Day 3: Amsterdam

We wake up later than the previous day to our 3-year wedding anniversary.  We’d both agreed that carrying gifts wasn’t really practical on a pan-European rail journey, deciding instead that we were treating ourselves plenty enough by being on this adventure.  We do, however, open cards from our parents which gives us a really nice buzz to start the day.  After our rather strenuous first day, however, we decide to change our plan attack and ease into the morning to (hopefully) give us more staying power into the evening!  After breakfast – fresh croissants again, and a still-warm baguette has also appeared – we head into town.

We begin by walking to the station after realising that taking the tram from the station didn’t save much walking time, in order to buy a ticket for tomorrow’s train to Hilversum where we will change to our pre-booked Berlin journey.

Nearby is the main harbour, and we decide to book ourselves onto a candle-lit canal cruise later in the evening.  We wanted to go on a boat anyway, and the opportunity to do it with a cheeseboard and wine seemed like too good an opportunity to miss.

From buying the canal cruise ticket, we take the tram to the Heineken Experience.  We realised quite early on the first day that buying a 72-hour public transport ticket wasn’t really necessary as the city is so small, and so taking the tram to the old Heineken factory was our way of trying to make the most of it!

All the promotional literature pushes the fact that this factory is no longer where they make the beer, and so rather than it being a brewery tour in the conventional sense it is an ‘experience’.  It was certainly a propaganda coup, as the entire place is designed to indoctrinate you into believing that Heineken is not only the best beer in the world but is also the most socially aware, environmentally friendly, and economically vital.  If it wasn’t for Heineken the entire world system would collapse and there would be no goodwill between anyone at all.

I’m probably being too harsh.  We were there for over 2 hours, and did enjoy a lot of the visit.  The history of the company and its development from local brewery to international behemoth was very interesting, and we really enjoyed being in the old brew room with the enormous coppers.  The explanation of the brewing process was done well, and was accessible enough for people who didn’t really know much about how it works.  We enjoyed seeing the commercial scale of things we do at home, and were particularly successful at recognising pieces of equipment that were in the brew room but had no explanation.  The smell of wort filled the space and reminded us of our kitchen on brew day, but tasting a sample of Heineken wort was a strange experience as it was both lighter in colour than our beers (as it would be) but also they had allowed it to cool, and we associate wort with being warm.

Possibly the strangest bit of the tour was the ‘Brew You’ room, where we stood on a vibrating platform as they sprayed water at us and turned on heat lamps to simulate what it would feel like if you were actually the beer in the brewing process.  Although the ride and effects seemed a bit too gimmicky, the brewer in us found the video of the bottling and labelling process surprisingly interesting.  There were quite a few gaps, or unexplained terms which might leave the leyman not much the wiser about the brewing process, but this wasn’t a problem for us. Spot the geeks, eh?

 

One thing they did try to convince everyone of, but which we really aren’t convinced by, is the importance of the perfect pour.  Obviously beer needs to be poured well, but in Dutch eyes there’s a very specific requirement – namely it needs about an inch of head.  To be fair, the glasses have the volume marked quite a long way down to allow for this, but it still seems a bit strange.  They’re absolutely convinced that the large head is vital to keep oxygen away from the beer, which is a fair comment.  However, we were also told that all the bitter hops taste will fill the head and leave the sweet malted barley in the remaining beer.  It sounds like a load of old guff, especially considering Heineken don’t impress the same standards on bar staff in – well – every other country we’ve been where they serve their beer.

Having finished our wander through the brewery, we avoid the lure of too much Heineken memorabilia (except for a ‘personalised’ bottle of Heineken and a fridge magnet to add to our travel collection) and head across the street to a bar for a small lunch.  We don’t bother with beer as we’ve just had two small beers as part of the tour, so settle for a soft drink and a sandwich before we wander around while the weather still seems okay (the sky is quite threatening). We take a slow walk back towards the B&B through various Jordaan streets and the central district. On the way we make a detour to the Heineken Shop in the city. This is not because we are now so in love with the brand that we feel the need to have everything from a bike box to speakers to green clothing, but because yesterday we found a leaflet that entitles us to a free gift if we visit the Shop. We become the proud owners of two “smiling e” Heineken bottler openers which we carry home along with a fridge magnet bottler opener that we’ve already bought (for our collection!) and our personalised beer.

During our meander, we manage to counter the myth that McDonalds is the same everywhere you go. In The Netherlands it is possible to have a stroopwaffle McFlurrey – you can’t get that down Kings Cross!

Back at the B&B we rest up before heading out for dinner. Earlier in the day we read about a cafe not far from where we are that does some of the best fondue in town and we decide to head there. We find it after wandering along some of the smaller canal streets and there are tables outside this corner cafe. We decide to go inside because it looks like rain is a possibility. We order a drink from the bar and take a look at the menu. There is no fondue in sight. We look around us and the bar is definitely the right one, but it seems to have changed hands, or changed menu. This isn’t too much of a problem, though, as we are due to have cheese on our canal cruise and cheese twice in one night would have been a bit too much!

Alongside our mains of Dutch Steak and Tuna Steak we order some fries and finally manage to take part in the Dutch tradition of eating fries from a cone (we’ve seen everyone having these since we arrived). We don’t venture onto dessert as we want to make the most of later, but have another drink before we walk to where the boat will dock. We’re early and so spend some time wandering (again!) and this time find ourselves on Zeedijk which is one of the oldest streets in town and seems to house a good few distilleries and tasting houses. We don’t quite have time to stop and sample as we want to make sure we get our two glasses of wine tonight on the boat. We also doubt that we’ll have it in us later to come back and take advantage then – we’re just getting too old for all this!

We head to the dock and “check in” for the cruise. There is a gaggle of couples on the quayside already waiting so we join them and look down upon the boat. It seems rather small for all the people here to fit in and we see that there are six-seater benches with two sets of cheese and wine laid out.  Neither of us particularly want to share an area with anyone as we were hoping for a nice anniversary trip around the waterways, and so we’re secretly hoping to get a space on the other side of the boat where we can just see one set of cheese laid out at each table. As we get onto the boat, though, our tactics change when we see that both sides of the boat are laid out for two couples; one is a six-seater booth, but the other side is just a four-seater and we hadn’t seen the inside seats. We grab a space on the six-seater side with what we hope is a non-British couple so we can at least have a conversation to ourselves.

We look around as everyone is piled in – the flyer did only mention ‘candle light’ and not the word ‘romantic’ so I guess we can’t complain. It is funny, though, that the candles flicker too regularly to disguise the fact that they are actually battery operated. We go under a particularly long bridge just as our first glass of wine has been poured and so we have a giggle and toast to our anniversary by ‘candle light’ The evening does get better and we enjoy ourselves as the wine waiter doesn’t appear to have been briefed on the “two glasses per person” and is happy to dole out as much wine as you can drink.  Never one to pass up an opporutnity to get the most out of our money, we try to get through as many glasses as possible while we eat our cheese and have fun with the peanut scoop. There is a lady doing a tour from a microphone at the front and we find it amusing that she changes languages between English, Dutch, German and French but there is little to actually tell the difference between each.  After all, ‘hippy’ is the same in every language and all of them have very similar words for other things.  As an ex-tour guide Scotty finds the fact that her ‘amusing anecdotes’ are translated word for word between languages: she clearly just does this day after day and has lost all her passion for it.

After two days wandering the city we realise that we’re starting to get to know our way around, and as we head home along the canals we only consult our small map the once. It seems Jordaan is coming alive as we approach 11pm, and there are many corner cafes that are looking lively from inside and out.  It’s a shame that it’s our last night and we’re too tired to stay out much longer, but it has been a lovely stay in Amsterdam.

Day 2: Amsterdam

Not wanting to waste a minute of our time in Amsterdam, we set our alarms for an early(ish) 9am wake-up.  After stumbling around the room trying to find the light switch, we grab a shower and head through to the kitchen for breakfast.  The owner, Frank, has been to the bakery and left us a couple of fresh croissants.  We have these with coffee and juice, and then head out to explore the city.

We begin at the end of the road.  We’d been told that there was a Monday market, and so we spend a while perusing the stalls.  The main street is taken up with clothes and fabrics, while the square at the other end of is full of second-hand nik-naks, things that would be described as ‘vintage’ in order to gain a higher price for them and various pieces of ‘ethnic’ art.  We soon realise that we’re unlikely to find anything of interest here (although we do spot a collection of Tintin books in Dutch, in which he doesn’t appear to be called Tintin).

We decide it’s time to start our proper exploration of the city, and decide to follow the walking route as laid out in the copy of the Lonely Planet on our Kindle.  We don’t, however, have the Kindle with us and so our walking tour is a case of ‘join the dots’ using the marks made by Alice on her fold-out map.  We combine this with half-remembered details from the Lonely Planet, and notes from the 14-year-old Rough Guide we found in the B&B.

The first bit is easy – head into the city centre.  In the ten minutes it takes us to walk there we cross numerous bridges over the canals, and see more bicycles than you can shake a stick at.  The bicycles are actually incredibly scary, or at least the bicycles combined with the people riding them are scary.  These old bone shakers thunder along the road at insane speeds, crossing junctions without checking for traffic and all while the cyclist is texting a friend while listening to their iPod.  I’m frankly amazed that we didn’t see even one accident, let alone a major pile-up considering the complete lack of care these cyclists appear to take.  However, their bikes make for some wonderful photos assuming they’re locked up on a bridge.

 

The main square of Amsterdam is – like much of the city – cobbled.  A tramline runs through the middle of it, but other than that its large open plaza is relatively free of traffic.  It is, however, full of performance artists.  We arrive as a man sets a small ball on fire and proceeds to roll it around his body like the crystal balls David Bowie uses in Labyrinth.  More numerous, however, are people in costumes standing very still on step-stools.  One has a particular good Darth Vader outfit, but others rely on poor quality gorilla costumes or what we assume are werewolves.  The key thing about all of these is that their faces are covered by masks.  When I first saw these types of statue performers on Las Ramblas in Barcelona when I first went InterRailing, I was really impressed.  None of them wore masks and their props were often very clever or witty.  Now it seems that any failed actor just buys a second-hand fancy dress costume and stands reasonably still in a town square.

The square is the site of Amsterdam’s largest cathedral which, due to the hefty (in our opinion) 10 Euro price-tag, was deserted of visitors.  We just look through the window from the gift shop.  Next door the town hall is covered in scaffolding, and Madame Tussauds opposite is promoting the opportunity to have your photo taken with Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga.  I’m pretty sure it’s the same advertising campaign in London at the moment.  On the other side of the tram tracks is the National Monument – a confusing mass of writhing bodies, prancing horses, and lots of coats of arms.  Considering the quality of Dutch art over the years, this expression of national pride is a disappointing mish-mash of elements.

We then take a wandering meander through one of the back streets off Dam Square. The street takes us parallel to one of the canals and the walking route suggested marks out that we will soon double back on ourselves down the adjacent street – we assume there is lots to see in this area. Walking along, through a gap in the buildings we spy an interesting looking building and decide to cut across to see it. It turns out to be the Oud Church and is a very cute building amongst these tall thin houses.

Oud hardly needs a translation, and we soon work it out as being “old”.  We see this in Amsterdam – that the Dutch is actually really quite similar to the English and it’s probably things like this that allow Brits to simply don a foreign accent whilst speaking English in a louder than normal voice and expect to be understood!

Back on the trail we are now directed along a few of the main streets that form the Red Light District. It’s a little odd to be walking down a street and suddenly see a lady or two in a window wearing just their underwear, but that’s how it’s done here! The guide books that we picked up in the station were quite open and clear about the Red Light District – we guess this is just another example of the Dutch being upfront about things.  Then again, it’s ‘the oldest profession’ and Amsterdam has been a busy port for over half a millennium, so in a way it makes sense that the Dutch liberal approach to, well, anything should manifest itself here.  The guidebooks, after saying the obvious (no photos please), go on to say that if you do get into some sort of trouble, or disagreement then find a Police Officer (because there are a lot about on the edge of  the district) and then explain the situation.  They urge you not to try and make up some story about being there for another reason (!) as this will make it a lot more difficult.  After all, the guidebooks say, many people go there for the same thing, so don’t be shy!  It does seem that a well regulated system makes it better for everyone.

We walk on through past many windows with ladies of the day/night/mid-morning and past a few shops and cinemas. The Red Light District also appears to be the hub of the cafe culture in Amsterdam, and we round our next corner to get a real whiff of why a lot of other people come to Amsterdam – and it’s only 10am in the morning!

As well as being the centre of all Amsterdam’s liberal entertainments, the Read Light District is also the oldest part of the city.  The vast majority of the 17th-century buildings are still supported on the original wooden piles.  As long as they remain submerged the houses are stable, but problems with the level of the ground water have meant that these have begun to dry out.  Consequently some of the older buildings are beginning to experience subsidence, which in some cases is very noticeable as the houses begin to lean.  Other houses have had the original wooden piles replaced with concrete, but we imagine that the cost and effort involved in doing this must be enormous.  After all, the streets are so narrow that you often struggle to fit a car down them let alone a cement mixer!

   

Then again, the people of Amsterdam seem to be able to overcome all sorts of obstacles.  For example, the houses are narrow but tall and the staircases are often too steep to carry furniture.  The Dutch simply get around this by installing a pulley system on a roof and receiving large deliveries through the window, like we saw happening down a side street!

We walk out of the Red Light District and into a large square.  This was one of the original early harbours behind the main dyke, but as ships got bigger the harbour was moved further out and the area around here filled in.  In the centre is an impressive fortress-type building, De Waag, which for most of its life served as the weighing house.  The building is now a fancy restaurant, and around it is a neat plaza.  The gentrification is so effective that it’s hard to believe that this part of town was the centre of Amsterdam’s heroin problems in the 1980s.

We leave the square and walk down a major road passed Rembrandt’s House and a nearby cafe where he is reputed to have drunk.  Or at least these were his house and his local cafe until he squandered all his money and was forced to move to a much cheaper part of town.

Nearby there’s busy market, which, although it does have some of the ‘I saw you coming’ stalls that the one in Jordaan had early that day, is slightly broader in its clientele and good for a browse. After a while we double-back on ourselves and make a bee-line across the canal for the Opera House / Town Hall complex. According to the guide book there is an exhibition here about how far below sea-level Amsterdam and the Netherlands is. As we approach we notice that the Opera House actually looks more like an abandoned housing estate, with a grey facade and scatterings of abandoned litter.  Making our way towards what appears to be the main entrance, it turns out that buildings really are semi-abandoned (read: being refurbished) and so there’s no chance of getting in for the exhibition today. Walking away, though, the signs outside promote the 2011/12 opera season and so maybe it is all part of a ruse to keep tourists and punters from visiting.

We return to the southern bank and then cross the Amstel into a large, commercial square; Rembrandplein. We would normally rush through a place like this not taking the time to visit one of the over-priced cafes or Argentinian steak houses that run around their borders, but we are drawn to the central square as there is a busker playing with a loop pedal and performing a very long version of Hotel California. We sit down on one of the benches and take a listen. Due to the length of each song we only stay for two, but drop a few coins in his hat as we leave as it has been interesting to hear another loop-er.

The next section of street we walk along remains commercial but we stop in our tracks when one of the buildings stands out as something a little different. It’s marked on the map as the Pathe Turschirski and the guide book does make special mention it as being one of the most architecturally interesting cinemas in Europe.  Despite this, we’re the only people who have stopped in their tracks to look in wonder at its beautiful mock-gothic architecture. It’s just stunning. We go inside and the architectural madness continues. Apparently the main screen is a classic example of 1920s design, and we might have sampled HP 7 pt 2 here if we hadn’t just seen in it the UK. We stop and take a few photographs, and this leads to a few of the other tourists stopping to take a look too rather than just walking blindly to the next big red bus / boat stop.

We’re feeling a little peckish and so decide to try and grab a sandwich for lunch (having realised our error in the UK of having a big meal at lunchtime and then not being hungry by the time dinner arrives). We keep stumbling on a chain of fast food places where you order your chips at the counter, but everything else is bought via a vending machine that makes up one long wall. The vending machine is made of see-through plastic and so you pick the compartment you want and open the door to grab your meal. These are filled up again from the other side which is where the kitchen is. It’s a fascinating concept, but we shy away from eating cooked food bought from a vending machine and so find something else to snack on in a shop nearby.  Another brilliant concept we see over the weekend is the laundry place that is also an internet cafe – what a great combination!

We continue on our walking tour past the flower (bulb market) where we grab an ice cream and a seat for a while.  It’s the first time we’ve taken to stop moving, which we realise is quite some going after 5 hours on the go!  However, it turns out that Scotty is sitting with his back to the sun which resulted in the rather squinting shot of Alice below.

A short distance more and we were back in Dam Square where we began.  With much of the afternoon still available for exploring, and with the weather finally starting to clear up, we wandered into the Begijnhof – an old private square where women who wanted to dedicate their lives to the church but didn’t want to take the vow and become nuns could live.  Next door we look in the Amsterdam Historical Museum, but reading the guest book we note that a scary proportion of the comments are negative.  We’ve never experienced this in a guest book before, and so assume that the museum really must be quite bad and so give it a miss.

Having finished our walk around central Amsterdam, we decide – perhaps erroneously we initially thought – to follow our friend Dave’s suggestion to visit the Seksmuseum.  “You’d like it,” he argued.  “It’s got Greek and Roman stuff as well as the good bits.”  Both guidebooks actually agreed – one described it as the kind of collection that world class museums own but never show.  And they were right.  From Pacific island fertility statues to Greek pottery depicting some of the more explicit legends, through the changing shape (literally) of pin-ups in the first half of the 20th Century it was basically a very large collection of materials depicting humanity’s fascination with sex.  There was some interesting stuff about the history of Amsterdam’s Red Light district.  But perhaps I’m just trying to justify it as a valid academic visit: on the whole it was a load of pictures of naughty bits.

Leaving the museum we found that the evil sky had done its worse and it was now bucketing it down, so we headed off to find another place indoors.  We’d been told by MummyB and G that a visit to (at least) one of the Jenever tasting houses was a must-do.  Earlier in the day after finishing our walking tour back in Dam Square, we looked up where we could go.  Behind the main hotel on the is a small passageway down which lies what claims to be Amsterdam oldest distillery, with a tasting room next door.  When we first walked past the tasting room was closed, but a peek through the windows of the distillery showed a fantastic array of wooden barrels, coloured tubing, and dark brown glass storage jars that appear to be centuries old.  We decided that we would return, and by the time we did the place was already filling up.

Surprisingly, considering it’s mentioned in most of the tourist guidebooks, there’s still a number of Dutch folk in there.  The bartender, Hans, knows each regular’s favoured drink which in most cases consists of one of the dozens of liquors or jenevers on offer combined with a frothy glass of beer.  We stand around watching for a while, trying to get a handle on how the place works although soon realise that we needn’t bother – there’s clearly no real system in place.  Consequently we head to the bar and stand waiting to catch his attention.

He asks what we’d like and, with honesty, we say that we don’t know.  He tries a different tack – take a look through the menu and choose a base flavour that takes our fancy.  I opt for raspberry, and end up with him pouring three different tasters to try.  The first is a chilled liquor which has had raspberry juice added to it, the second is eau-de-vie to which fruit is added and strained, and the third is a strange mix of raspberry, orange and some mysterious spices.  The third really grabs my tastebuds, even though it’s as thick and as sweet as cordial, and I ask for a glass of it.

Meanwhile, Alice has opted for vanilla base and is given two options.  The first is a straight alcohol with vanilla added to flavour it.  The second is a thicker and creamier mixture that she prefers, and she too asks for a glass.  Before we have the chance to pick it up we’re told by Hans that the ‘correct’ way to drink it is to take an initial slurp to make it easier to lift.  He’s filled the glasses right to the brim and Alice has already pointed out the meniscus.  We adopt the position, bending forward over the glass and slurp the first couple of millimetres out of the glass.  Tradition fulfilled, we then stand and watch other people go through the ritual.

Hans is incredibly patient, and clearly loves his job.  As the time ticks by more people come in to have a drink.  Most of them – like us – have no idea what to have and so Hans talks them through the different flavours and options.  Many want to try the jenever, and after finishing our glass of liquor – it takes us about 20 minutes because it’s so potent – we ask to try a bit of the jenever distilled from spelt, which has become our key grain of interest (if such a thing exists) thanks to the spelt beer Alice had when we were in Cambridge earlier in July.  Despite our fascination of spelt, though, there’s no way either of us could drink the jenever.  It tastes like a rough whiskey that’s more surgical spirit than beverage, and so we decide instead to have something a bit more palatable.  After slowly finishing these next drinks, we decide it’s time to head off.

Considering we try to make a beeline for My Old Dutch whenever we are in London it would be wrong to avoid the fact that the best pancake house in Amsterdam is practically on our door-step, so we decide to head to The Pancake Bakery for a second night running for an early dinner. Scotty goes for his favourite chilli pancake and Alice opts for a Canadian tonight (bacon, mushroom, cheese, onion and ham) having already had the Mexican last night (peppers, chicken and sweet corn).

We return to the B&B at about 7.30pm after being out all day and on our feet for nearly all of it. We tell ourselves that we might go out again – back to the Pancake Bakery for desert or to the bar we went to last night again – once we’ve rested up a bit. But in the end we’re happy just resting and having a night in – we realise it’s the first time we’ve had a ‘proper’ night in for a long time!  So instead we watch a couple of episodes of 2012 and then head to bed.

Day 1: London to Amsterdam

We’re up early to have a shower and finally try to zip our case shut. It closes easily and is lovely and light (not surprising as we’re only carrying our clothes and our wash kit - normally we’re travelling back and forth to Egypt with at least 23kg). DaddyP gives us a lift to Kings Cross and we take a walk over to St Pancras.

 

The fancy cafe place is full already (probably called an “artisan bakery”) but we decide to go straight through; scan ticket, scan bag, scan passport.  Scott is delayed coming through the security check thanks to what can only be described as ‘a complete idiot’ in front of him.  Despite being told to empty his pockets into the plastic tray, this guy walks through the scanner with pockets bulging.  Two cameras, a wallet, mobile phone, coins and a week’s supply of pharmaceuticals unsurprisingly set off the alarm and he is forced to empty his pockets while Scott is left waiting to move on because the eyelets on his shoes set off the buzzer.

Despite this minor setback, we’re soon in the queue for a coffee and grab a seat in the less-pleasant-than-the-main-concourse surroundings of the departure lounge.
There are a lot of French around – passengers and staff – although the multicultural nature of the Eurostar itself is best demonstrated by the on-board announcements.  While in England they’re made in English first, then French.  As we arrive in France the order reverses.  And then – as if there couldn’t possibly have been any Belgians on the train from London – they add Flemish to the mix as the enter Belgium.  But that comes later.  While we sit in the lounge at St Pancras we complete a few sections of our I-Spy…on a train book.

8.57am and we’re in our seat (55 and 56, not 51….but also not first class!) ready to go.  The Eurostar is showing its age.  Although the carriages are clean, the upholstery is becoming worn and the windows are chipped.  The seats are comfortable and quite spacious, although the foot rest built into the seat is too tempting for the child sat behind Scott who insists on flipping it up and down throughout the journey.  We forgot that this weekend was the first of the school holidays!

10am – it’s gradually getting light outside and we see grass and a grey sky…we’ve only been on the train an hour and we’re in France!  Wow!  Interestingly, throughout the UK and France (until Calais at least), the entire track has a fence running either side of it.  We assume that this is some kind of attempt to stop illegal immigration, since passport control to France is completed in St Pancras and we assume the British immigration authorities are stationed in France.

12.25pm – We arrive in Brussels.  We should have arrived 30 minutes earlier, but are told by the train manager that for the final few miles we have to go slow because of ‘animals on the line’.  It’s hardly the most usual announcement, nor the most usual excuse.  Indeed it’s infuriating as these wandering Belgian beasties result in us missing our connection to Amsterdam and needing to dredge up long-forgotten French language to find the next train and call the B&B to alert them to our delayed arrival.  Fortunately everyone seems to speak English.  We do, however, take advantage of the time to buy some chocolate covered waffles.  This is Belgium, after all.

13.18 – We pull out of Brussels on our stopping train to Amsterdam.  Alice spots a central hotel with large Tintin sign on the roof, while I notice that the travelling fair is in town.  However, the key thing that strikes me about the Belgian capital as we wind our way out of the centre (other than it being typically flat) is the enormous amount of graffiti that covers every available surface.  It’s not just buildings, either.  I go to the toilet in this reasonable InterCity train and the walls are covered with permanent marker scrawls.  I think if the graffiti was of any decent quality I wouldn’t mind, but it’s not.  It’s amateurish and scrappy.  Outlines are left unfilled, and merging between colours is rare.  On those few occasions where there is an attempt at merging colours the edges are blocky and rough.  Attempts at social commentary are limited to monsters wearing suits.  I’d like to be able to say that graffiti suffers because of the lack of a clear central government, but it hasn’t stopped an explosion of street art in Cairo.  The graffiti artists of Belgium could certainly learn a thing or two from those in the UK or Egypt.

As we progress further into the agricultural land of Northern Belgium, the number of green energy initiatives grow.  We spotted a few wind turbines on the way up from France, but in Belgium we see numerous houses with PV cells fitted to their roofs.  Considering how dark and grey the ominous rain clouds appear overhead, I’d be surprised if they manage to generate any electricity at all.

14.27 – Roosendaal.  We’re still sitting on the train on our way to Amsterdam, but pulling into this station I get the first real sense of being in Flanders.  The roof pitch of the houses has increased, while the front width has decreased.  Some new people join the train, including a young woman who spends the next half an hour sobbing into her phone.  She, however, joins the majority of other people and leaves the train at Schipol – Amsterdam’s enormous airport. The last 30 minutes to Amsterdam are quiet, but the sky is closing in and we start to see what look like specks of rain on the window.

16.08 – We pull into Amsterdam’s central station and get out. Rain. Of course, it’s raining. We’re all set for rain though and get the waterproofs out of the bag along with the directions to the B&B. It takes us about 10 minutes to get out of the station into the area where the trams and buses depart, and another 10 minutes to buy a ticket and find one of the three trams that will take us to the B&B. We buy a 3-day ticket so that we can hop-on and hop-off transport to get around and not have to worry.

The best thing about the tram is that half-way along there is a woman sitting in a little booth! Like the driver, you can pay her for your ticket when you board, but unlike the driver when the tram is moving she just sits there looking out of the window! We notice though at one point that she is laughing and it turns out that she’s actually chatting to the driver though a tinny intercom. Cool.

We get out and make our way through the rain to the B&B. Looking at the map later we realise that actually getting the tram doesn’t save that much distance. We walk beside one of the canals and are already scoping out potential places to eat and drink later. We’re quite damp when we arrive at the B&B and only just make it up the (very) steep stairs. Scotty is regretting not pulling the case up behind him as he is trying to hold it in front of him and not topple backwards as he negotiates the extraordinary angle the stairs are pitched at.

Our room is nice and large – especially considering that this is a traditional Amsterdam house and so is only one room wide. There is a well-stocked kitchen for breakfast and drinks, and a bookshelf with a few Amsterdam maps and a 14-year-old copy of the Lonely Planet. We’re made to feel very welcome and get a tip from the owner about a market that will take place in the neighbouring street tomorrow morning, and that the best pancake house in Amsterdam is only a few minutes walk away – brilliant!

We get ourselves settled and then get a range of cables and electronics together in preparation for our first live broadcast of Sziget The Slow Way.  We log onto the B&B’s WiFi connection, and prepare a playlist of songs loosely connected to our journey so far.  Fortunately everything (bar a bit of connection problems in the first 5 minutes) works as it should and we produce an hour of our usual meandering chatter, interspersed with barking dogs and clattering plates courtesy of the owner of the B&B.  You can listen to the show by clicking here.

Straight after the show we decide it’s high time to get a bite to eat and so decide to visit the pancake place we had been recommended (The Pancake Bakery, Jordaan).  It’s a short walk down the canal to get there, and the pancakes really are up to the standard we’d hoped for.  Alice also has her first proper wheat beer, which she enjoys, while I have ‘Palm’ – some kind of Belgian import that is described simply as ‘dark beer’.

After the rather filling meal we decide to check out some of the local cafes.  When we say ‘cafe’ we actually mean ‘bar’.  Or at least that’s what the guidebooks tell you. We find that there are three listed in the area we are in, Jordaan, one that is only two blocks from the B&B and two that are almost next door to each other a little further on from where we are eating dinner. We head to these two first, De Prins, and find ourselves in a large-windowed, light wood clad bar. The bartender seems suitably aloof for this part of town but we grab two beers (Alice on another wheat and me on a Dutch dark) and hop on a stool opposite the bar. It’s a nice enough view out onto the light street and the canal that runs down the middle of it.

We finish and pay up then head outside. Fortunately it’s not been raining since we arrived but it’s only a few doors down to the next place listed, De 2 Zwaatjes. From the outside we’re hardly sure it’s a bar and even though it’s a light evening it seems rather dark and squashed inside. This place seems to have a lot more character and potential so we head inside. It’s very narrow indeed once we make it through the vicious saloon doors, but we squeeze a hand onto the bar and get two beers in. No sooner are these served when we hear an organ start up and someone starts singing. Sunday night is sing-a-long Dutch drinking song night.  Oh – this is our kind of place! There is an older woman who is sat on a slightly raised platform playing an electric organ that is clad in yellowing plastic with glittery musical motifs, and next to her is an older man who is singing along in Dutch. Punters are swaying along and join in with the chorus while we enjoy the Klaus-esque sounds.

For their second number, one of the bar staff who is heading up a narrow set of stairs to get more bar snacks leans precariously over the rail to join in with the lines she knows. After a brief pause to allow people to get a few more drinks the bar lady begins twiddling knobs on a sound system behind the bar. This has the potential suddenly to turn into karaoke, but with the whole bar singing along to You’ve Got A Friend (the younger barmaid has taken lead vocals on this with the wireless mic thrust in front of her and she does a great job) there’s no danger of things becoming too mainstream!  The other barmaid can’t help but sing along with this one as well, and finds another microphone from somewhere.  Scott winces at the red lights on their sound system indicating that the whole thing is about to explode, but somehow it all adds to the flavour of an amazing venue.

While the organist takes a cigarette break, the barmaids continue to fill in with various Dutch songs.  We recognise one as ‘Tulips From Amsterdam’ but considering the remoteness of the venue, and the dingy and potentially unwelcoming nature of its external appearance, we’re sure that this is an authentic bit of pub singing and not just something for the tourists.  Indeed, the beer is the cheapest we’ve had and everyone else in the bar is Dutch.  We’re rather proud of our track record in visiting dive bars, and this one is certainly a ‘keeper’.

I-Spy…middle-class market

We’ve no pictures to support this post, but mention has to be made to the middle-class market that we enjoyed today.

We were meeting Chin for a coffee as we didn’t manage to see her when we were first in London and she can’t make the get-together in August. She’s got a friend’s birthday picnic in London Fields and so she suggests we meet at the top end of Broadway Market.

Broadway Market is great fun to walk around and we play a little game as we do. We spot the over-priced pieces of tat that we threw out years ago, bracelets made from newspaper, organic this and organic that. We try to spot a food stall that isn’t peddling something with tofu or beans and pulses. We give bonus points for people in fashionable wonky fringes, harem pants, skinny jeans, ironic NHS-style specs or dressed with a vintage look.  We pop into the newsagent-cum-Post Office to get some cash out and notice that they have five piles of Grauniad newspapers on the floor – they’ll be needing them all today!

We have a lovely time catching up with Chin and grab a first coffee in the market and then one at the cafe by the heated lido.

We then head off to the Barbican to meet mum because there is a free festival of music and activities on there today. When we arrive it is all very busy and there is loads going on. We have unfortunately missed the Tran Siberian Balkan Street Band (sp?) but we do catch the Boxettes who perform as a group of female beat boxers and are then joined by a male MC, Diz-raeli (sp?), who asks the audience what he should freestyle about and gets the answer from a toddler at the front “playing with Lego”.

There is a stall to make your own microphone, add voice-overs to a video, add sound effects to movie scenes and do all sorts of other random things. Outside there is another market with more foods but we soon head back inside to catch Frank Chickens – a band we first heard after DaddyP found their CD in  a skip – perform. They are great and reassuringly surreal.

Going for a walk

We managed a few walks when we were up in Buxton – just ones around the town – but we didn’t need anything further afield to get out into the green and get our legs working.

The first was a walk around the (old) “resi” with Jane and Graham. This is  a walk which starts at the top end of their road where the road turns into a track that leads to a valley which used to hold a reservoir. About five years ago the water board drained the reservoir and took away the old stone; leaving the ground to develop into meadowland. The old reservoir bed has now been colonised by various plants and it looks beautiful in the summer with all the different colours in bloom. We walked around the perimeter of the old reservoir and took a few photos.

The next walk was again around the old resi but with Kevin this time. We took the longer route which climbs the hill on one side of the valley and gives a great view over Buxton as far as Corbar Cross and Soloman's Temple. Even though it had been really quite rainy the last few days the ground wasn’t too soft or muddy underfoot. The difference we did notice though was the ferocity of the water that ran in the small stream beside the main walk. Where a few days ago this had gently trickled it was now gushing down the valley bed.

Our final walk was up to visit Solomon's Temple and we drove with Kevin to park near Poole’s Cavern, which is the cave system under the hill that the small tower rests on. We parked up and then started our walk on the well worn paths through the wooded side of the hill. Scott pointed out the various old limestone kilns on the way up, and then we broke through the trees and onto the hilltop where “Sollers” was in sight. It was again a great view over the town and the weather stayed good for us even though we felt a little exposed on the top.

No Sheep Till Buxton – Rock the Casbah summer tour

In between catching shows at the Buxton Fringe and a lovely roast beef dinner we broadcast our first UKNR show of the summer.

You can listen to the show by clicking here.

Bristol Weekend

A long weekend in Bristol with Fabs and Sam starts on Thursday as we head over to Paddington to grab the train out west. Just after lunch we text Fabia to check the plan for later and she reassures us that the weather there is great. It’s raining in London and we’re debating which jackets to take (light to carry, or prepare for rain). We go for the pessimistic option and take our rain jackets. This turns out to be a good move as when we get on the train in Paddington we get a text from Fabia saying that the rain has just hit them.

We spend the train journey playing with our new gadget gadget – a Kindle that we have bought that afternoon from JL. We love our books and that’s not going to change, but we decided to get one because it might mean an end to lugging 12kg of books in our hand-luggage every trip between the UK and Cairo and it’ll save weight travelling around Europe this summer. We’ve opted for the “3G" and wifi” one which although is a bit more expensive means we can access the internet for free (as long as Amazon keep it free). We open the box and generally agree it is awesome. We are sat in seats with a power socket, so we plug it in to give it a bit of a charge and then we are online and soon downloading all the free books we can find. Being able to access the internet too is amazing – it’s a bit clunky (like using the internet from a phone) but very usable when you’re out and about.

With all that we’re soon in Bristol and Fabs meets us off the train and we change platform to find the local train that will take us to her new house. Two stops and then we get off and start our little walk to their place. On the way we talk about what to make for dinner and as we are musing about this a building of yellow and blue comes into view; Ikea. Fabs and Sam haven’t visited Ikea since they moved into their first home – very different from us who visited Croydon Ikea something like once a month! Fabs and I get the food we need (and some other interesting Swedish delights) while Scott goes in search of a toilet seat (about a year ago we decided to try and make our place a little nicer in Cairo and one thing was that the toilet seat in the main/blue bathroom has a crack in it. The shape of this toilet is to unique though – long and thin – that even the manufacturers don’t stock seats anymore….but the size guide on the Ikea website suggests they do – in reality though Ikea’s seat is just normal size but with a larger back section for attaching to the toilet so it won’t do for our loo – oh well, we tried)

We don’t get far from Ikea when the rain hits us. It is proper ‘cats and dogs’ so despite our jackets we shelter in Pizza Hut Takeaway for 15 mins. Calls to Sam to rescue us don’t work but the rain lightens up a bit an we finish the walk to their place.  Their house is just brilliant – 3 bedrooms upstairs all well finished but the best is the extras of a large garden, double garage, large cellar, kitchen (and second living room) facing onto the garden via some decking. The cellar is just perfect for brewing and Sam is gradually getting it set up (having installed better lighting, electricity and some plumbed water in). The garden too is just great. Even though they’ve had the place for less than six months they’ve already managed to dig up half of the old lawn and turn it into a veg patch. Fab picks some peas for dinner and we pod them and have them fresh in a bowl on the table to pick from as we eat up our Swedish meatballs and gravy.

 

After dinner we head on a short walk to their local which is having a pub quiz tonight. They’ve landed a good one because the local isn’t only within walking distance and has a good quiz, but also is a great pub for ales and even has a ‘brewing circle’ meeting once a month that Sam goes to.

We aren’t as successful as we’d hoped on the quiz and come second from last (having scored as well on “soap operas” as we did on “rivers”!). Home and to bed as although we’re on holiday they have to work in the morning.

 

 

On Friday we head over to Bath to meet M&D and visit MJ and Mike for lunch. Fabs has said that the walk from theirs to the centre of town takes 30 minutes, but it takes us a fair bit longer so we opt for the train instead of the less regular and longer journey time of the bus. A bracing hike up the hill in Bath and we get inside just before the rain hits. The shower yesterday was strong, but the heaviest bit probably only lasted 20 minutes – today though the heavy showed lasts at least an hour without any real let up. Finally a break in the rain lets us get out for a walk. Well fed and refreshed we all get in the car to Bristol.

We have a quiet evening before race day and cook up a large pasta and bolognase to fuel Fabs on her 10km. Unable to have a day without a mental challenge we manage a round of Boggle  before bed.

 

 

The rain wakes us up early on Saturday as it is hammering down again. Not great at all to run in as the race is round a park and so will be on soggy ground. Sam takes Fabs off ready for the start and us four slowly get ourselves together and have breakfast before heading off to find a vantage point. All we know is that the race is in a certain park but we know nothing about the route. We get to the edge of the park and see some markers, but no runners. Mum jumps out to check and apparently this is the main turn in the race just after half way. we see a lone runner coming up and so our timing is perfect as none of the runners have been by yet which means we’ll catch Fab. It’s not long till she comes past and she’s doing really well in the top section of runners. The rain stopped about 30 mins before the race and so the temp isn’t too bad and being in the first half means the ground isn’t too bad. Fabs finishes in 51 mins which is a great time. We let Sam take her back to the house for a shower and to warm up (and warm down!) while we pop over to Gloucester Road to get something for lunch and visit the homebrew shop!

 

We have lunch outside as weather finally clears up and then we go and grab to head into the centre for the afternoon. Fabs came up with this idea about a month ago for an afternoon activity for us all; a pub crawl / pub quiz. We would visit six pubs and in each of the six pubs we’d have a round of a quiz. The group would be split into two teams and everyone would write one round of 8 questions (the person setting the round would sit that round out for some level of fairness!) What a great idea!

Pub 1 Seven Stars (CAMRA Bristol and District Pub of the Year). Round 1 Alice’s Local Places for Local People.

Nice pub on a dead end street in the business part of Bristol means that its very quiet outside. Inside is not so quiet because there is a guitarist playing folk tunes for the afternoon. We all grab a pint from the good range of ales they have on tap – Fabs has chosen wisely for our first pub as this place is a CAMRA classic. We buy in pairs as we’ve not quite worked out a round system. Dad orders a dark and mild which is a mix of two beers (well he ask me to order it and I refuse as it sounds weird, but he claims it’s perfectly normal).

This round includes two maps to label, one of the areas of Cairo and one of the areas of Bristol, then a question on the zones and stations on the Pic and Victoria lines in London. Fabs, Scott and Jim score highest only getting a few wrong, but this is only ascertained after Fabs gets her iPhone out to look at a map of the tube as I didn’t actually write down the answers for that question – I had hoped we’d be able to come to a general consensus about which stations were in which zones!

Pub 2 The Ostrich. Round 2 Fabia’s Things beginning with F

The sun has managed to push the rain firmly away and we’re glad that there is a choice of tables outside in the sun here. We all have a beer called the Mary Jane as it seems wrong not to!

Pub 3 The Orchard Inn (CAMRA’s Cider Pub of the Year). Round 3 Sam’s Pot Luck Round and Round 4 Jim’s General Knowledge Round

A bit of walk to get to this next pub, but well worth it. The walk takes us along the water-front past M Shed which is the home of the new Bristol museum. We are about to get a ride on the steam train which runs up and down the front but then realise that the end of the line will actually take us further from our destination! It’s nicely busy along the front but as we skip round the back of the SS Great Britain the crowds most definitely thin and soon we are alone walking down residential streets towards an unassuming pub that apparently is the CAMRA Cider pub of the year. Fabs hasn’t visited this place before and to be honest it looks a little dodgy, but she assures us that everyone she knows who has visited it has given it the thumbs up. Inside and we find that there is a crammed blackboard listing a dozen ciders and perrys that they have in barrel. If this wasn’t enough of a decision to make they also have half a dozen real ales!

Drinks in hand we are bamboozeled by Sam’s pot luck round which includes questions such as ‘what is the length of a brick?’ and ‘what is the total age of the six of us?’ This second question is one that both teams get the same answer which not only is incorrect, but we arrive at from two different sums! (Mum and I guess Sam is 28 and he’s only 27, but although Fab's’ team  get that figure correct Dad feels a year older than he actually is!) The best question though is ‘What is in my jumper?’ A low scoring round, but one that is a lot of fun.

We’re enjoying ourselves in the Orchard and so decide to stay here for the next round of the quiz and so grab a few more drinks and some nibbles. It turns out that the pub has homemade scotch eggs for a pound and it’s one-fifty for a pork pie. Yum!

Dad’s General Knowledge round is again low scoring due to it’s random nature and the fact that it seems to actually be an observation round based on things around Fabs and Sams house! ‘What’s on a McVities biscuit?’ ‘What are the ingredients in the toothpaste in the bathroom?’ ‘What do cabbage white butterflies actually eat?’ (we’d seen a cabbage white during lunch outside).

Pub 4 The Nova Scotia. Round 5 Net’s Quick Round. Round 6 Scott’s Bath and Bristol.

We drag ourselves out and on to the next port of call. The next pub was due to be the Cottage Inn which is a beautiful cottage on the water front which used to be the habour masters house. Sun (and beer) lovers have spilled out onto the steps that lead down to the water and we decide to skip this and keep walking to the next. The Nova Scotia was part of the initial plan, but Fabs had heard that it was closed and so it was taken off the route. As we’re leaving the Orchard though we pass a few of her colleagues who seem to be doing our route in reverse and have in fact just come from there!

Net’s quick round is one question with 9 answers for the 8 points; naming the countries that boarder Germany. A good question that both teams put their minds to. We finish the penultimate round neck and neck.

Scott is quizmaster on the final round with his Bath and Bristol questions that all have a twist. ‘What is the main liqueur in Bristol cream?’ and what is a ‘bathometer?’ Both teams score on different questions, but the result remains even. All square!

Pub 5 The Grain Barge (Home of the Bristol Beer Factory). Round 7 Net’s Fill in the Gaps.

While we’re at the Nova Scotia Fabs calls ahead to the Grain Barge to get us booked in for dinner. This is where the Bristol Beer factory brew and so we have a few pints of that while we eat some good and filling food. Before the food gets to us though we have a final ‘table round’ where we have to find something for each heading of; band, artist, composer, music genre for the letters B, R, I, S, T, O and L.

As we leave the Grain Barge not only have we just had a lovely dinner, but a great afternoon of quizzing, beer-ing, walking and fun.

 

 

On Sunday we get up after a little lie-in and have pancakes for breakfast while we wait for M&D to come back from a car boot sale in Bath. The weather has stayed fine and so we eat out on the decking in the sun. We decide to make the most of the nice weather and get some more fresh air before we drive back to London so head for a walk out from the house and onto a nearby path that leads to fields and a hill that overlooks the NE of Bristol.

We set off for London at about 2pm so Fabs and Sam have some times themselves this weekend to do things and to give us time too to get ready for Monday (we need to pack and mum has work). We discover that although the new car is great on fuel it is subtly smaller – meaning  we had to cram everything in or the journey toe MVR!

 

UPDATE Back in London and unpacking when I discover that we still have Fabia’s keys! Better post them back back to her tomorrow!