19 June - Amsterdam, Holland

This morning was cold and miserable with rain, but we went on a canal cruise anyway. It was still interesting and pleasant as the rain held off for most of the way as we cruised around the canals for about 75 minutes. We saw lots of interesting buildings and bridges that criss-cross the city of Amsterdam. There were lots of house boats with many different styles. Our boat guide (recorded English voice) told us there were about 2500 legal houseboats on the canals. We passed the cruise boat terminals and saw our boat, the “River Duchess” berthed.

When our canal cruise finished, we walked through the cold and the rain to go to the Van Gogh Museum which was very good apart from all the people there. It was quite crowded at times and not always easy to see the paintings.

We returned to the hotel to get our bags and contact the cruise boat and learned it was okay to go on board so we got a taxi to the boat. We were welcomed on board and taken to our cabin which is very nice. We unpacked our bags and settled in. Everything is very nice. We did some laundry and had afternoon tea in the lounge. We had a briefing by the Captain and Hotel Manager on how it all works etc. and then we had dinner, sitting with a couple from Idaho – Peach and Peaches who were about our age, thankfully. We're one of the youngest couples on board, I think. We finished dinner and had a look on the sun deck before retiring to our “state room”.