Amsterdam, Day 2

We got over 10 hours of sleep last night, so woke up this morning feeling refreshed and ready to go!

When organizing this trip, we had originally planned to go to Austria first. But sometime later, we watched the series A Small Light on Disney+, which told the story of Anne Frank and her family from the viewpoint of Miep, one of the people key to hiding and supporting the Franks for the 2 years they were in hiding. We finished the series and were so touched that we just had to visit Amsterdam and the Anne Frank House. 

I was online as soon as the tickets went on sale to ensure we got to visit because it sells out quickly. We also paid a bit extra for a little learning session beforehand.  From the room where we met, you could see The Annex, an addition to the original building that wasn’t visible from the street. This is where the Franks and friends hid. 

Going inside the Annex was really amazing. We even got to see Anne’s original diaries along the tour. Such a great stop. 

After our talk and tour, we were hungry and decided to hit one of the hundreds of pancake restaurants. It’s about as close to a Dutch specialty as I’ve seen so far.  Brian had a savory ham and cheese Dutch pancake. I had strawberries and lemon curd. It was delicious! I may have to grab more Dutch pancakes before we leave. Yum!

Our tummies full, we wandered around the city passing the Residenz (sadly closed at the moment), beautiful churches with tolling bells, through the Red Light district and over more canals than I can count.  

If you recall from our last trip, I started photographing hearts on our travels. I printed some of my faves and have made a heart photography collage in our bedroom. I found some new ones today. 🙂

One other thing we looked at while walking today was the windows over the doors of Dutch homes. Our canal boat driver had explained that once upon a time there were no house numbers so folks had unique transom windows that could be used to distinguish the correct house. So in our pictures of the houses, you will see many unique shapes and styles. 

We had planned to visit Our Lady in the Attic, a Catholic place of worship that was built in a private home during a time when Catholics couldn’t openly worship, but it wasn’t open yet. 

Our next stop was across the city for the Dutch Resistance Museum. This told the story of how the Dutch people fought against the Nazis.  It was very informational. 

By now, we had walked over 5 miles on uneven cobblestone streets and sidewalks. There aren’t a lot of places to relax (very few benches!), so we decided to head back to our Air BNB to put our feet up for a while and try out our Tony Chocoloney bars, a chocolate company headquartered here in Amsterdam. We had to force ourselves not to take a nap so we would sleep tonight.

After a nice break, Brian and I went out in search of something for dinner. We walked around looking at restaurants and realized that there are three main specialties here in Amsterdam - pancakes, burgers, and fries (whole restaurants of nothing but fries with different toppings). None of those sounded particularly appealing tonight, so we just kept walking and looking. After about 1.5 miles, we decided to just break down and eat burgers. 

We decided to walk home through the Red Light district, which was a little more active than this morning.  Lots of women in the windows and some interesting bars and live show spots. The one that makes me scratch my head is the “sexy loo”. Those two words should never go together in my opinion. Then again, it’s not my thing obviously. It must be somebody’s, since there was a marquee for it.  Funniest of all, many of the live spots boast that they had an AED on site. Ummmm… ok. Are so many people having heart troubles at your establishment that an AED is necessary? 

Just as we hit the Red Light district, it started to sprinkle. It was getting worse so we headed back home, getting caught in the deluge on the way. We are now just sitting on the couch next to the window listening to the sounds of the city from our third floor vantage point. It’s such a European sound for me - people talking, mopeds driving by and church bells ringing.  What a privilege to get to enjoy these sights and sounds together.