By Jud Niven

Thursday July 14, 2016

We woke up this morning to nice weather and an optimistic forecast for the day so we decided to go into Amsterdam.  A 10 ten minute drive to the train station in Amersfoort and then a 30 minute train ride to Amsterdam Central.  We first stopped for some patats(Fries) they serve it up in a paper cone-yummy! Most of the locals eat it with mayonnaise.  We then carried on weaving through the city with our main goal of getting to the Van Gogh Museum, which is located behind the Rijksmuseum. All in all it was about a 3km walk with lots of neat sights in between.  The Van Gogh Museum was amazing! I learned many things about Vincent, where as before I just knew him as the guy that cut his ear off.  He only painted for 10 years, he was most prolific when he was in an asylum(he produced one painting every day while he was in treatment) and he was 37 when he shot himself in the chest and died 2 days later.  We took the tram back to the train station and headed home, but we will go back.  Gloria and I plan on going into Amsterdam ourselves and staying overnight.

Tomorrow we are getting up early and driving to Alkmaar, which is about 85 kms North West of where we are staying.  Every Friday there is the worlds largest Cheese Market and then we’ll check out the beaches.

Amsterdam Central Station

Delicious Patats(Fries)

Nothing like eating fries and people watching!

The Flower Market in the heart of downtown Amsterdam

Van Gogh Museum

The #5 Tram