The last day in Amsterdam.

Rembrandt painted nearly 100 self-portraits in his career and it shows in his paintings, nearly half of his figures look uncannily like himself, I cut short my viewing of the Rembrant galleries and toured the rest of the Rijksmuseum, there are some fascinating paintings which made up for my disappointment with Mr Puddingface.

I also visited the largest indoor antiques market in Amsterdam, interesting, if I could get the prices they are asking for my old tutt I would be very well off. Needless to say I did not buy anything and headed off for an interesting canal-boat tour in a refurbished lifeboat which served the largest gin and tonic I have ever seen - brilliant, and the trip was good as well.

Cheers

The day finished with a return to my favourite Italian restaurant where I was welcomed as an old respected customer, it does not take long for people to get to know you here, which is nice.

Well another adventure nearly over just waiting for my flight back to Heathrow, then I am having five weeks off.

Amsterdam's missing markets.

My pre-trip research indicated three flea/antique markets on Sundays here in Amsterdam, I was disappointed to find only one and that was a tiny effete art affair at Spui patronised by very few people. The good thing was I found the flower market en route to the arty mart, I bought some rare bulbs to enhance my spring planting. With my market exploring curtailed I put away the map and went exploring wherever looked interesting and believe it got away from most of the tourists, had some divine cake and coffee - god my tastes are changing! After all that walking I retired to the front of my hotel with a beer for some extended people watching and tonight I dined at a little Italian restaurant complete with beautiful Italian waitresses, I may have to go back again tomorrow.
Tomorrow the plan is the Rijksmuseum for a little Rembrant therapy then on to the antique shops on a bargain hunt.

Delivering furniture

The famous 'skinny bridge'

Houses built on wooden piles gently drifting apart.

Amsterdam

You know how every adventure or exploration always has to have a bad day or crap experience to make you realise how good the rest of it is well for me it started on Thursday night in the Easy Hotel Heathrow. I had had an amazingly clear trip down, only four hours, a great Indian meal with Kerri, Taylor and Lily and then it all turned to ratshit. I had heard some loud talking through the paper thin walls but ignored it and went to sleep only to be woken up by an extra loud phone conversation after a while I did remonstrate with the perpetrator to no avail. The noise continued until 04:15 culminating in a heavy sex session which because of the thinness of the walls I felt a part of. Believe me this will be taken further. Anyway that was that and the curious way the security is handled at Terminal Five just left me with as smileon my face rather than getting upset.
I landed at Schiphol yesterday afternoon and was transported seamlessly to Amsterdam centre by train to my hotel in the middle of the red light district. My initial 3 hour orientation walk, restaurant meal and few beers did not give me a good impression but today's early start, wonderful cafe breakfast and walk though some beautiful parts of the city renewed my faith in my decision to revisit.

I wandered through the Neiuwmarkt where the food on display was saliva inducing with whole stalls dedicated to olives, nuts, cheese, mushrooms etc then on to other markets, museums and cafés. This could be a great place for a couple of weeks but it would have to be self catering with all the gorgeous fresh food available rather than the Pizza, Chinese or Steakhouse which is what the restaurants that seem to offer.
Well I have been sitting in a cafe with wifi waiting for the rain to stop, the sun has now appeared so that is all for now.

Anything can be done on a bike, smoking, eating, texting, etc

Baby seat.

Just the odd bike or two parked up.