(How we got to Amsterdam - From London we took a Eurostar train to Brussels and from there we boarded our coach and was driven to Amsterdam.)
Amsterdam River Canal Cruise:
That photo with the red sign is actually covering a multilevel bicycle parking! How you can recognise one bike from the other is beyond me,( as I don't own a bike, all bikes look the same to me) but I'm curious as to the road toll in Amsterdam as walking around the city in one day, there were bikes going everywhere, just watch out for the red lane , that is meant for bicycles, I even saw a smart car whizzing past using that same red lane!
See those buildings with windows (1st photo) , people actually live in there. How they get there furniture up to their floor? There is a big strong hook just on top of every building and they use this to hoist any big items up through the windows as going up the narrow staircase is not an option!
The Dutch Windmill:
Taken on our way to Vollendam. I managed to climb right up to the top of the windmill. The stair case was very steep and narrow, and there wasn't much space up there anyway, but it was good to say that I've been up a dutch windmill! I couldn't wait to get the heck out of there though!
Keukenhoff Gardens:
Talk about being at the right place and at the right time!!! The tulips were just perfect when we were there, nice and close and some were already in full bloom. I say this because, I saw some photos of the same garden in a blog which was taken a week later and there were already fully bloomed and wide open. I love tulips, my favourite flower, but they're very quick to wilt :( We had a lovely time there, eating strawberries and cream...as you do.. in a tulip festival in Australia ( I've been to the one in Tassie and Victoria) and I even tried the Dutch waffles, nice.. but the syrup in the middle was a bit sickly sweet, even for me.
Among the many things I like about the trip is how everything is efficiently organised! Our group consist of a driver and a tour director. The Europeans are very strict with their driver's driving hours and one of the many rule is that they are not allowed to drive more than 2 hours without taking a 15 minute break ( at the minimum)or more! They are also not allowed to drive more than 6 days in a week and has to take 1 full day off. How do you wonder this work? Well every driver has a card which is required to start the bus, and on the card, every driver's miles are already recorded, so if they go beyond their set allowance, the bus will literally not start for them! How about if we have this in Malaysia, think of all the crazy fatal road toll that we can avoid!
Also, our tour director is amazing - she can speak 6 languages fluently ( Dutch, English, German, Italian, French, and I forgot the other one..) she's Dutch and her English is flawless. We've heard her spoke all those during our trips through phone calls confirming local tours, hotels, cruises etc!
Another thing I was impressed with was the ease in which we checked in into our hotel rooms. We were on tour for nearly 14 days, with only 2 cities in which we stayed for 2 nights (Amsterdam and Rome), so you can imagine how many hotels we checked in and out!!! The fabulous thing about it is we didn't even have to line up and register for our rooms, it is already done for us, all we do is just arrive at the hotel and wait for our tour director to hand us our keys, that simple. What about luggage you say, well, we didn't even have to carry them to our rooms, it is sent to our rooms! How great is that, all we have to worry about is to make sure when we check out the next day, that the luggage is ready outside our room ready for it to be back in the bus!!
More later.......
0 comments:
Post a Comment