We had a more relaxed start to our morning today with breakfast delivered to our room at 7.30 am. It was a huge spread that fed us for breakfast and also provided breadrolls for a picnic lunch later on.
We checked out and headed off from Maastricht for the two and a half hour drive to Amsterdam. We had a slightly nervous start looking for a petrol station as we hadn’t realised just how empty the tank was, but our TomTom delivered us to a nearby pump and we were fine to hit the motorways. It was an uneventful drive , skirting the cities of Eindhoven and Utrecht along the way. Before heading into Amsterdam we drove twenty minutes north to visit the Zaans Schaans Museum which contains a well preserved selection of historic houses and windmills as well as a LOT of tacky souvenir shops.
When we climbed out of the car we were hit by a bitter wind, this was by far the coldest place we’d been so far on the trip. We wandered around and looked at the sights before deciding we’d had enough of the cold and retreating back to the car. On the road back into Amsterdam we drove through a tunnel under the river that tomorrow we will cruise along, before heading to the dock to find our boat, the Emerald Sun. We left our bags with the porter and then returned the rental car nearby.
Checking in to the boat we were offered a welcome drink and almost immediately ran into Gae, Greg, Therese, Bob, Jo and Steve. They had been on the boat for a short while and had already familiarised themselves with the layout. It was lovely to see them all, hard to believe we are finally here after all our planning! After a catch up drink in the lounge we spent an hour unpacking all our bits and pieces in our cabin and then needed to get back to the lounge for our safety meeting with the staff and introductory port talk. There are 157 guests on board and the lounge was pretty full. There’s a mix of people from the UK, Australia, Canada and a few Americans and everyone looked like they were looking forward to a good time.
Dinner tonight was a buffet served between 6.30 and 8.30. They were keeping it casual as many people had only just arrived today after long flights. The food was a tasty mix, and I enjoyed the Dutch Gouda Soup, very warming!
After dinner Neil and I made a quick tour around the boat before a final chat with the others in the lounge.
Not very warm on the sun deck today!
Looking towards Amsterdam Centraal Station
The water in the pool is lovely and warm!
We have decided to do our own thing tomorrow and just go for a wander around the city rather than join the organised tour, hoping to see the famous canals and to compare them to those of Bruges.
