Amsterdam

Wednesday 1 August 2012
Buffet breakfast, all delicious, tried to be good & start with fruit, but downhill from there, when S came back with crispy bacon & scrambled eggs... well. Also mini pain aux raisin, I was gone!
Into buses at 8.30 after briefing (another one) on how to use the vox - personal receivers to listen to the tour guide so he or she does not have to shout.  On the bus the local guide, Lisa, gave an excellent commentary as we drove to the Rijks Museum, home of the Dutch masters. She had a great sense of humour & had us in stitches with her self-deprecating appraisal of the Dutch character, ie Calvinistic, direct, no jokes etc. No rumour that it is de rigeur to just take your bolt cutters & steal another bike when yours is stolen, for this reason all the bikes (milions of the bastards - they are an absolute menace when walking) are so old, however when one steals a new one, must spend E40-50 on a new lock!
 Her museum tour also very good, Dutch art from the time of the Dutch masters was the antipithis of the religious art of the Catholic Venitian painters of the time,  no religious art, all portraits & still lifes.  The thinking of the time was that there was 5 items which could be put into a picture, broom, dog, chamberpot, slippers & candlestick. If all 5 were in the picture, the subjects depicted were going straight to hell as they were bad people, & it worked down from there, we saw the Vermeer "the love letter" which had a dog & a broom, 2 of these symbols meant the the subject was thinking about sinning, very amusing , I thought so anyway.  Highlights were Rembrandt's The Nightwatch, but many Rembrandts of course

Next onto canal cruise with lunch, which really is the best vantage point from which to see Amsterdam. Aparently the canal boats date from the 60's when flower power & hippies were at their zenith & of course along with San Francisco, Amsterdam was a focal point. The boats were just parked in the canals as cheap housing, before too long it was formalised & moorings were taxed, now rate is E3000-6000 ( I thought it would be more) Another tax for sewage also. Apparently the average dwelling size in Amsterdam is 800 square meters, imagine that with 2 kids who fight!

We had to bus  to the boat, which had sailed through the day to Arnhem, scene of Montgomery's incompetence in WW2 , took us 2 hours in the bus, the boat took all day! .  S & I had booked in for the Italian dinner in the Lido, a smaller dining area a the bow of the boat, very nice, but so easy to overindulge

After dinner, entertainment was trio, 2 violins & 1 guitar, who played Hungarian gypsy music, & wellknown stuff from operas, really very good