Stand by...

Preparations are underway for our stay in Paris.  I've put the garden to bed, carrying out autumn tasks a little early especially in view of the lovely weather and the fact that things are putting in a second growth spurt.   Sorry chaps, but you have to go now.  The tomato plants have been dismantled and the grow bag emptied.  It is the end of summer.

Serious packing tomorrow and the usual worry about having the right shoes and the right coats for every kind of weather.  I had expected to pack autumn/winter clothes but it's going to be hot in Paris, at least for another week. 

We leave at the crack of dawn on Thursday.  Stand by for flurry of new blog posts and some excruciating French!   A bientôt!

Last day in Amsterdam

Today was a day for wandering around the Jordaan.  There was a vague plan.  1. Look at shoes that Peter is interested in (Clark's Originals), 2. Buy a newspaper, 3. Explore a Hofje, 4. Locate an art deco cinema, 5. Go back and look at a hat rack and 6. somewhere for a) coffee and b) lunch!  Not too arduous or ambitious!  We achieved them all.   The coffee stop, where I was asked not to take a photo, was a cosy English bookshop where we had delicious coffee in arm chairs and browsed the books and bought one.

Next time we come to Amsterdam, and there will surely be a next time, we will follow up this guide to even more hidden gardens in the hofjes of the Jordaan. 
http://www.hofjesinamsterdam.nl/
http://www.jordaanweb.nl/HTMLengels/indexcom.htm?/HTMLengels/jordaankaarthofjes.htm&1
http://www.jordaaninfo.nl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=103%3Ahofjes-in-de-jordaan&catid=12%3Abezienswaardigheden&Itemid=22&lang=en

Back to Van Puffelin, an old haunt, for supper in the evening. THE END! 

The entrance to a hofje

Hofjes were alms houses built round a courtyard.
Invisible from the street

Nice old wooden sailing boat

The cafe where we had lunch and where we ate
mussels many years ago with Phyl and Brian

A few knitting ideas

Art deco cinema

Inside another hofje

The shop where we bought the chrome hat rack

Other things seen on our walk:

A shop selling everything for your teeth

Family transport

Someone's front room display

Amsterdam: Day 6

A very lazy start to the day.  Despite the workmen next door dismantling their scaffolding, we both managed a lie in and a late breakfast.  Peter had some email catching up to do so we had lunch at the apartment making Spanish omelette with everything left over in the fridge.  Then off across the city to the Willet-Holthuysen House.  On the way we passed a post person's bike and noticed the tidy arrangements of the elastic bands on the handle bars.  UK postmen take note.  They do not have to be thrown on the ground! 

Tidy postman

Willet-Holthuysen House

 The Willet-Holthuysen house had an excellent audio guide and we toured the house and once again got lost in the history.

The back of the house

In the garden

Listening intently

Stuffed cat!

Church tower

It was pouring with rain when we left the house so we took shelter and then ducked into De Jaren a large cafe with newspapers and lots of right on types having meetings and working on laptops and excellent apple cake and cream!   The rain stopped and we made our way north towards the station, passing an elegant church tower, and headed for the Muziekgebouw Aan 'Tij, a new concert hall.  We had dinner in the restaurant there, which was excellent (I had a very up-market prawn cocktail with a poached egg on the side, Peter had gazpacho and then we both had veal entrecote with pea puree and mushroom duxelle, little vegetables and rosti potatoes and jus) and then heard the concert.  A young group called the New European Ensemble with a soprano, and alto and a tenor.  A mixed programme and 75% very enjoyable - even the John Taverner!

Taxi home, the 10pm BBC news, cup of tea and bed...

Amsterdam: Day 5

Peter returned from a successful visit to Paris.  He managed to get the heavy suitcase there without injury to himself and left it in his new office along with a bag of heavy books and papers and a laptop.  He met the staff and returned to Amsterdam optimistic about the new challenges.

I got up late and read my book and we had coffee when he arrived back.   A quick debrief about the journey and then off to lunch at the place I had discovered the day before.   I had a delicious smoked salmon salad and Peter had red pepper soup.  Also very good apparently.
 

Lunch

After lunch we walked across town to Rembrandt's House which I am sure we have been to before although they have built a visitor centre and restored the inside using information gleaned from his drawings.  I'm sure we sat in the courtyard outside the kitchen last time.  The renovation was done 15 years ago so my memory may be faulty.

The audio guide was excellent and we lost ourselves for over an hour!

On the way back via a circuitous route we came across a wonderful building of the Amsterdam School of architcture by Nico Lansdorp.

In the evening we went to a nearby Turkish restaurant which was homely rather than gourmet!  

Rembrandt's kitchen

Pigment mixing demo

Padlocks of endearment

An attractive corner

Detail

Amsterdam School: Nico Lansdorp

Amsterdam: Day 4 - Alone in Amsterdam

Peter left at the crack of dawn for a flying visit to Paris.  First the alarm woke me and then the creaking about on the wooden floor.  A great burglar deterent probably but also a great barrier to sleep.  At last the creaking stopped and I heard the front door shut gently. Then the worry set in.  Did the taxi arrive?  Did he remember to take the suitcase rammed with stuff we want in Paris?   I leaped out of bed and ran to the sittingroom window and there was the taxi drawing away.  One worry down!

Shortly after the taxi departed a large lorry drew up outside on the pavement and began unloading scaffolding!  This was 6.0 am! I gave up trying to go back to sleep and made a cup of tea and read my book in bed under the mosquito net.  Yes, a careful arrangement of the net (well tucked in all round) and a spray of something 'natural' to discourage the mosquitoes has worked.  No more new bites.  I'm just waiting for the old ones to stop itching.  It's so unfair, the way they pick on people.

Eventually I got up, had breakfast and walked north along the canal to Westerstraat, past the long snaking queues for the Anne Frank house.   There's a textile market in Westerstraat every Monday, the whole length of the centre of the road.  A complete change of demographic here with poor  people raking over second hand clothes and ethnic minorities buying bright coloured fabrics.  I looked around for a place to sit and read my Guardian and have a cup of coffee.  There are subtle differences between cafés so a glance inside and a quick look over the customer base is required.  I found a café with an artsy crowd, mums in slightly hippy garb, older women in black with large items of silver jewelry.  Ah!  Just right!   The service was quick and friendly, the tables old and assorted, the sawdust on the floor slightly strange.  I hadn't been sitting there long when a woman asked, in Dutch, if she could share my table.  As soon as she realised I was English she didn't stop talking.  In the course of about half an hour I knew her name, her occupation (potter), the names of her family, how she met her husband and how she came to be married to a Welsh farmer!  She was back in Amsterdam for her sister's birthday. I enjoyed talking to her and reluctantly dragged myself away and continued exploring.  Eventually I found somewhere for lunch and had a delicious salad with grilled goat's cheese.

Back to the flat to put my feet up and read my book before going to the shop on the corner to buy something for supper.  On the way I watched a barge dredging for bikes in the canal.  Clearly they have a lot of success.  The back of the barge was full of twisted bicycles.  No doubt there's money to be made.  I thought I'd taken a photograph, but couldn't find it on the camera afterwards.

Amsterdam: Day 3

Another terrible night plagued by mosquitoes.  My tactics for evading them did not work so I have been to a pharmacy and bought spray and spent some time arranging the mosquito net so that it's more effective.  Fingers crossed!

Meanwhile, after another relaxed start we wandered past shops in the direction of the Stedelijk Museum which has had a significant extention that looks like a bathtub from the outside.  We started with lunch, well it was almost lunch time, and found a table outside the museum cafe.  It extremely busy and our rather laconic waitress was not particularly disturbed that we had not got our drinks.  At the third time of asking Peter said he'd have water instead, but she pointed out it would be a 20 minute wait for water anyway! They had an interesting system going.  Waiters taking orders on what looked like mobile phones which were relayed inside we assumed.  Some people emerged with drinks and others emerged with food.  No one emerged with our drinks.  Our lunch did eventually appear and was fine.  It was very warm in the sun. 

Refreshed we went into the museum which houses design (one of our favourites) and modern art.  It wasn't crowded or over populated with officious guards and we enjoyed our wander around.  After a while I realised that photography was permitted so I pulled my camera out for a few shots. 

Excellent pair of trainers

Tried to interest Peter in the blue pair

The new exterior of the Stedelijk Museum

I saw this!

Mm. How true!

Tried to get a good shot of this Chagall but it was too popular

Sinister goings on here...

Jackson Pollack of course

Lego on the wall.  A brilliant idea!

Fair enough!

Amsterdam: Day 2

Well, Peter said he intended to relax on this holiday.  I had no idea he meant staying in bed until nearly 10.00am.  I on the other hand got up at 7.00 after a fitful night under a mosquito net, convinced I was being bitten and half the night scratching and swatting and the other half trying to reclaim some duvet and stay out of the pit in the middle of the bed!   Apart from that...

Anyway, we eventually got out of the house and had a great rest of the morning sauntering around the neighbourhood and eyeing up the food shops and the dress shops and the 'antique' shops.   We made for Van Puffelin, a restaurant we've eaten at many times before but there were no tables outside and inside was very dark, which is fine at night but not so congenial during the day.  Instead we ate on the pavement outside a tiny Algerian cafe selling bowlfuls of delicious food.   

Then back to a supermarket for some essentials and the bread shop.  A short nap to make up for my early start and then a restoring cup of tea before going to the organic/expensive supermarket on the corner for supper:  Watercress, tomato and avocado salad followed by pan fried cod and new potatoes. 

Lots of 60s stuff

Cheese shop

Wooden bike outside a shop selling floorboards and jeans

Strange window display

The foam rubber shop - every city needs one

Mad tourists pedaling their own bus

Lunch!

How the other half lives

I'm sending my son Simon tasteful pictures from Amsterdam and he responds by sending me pictures of Gosport where he is spending his day.  His title "Pure class".   I wonder what he is doing in Gosport, apart from taking the micky out of local residents and their predilections!

Amsterdam: Day 1

Lunch in Norwich, dinner in Amsterdam with a bit of drama thrown in.  Just as we heard the taxi draw up outside the house, Billy the decorator ran into the hall to announce that there was water pouring out of the overflow at the back of the house.  We ran round flushing toilets and at last it stopped so all was well!  Just what we needed at the last minute.

We arrived at our Amsterdam apartment and were met at the door by the charming owner.  It's a very attractive flat overlooking a canal.   Of course there aren't enough hangers and it's up three flights of narrow steep stairs...but that will be good for us - the stairs, not the hangers.   We've been out to a grocery store on the next corner and stocked up on enough for breakfast.  More exploring tomorrow, but in the meantime the first bottle of wine has been opened and we're off to dinner at Luden shortly.  Sigh!

View from the sitting room

Dining area

Kitchen area

Sitting area

That's us with the window open