Amsterdam and Poland 2017
Day 1, Amsterdam
Sunday, June 4
Our flight to Amsterdam took a little over an hour. We took a taxi
from the airport and arrived at our hotel at 3 pm Amsterdam's time – six
hours ahead which would make it 9 am our time. We did a lot of walking
in both airports.
Our hotel, the Boutique hotel Estherea, is lovely. It is
housed in a row of 17th century buildings on the Singel, Amsterdam's
oldest major canal. Many of the major attractions are within easy
walking distance
The rich, colorful interior includes woolen carpets, crystal
chandeliers, mahogany paneling, luxurious fabrics, extravagant
wallpapers, flowers, plants and fish. We had made reservation in what
is known as the Orange Suite named after King William III (Prince of
Orange) who was born near Amsterdam (The Hague). Our room was huge,
with a beautiful chandelier that covered most of the room. There was
beautiful mahogany paneling and cabinets all around the room. The decor
is “over the top”, so we had booked it just for fun
We were unaware when we booked the room that there were six
steps down to the ro
om
with the bathroom and toilet room at the top of the steps – along with
the light switches. This made our nightly trips to the bathroom somewhat
precarious. Also the toilet was in a separate room there was no more
than 3 feet square, our knees almost touched the wall when we sat on the
toilet. On the wall directly in front of the toilet was a raised plastic
sign which told of all the horrible things that would happen to you if
you were caught smoking in there. The little sign could easily have
scratched or cut your face as you stood up. Outside of that it was one
of the loveliest rooms we’ve ever booked.
Amsterdam is the capital and the largest municipality of the
kingdom of the Netherlands although it is not the seat of the
government, which is The Hague. Amsterdam has a population of 851,373
within the city proper with 2,410,960 in the metropolitan area
Amsterdam's name derives from Amstelredamme, indicative of the city's
origin around a dam in the river Amstel. Originally, a small fishing
village in the late 12th century, Amsterdam became one of the most
important ports in the world during the Dutch Golden Age (17th century),
a result of its innovative developments in trade. During that time, the
city was the leading center for finance and diamonds. In the 19th and
20th centuries the city expanded, and many new neighborhoods and suburbs
were planned and built. The 17th-century Canals of Amsterdam and the 19
– 20th century Defense Line o
f
Amsterdam are on the UNESCO World Heritage list.
The canals are lovely with beautiful, colorful buildings on either
side of the canals. All of the older buildings are of Dutch style with
the bell-shaped gables and other interesting designs.
After getting settled in our room, we decided to go out and explore
the neighborhood a little. We found that we were not far from the palace
and other interesting historical places which we will visit in the next
several days.
Since
we had eaten at strange times since leaving home, we decided that we
were hungry but didn’t want too much to eat so we went went back to the
hotel, which has a lovely bar and served light dinners so we went into
the bar and each had a bowl of soup and split an order of fried shrimp.
That seemed to do the trick so we went back to our room and went to bed
at 8: 00 and slept until 8:00 a.m. both very tired.
Day 12 - Poznan and
Torun
Day 15 coming soon
