Amsterdam—Beautiful, Sad, and a Bit Challenging

We arrived in Amsterdam around 8:30am Friday. We berthed at the cruise terminal, located just beyond the area where we had berthed when we were last here, at the end of our river cruise from Budapest. There must have been around 20 river ships in port, whereas we were one of only two cruise ships in port.

We would be in Amsterdam 2 days, and we planned to spend this first day on our own. We took the tram to Centraal Station, and from there took a tram to Westermarkt.

The Beautiful: After a prolonged cold period, Amsterdam was having a bit of a heat wave. Everyone who could (and many who shouldn’t) were out in short shorts and other skimpy paraphernalia. Everybody was out to enjoy the sun.

We visited Westerkerk, which was a favorite landmark when we stayed 6 days in this neighborhood after the river cruise in 2015. Then we wandered around the nearby canals.

The Sad: After a month of checking the website daily for tickets to the Anne Frank House (the ONLY way to get tickets during the current construction, which is now scheduled to go through July 1), I managed to get lucky just a few days prior and snagged a pair of tickets for the day we would be in town. That was our only planned/timed stop, and we purposely decided we’d make this a pretty low-key day. Westerkerk, Anne Frank, lunch, strolling the Jordaan neighborhood.

We arrived in plenty of time for our visit to the Anne Frank House. What a zoo of people. This is such a busy and highly visited site. We slowly made our way through the house and the hiding place. There are so many people going through, it is hard to truly absorb where one is. Nonetheless, it was very affecting to be in the long-past presence of this family. A sad reminder of a grim piece of history.

Back to the beautiful or at least the happy: We found a little neighborhood koffee huis that we had enjoyed before and had pannekoeken—Dutch pancakes that are like a very thick crepe with a choice of savory or sweet toppings (melty ham and cheese for us).

We walked through the streets along the canal and lusted after some of the Delftware we saw in the shop windows. Eventually, we decided it was time to head back to the ship.

We caught a tram back to Centraal Station. So far, so good.

But the evil transportation pixies decided to play with us.

The Challenging Bit: We tried mightily to find our tram #26 back to the cruise terminal. After 30+ minutes of trying and failing, we discovered the problem: the track for that line had been taken out of service. We found someone who told us to walk to the back side of Centraal Station (easier said than done I might point out) and to look for bus #326 on platform H. We navigated our way through the vast Station, going down a level and then up a level, never quite sure if were interpreting signs correctly. We found platform H. After a half hour, the bus appeared. But of course a lot of people were now interested in this bus. We both managed to get on. Trust me, this was not a given.

The bus made a loop to leave the big terminal, headed down a ramp, and came to a stop. Looked initially like a red light. But then we sat there and sat there. The driver made a long announcement (in Dutch, of course). There appeared to be a problem, though the specifics were lost to us.

Someone who knew we were trying to get to the cruise terminal (she had helped us squeeze onto this ill-fated bus) told us the route was blocked somewhere ahead and the driver didn’t know where to go. She suggested that since the cruise terminal was within sight, we would probably be better off getting off the bus and walking, which is what we did. As we got off the bus, the driver—who was also off the bus—said in English (!), “This is one giant hell of an improvisation!”

In 80 degrees and a strong sun, our 30-minute walk to the ship reduced me to a bit of a puddle. We made it back to the ship, and obviously we would have been better off just walking from the outset. Let’s just say it certainly wasn’t as straightforward as it should have been. That’s what happens when you get smug and think you know your way around the tram system!