sea.

After a hairy walk down the narrow stairs past people climbing up we were glad to be looking at the tower from outside.

We found a spot to have a coffee whilst watching the Bruges approach to parking infringements......and.......

a wonderful example of environmental art....totally made up of Pacific Ocean debris......

 We were making our way to the windmill walk......but as it turned out the windmills were closed and not turning...

Still the Weller women were enjoying themselves.........

and trying to make a Weller woman windmill.......

we loved the ornate tower in the Bruges sports club

and the colourful mills.....

and of course the fairy tale houses.....

By this time we were quite warm/hot and in need of refreshments......the morning feast had not been sufficient to get us through to dinner, so a small, late lunch was called for. We found a bakery and had some sandwiches whilst sitting in the sun. We were all very tired and wandered back to the hotel to get our bags and see if we could find the car we had left underground yesterday. as we wandered back we noticed the smell of sewage that had been in the back of our consciousness for a couple of days....now as we trudged back the fairy tale was over.

The trip back was quite slow as we hit several traffic jams, but we had had a thoroughly enjoyable couple of days.......Thank you Linda and Guus

How can Bruges not be somebody's thing

To quote In Bruges.....which partially inspired this visit......excuse the language........

It's a fairytale town, isn't it? How's a fairytale town not somebody's fucking thing? How can all those canals and bridges and cobbled streets and those churches, all that beautiful fucking fairytale stuff, how can that not be somebody's fucking thing, eh?

So yeah it is a fairy tale of a city. We drove there and had to put up with a bit of a traffic jam, but we still got there by about 10:30, parked the car and headed to our hotel in the heart of the fairy tale. To honour our visit they had decide to close the old city to traffic and put on some live performances in every square. We were touched.

We dropped off our stuff and crossed the street to the Belfry. We looked at the queue and thought :

Me: Been to the top of the tower?

Guus: Yeah... yeah, it's rubbish.

Sorry, I'll stop quoting the film. The queue was long so we skipped the climb, and after a brief visit to an art exhibition, we did what we ALWAYS do....just wander





The buildings were wonderful, both the monumental......




and the ordinary.......



Yes there were canals...and swans......and lots of tourists



some bloody awful ones



and bridges with stories......if you get over the bridge in under twenty steps you will have a long and loving relationship. Over twenty: may as well say goodbye now. Linda and Guus leapt across in under 10. We made it across with a couple to spare.......




It was wall to wall 'look at that'.......







Even though there were approximately 1,873,454 chocolate shops, we bought marzipan......







Marjan checked out the comfrey......




and after a lambic beer, very interesting taste, we retired to the confines of this non-religious monastic cloister....very lovely and peaceful.......







Look, I could show you more but it is just drooling over this beautiful city. Suffice to say we loved it and expect to continue to do so tomorrow.






We dined in an underground cavern with an opening to the old under the road sewer/pipe, at a place called the Belgian Pigeon House and yes I had the pigeon. We were all fairly well sated by the end of our night.

Crooked in Amsterdam

We managed to sleep pretty well on the airbed our hosts set up. Almost slept the clock around.

After breakfast we headed into Amsterdam for a relatively unplanned day. We kind of left it to Linda and Guus to suggest stuff to do. So we drove to the end of  metro line and took the metro into Central Station....fairly uneventful ride. We had a coffee......and a cake......... in the central plaza whilst we oriented ourselves and discussed where to first. It was coolish but the day was looking to break into sun.....

So over the main canal and into Old Amsterdam......

with bikes everywhere

...and of course coffee places and canals........

I tried taking a couple of photos (unsuccessful as you are not seeing them) of the crooked houses.. Many houses seemed to lean, we believe that partially this is intentional and meant to get a little more room. Build on your land but lean into the street for bigger rooms in upper floors......very Dutch....

Our first official stop was at Our Lord in the Attic (MUSEUM ONS' LIEVE HEER OP SOLDER) a weird little Catholic Church that had been built inside other houses to allow Catholics to continue to pursue their particular religious pursuits during the time of William of Orange. The church was literally cut out of another building, with other activities happening in rooms around the church hollow. Very weird little find.

Right next door was one of Amsterdam's famous 'Coffee' houses........and whilst I did not get the camera set up in time one of the boats in the canals was also a 'smoking' boat.

Somehow we ended up in a less than reputable quarter. Whilst the heading here is cute and the customers enjoying a coffee and sunshine, the rest of the area is a little sad, and the window displays made me feel extremely uncomfortable. The embarrassment was less personal and more a sort of species embarrassment....still there IS Trump.

We got tired of walking and watching others eat, so we had some lunch in a lovely little angled courtyard. And then back to..........more effing canals.........

Linda and Marjan decided to go on strike.,.......

So we found something they could enjoy.....

This bar is actually in one of the oldest houses in Amsterdam, one of two remaining wooden house. The bar is called In Apjen.....and is themed around monkeys. The story is that sailors who could not pay would leave their monkeys behind as collateral till next time. Eventually there were so many monkeys and fleas that the monkeys were taken to start the Amsterdam zoo. Rene the barman said the story was as good as any of the many he had heard. He had a sign behind the bar that said It is I Rene........a reference to the old TV show.....'Allo 'Allo. Apparently it is hardly ever off Dutch TV.

We walked and walked everywhere.....into churches......

...along a crooked mile.......you could see how crooked the building were by the way the curtains hung.......

........along cyclist infested streets...........we almost got wiped several time....

into art deco cinemas.........Tuschinski's, the oldest cinema in Amsterdam and still functioning..........

 .......flower shops..........with very few fresh flowers......no point said the man....tourists only photograph them.........

.....so I did.......

and into coffee shops as opposed to 'coffee' shops

finally our stamina ran out. Amsterdam was nice, though crowded. It's architects though know nothing about euclidean geometry and straight lines.

Tomorrow Bruges.......

What does one doe on a first day in Amsterdam.......visit a swamp! Of Course

We arrived in Amsterdam dead on time after an uneventful couple of flights. The extra leg room was very beneficial and we each enjoyed some sleep on the trip. Also as we were not together on the long leg, as our leg room seats were not together, we both enjoyed chatting to completely different people for a while on the plane. None the less we were quite tired when we were picked up at Schiphol by Linda and Guus.

We had a first day like you might expect. We refreshed at had a second breakfast at Almere with Linda and Guus and then went off to do some base comestible shopping and of course the mandatory SIM card. The Almere shopping area is much like any newish shopping area almost anywhere in the world.  Still it was nice to be out walking in the dutch sunshine.

We had some lunch and headed out to visit Tante Willie, Marjan's aunt, Linda's mother. She was quite bright and still managed some English even though it is years since she used it. It was early afternoon and our eyelids were drooping, but we are determined to last out the day even if it ends early.......even by our low standards of early.

It was too early to go back to base so knowing us well Linda and Guus took us to a swamp..... Oostvaardersplassen is a man made nature reserve that is wholly contained within reclaimed land (a polder). The birds loved the polder and it became a Ramsar wetland (swamp with birds). It is being 'rewilded'. In an effort to keep the place swampy they have introduced konic horses, Heck cattle and red deer to eat any remnants of the willow trees that were farmed here for many years. Too early to tell if it is a success, still they are giving it a go........It was amazingly peaceful in the centre of such a populated locale............and we spotted several species of interesting birds, herons, egrets, ducks, geese, ducks etc..as well as lots of the horses,and a long way behind we thought we could see some deer.........lovely



















We are current back at base listening to Carole King work her way through Tapestry and some folk are cooking lasagna whilst I type this.


We will probably get into town tomorrow.......after a sleep.......in a bed.......

Ciao Sicilia

We are off again(noi viamo ancora) ,

Sitting at the airport waiting for our next trip to actually begin.

It has been quite a restful lead up to the trip. We have babysat the respective progeny at Carlton and Drouin, we have had a day of rest to recover and a morning to get ready quietly. Still even then Marjan forgot her special socks........and I forgot my Captain Underpants suit.

Still that need to be weighed up against the fortune earlier in the week. Last week I had tried to get extra leg room seats. I believed I had done so and that for a small countries GDP had managed to ensure extra leg room seats for Marjan on the two legs out and the long leg back. I had not managed to get myself a seat on the long leg out but by judicious sharing we should manage the flights with a bit of comfort. However on Monday I noticed that the charge for the seats, the said small nations GDP, had disappeared from my credit card statement. After much frustration on a mobile losing charge it seemed we were destined for normal cattle class. However I persevered on the web site. No luck that evening, but on Tuesday evening, I somehow managed to get back the seats I had thought I had booked, and also managed to get the additional long leg leg room seat for myself. The best bit of all of that is that somehow the web site forgot to ask me for any money. I was a little apprehensive about what wold happen at physical check-in. There was some checking and questions and a little delay, but it appears that we have the seats and we will at least be able to stretch out all the way to Amsterdam.

The bonus for Marjan is that for the long flight she does not need to sit next to me. Even better she says.

OK. Nothing much to say at this point. Just filling in airport wait time.

Arrivaderci.