Poland, Slovakia, Netherlands - July 2018

This was the last full day of our vacation, and we purposely saved “the big enchilada” of the 12 cities on our European tour for the end: Amsterdam. With 850,000 people, and as the capital of the Netherlands, it definitely dwarfs the other seven Dutch cities we visited in terms of size and depth of sights to take in. It also has a much more Bohemian side and — as the average person’s stereotype would suggest — a very liberal approach to social and lifestyle issues. Say the name “Amsterdam”, and people tend to think legalized drugs and legalized prostitution.  The city receives its name from the Amsel river that flows through the city. It is the only natural waterway — the myriad of canals that encircle Amsterdam are all man-made. Waterways are filled with boats, less busy than Venice’s canals (Amsterdam has a full network of driveable streets, unlike Venice), but quite busy all the same.  The train from Rotterdam to Amsterdam takes as little as 41 minutes, with just one stop ...

Another early rise, and after breakfast at the hotel, we headed back to Rotterdam Central Station to get a 9AM train to the city of Leiden (population: 121,000).  So many cities in the south of Holland are easily connected by train in under 45 minutes. We are so pleased that we choose Rotterdam as our base and have used the trains to fan out from here.  Lieden, for example, took less than half an hour. Leiden’s key sights are within a 1 km radius, so it was easy to see all the things we wanted to by walking. We took a 1:30PM train onwards to Utrecht, a town of 334,000, of which 40,000 are university students. As with Leiden, the key sights are fairly concentrated. Both cities are jampacked with museums of every variety you can imagine. But a person can only take in so many museums in a two-week period, and we are reaching a saturation point.  So our museum and detailed church tours were kept to a minimum today. By 5PM, we were ready to return to Rotterdam. Bein...