Saw the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. We saw the Queens watercolor and other art collections on display along with crown jewels and other treasures. We also toured the Royal Mews. These were the stables in olden days. Actually, they used to be used to house the hunting falcons during their molting season also called “mews” When the stables burned down, the king told the falcons they were evicted and the horses moved in. Had lunch at a small café and then looked around inside of Westminster Church with its Mosiacs and paintings.

May 30-Flew to London. Staten airport is really a long way from downtown but only took a little over an hour when we were warned it could take 1-1/2. Got settled in the room and took a bus tour of the city. We also got off and took a river tour on the Thames. We saw all the usual sites including the Tower Bridge (London Bridge to most people). Had dinner at a small pub near Buckingham Palace and returned to the hotel. Funny hotel room we have. The bathtub water overflow has water constantly coming out either in a drip of in a torrent. Most of the night it was Chinese Water Torture. We need to get it fixed tomorrow.

We woke up very stiff and could barely walk. After coaxing our muscles, we made it to breakfast and walked around Bergen to three Art Museums (the Sternesen, Lysverket, and the Bergen Art Museum). We had lunch at an authentic Norwegian restaurant, the Bryggeloftet & Stuene. Norm had Norwegian fish and Cindy decided on American steak. As lunch started at 4pm it is basically “Linner”. The more we walked, the better we did unless we had to tackle stairs or inclines. Looks like we need to recharge our batteries a bit more.

Got up at 6:30am and still felt OK after climbing yesterday. We had a quick breakfast and decided to climb to the Monksteps again and find them. We took off and were told to follow signs to Nosi. We made it to the same place as yesterday and followed a small path up a narrow, winding hillside with big drop offs. At last, we found the Monksteps. Norm kept saying, “Here they are” and Cindy kept sayingthat we had not seen a sign for them yet and they did not look exactly like the steps in the picture. Eventually, Norm found a sign that showed we had already climbed above the steps. We walked until we were at the snowline and Cindy tossed a snowball at Norm. On the way down, Norm figured out why there was not a sign for Monksteps. The sign was not the name on the map but the last letters that means “steps” in Norwegian. At last, we Had found the Monksteps, all 616 of them. We had climbed to 800 meters above sea level. It felt like it! Boy were we tired. The trip down was grueling as we are not used to walking downhill that far two days in a row. We barely made it back to the hotel in time for our requested late 2pm checkout.
We did have a nice view of the Bjodnabukse and Skrinko waterfalls that we saw yesterday. Who knew we could hike mountain trails for a total of 12 hours over two days. Boy will we pay for this later. This afternoon, we were picked up and driven in a van to the small town of Norheimsond and were let out at an unheated waiting area for a bus to Bergen. This took the scenic route and was a normal travel city bus that went all through the mountains.

Finally woke up and decided to see the area. We walked to an old church that was supposed to have graves from the middle ages. All we saw were graves from the 1800’s forward. They hide the old ones well. We saw the minister talking to a couple inside when we peeked in. At lunch, we saw that couple getting married on the Fjord plaza of our hotel. There were three weddings today. We saw two during our lunch. We walked to the twin waterfalls. We seemed a bit lost and asked a man how to get there. He pointed us on a path that ended up in someone’s backyard. We went back and got directions from a woman who gave us better directions. She also told us to take the path to the right after we crossed the bridge because the path on the left was the steepest path. Unfortunately, she forgot that the easy path started before the bridge so we walked up the steep path and down the easy path. Oh well. After this 2 hour walk, we decided to take a walk up the higher mountain to look at the Monksteps. These were built in the 13th century by Opedal monks who lived on the lower side of the mountain for a path up to the hunting plateau. We walked, and walked and walked until we found a place that said we had hiked up to 640 meters above sea level. We found only small stones on a side path that some Norwegian people seemed to agree were the Monksteps. Norm was exhausted and had to walk back. On the way back, Cindy decided to take side trails down. After taking two, Norm decided to join her on the next one. Unfortunately, this path never rejoined the main trail. It simply went deeper into the woods and headed toward the waterfalls that we hiked to in the morning. We walked for what seemed like forever. We finally ended up in a farmer’s orchard and walked around the side and eventually made it back to the hotel. Once in the hotel, we found a photo of the Monksteps and realized that we had not seen them. Five hours of walking and we never saw them. The person at reception told us we were less than 100 meters from the steps. Bummer! Cindy started talking to a gentleman that worked at the hotel about all the walking and how sad she was that the jacuzzi closed already at 7pm. He was so nice and had the pool area unlocked special for us. The warm bubblies felt good before going to dinner.

Since we were not leaving until almost noon today, we thought we might go to the museum, but found out everything was closed because it was a holiday in Norway. When we inquired of the receptionist as to what the holiday was, she said she did not know how to translate it. Then we asked what the celebration was, she did not know, only that everything was closed. So we relaxed till it was time for our ferry back toward Flam, but then we actually changed in the middle of the Fjord to another ferry going to Gudvagen. We sailed on the deepest Fjord and then onto the most narrow Fjord in Norway. We had a three hour layover at a tiny hotel in Gudvangen waiting for a bus to drive us to Voss. We waited in the rain to board the bus to Voss. They made us wait in the rain until the first bus was full and then let us on the second bus after we took our luggage off of the first bus and reloaded it in the rain onto the second bus. Great system! The ride was beautiful despite the rain, through winding roads with scenic views of the valley, etc. The bus had to stop twice to wait for incoming cars to back up the mountain to a space wide enough for the bus to pass. Good thing Norm was not driving a stick shift car on those roads. Once we got to Voss, the rain was pouring and we had to wait in the rain for a van to meet us to take us to our hotel in Lofthus. Basically today was a travel day all around. After we dried a bit, we were able to enjoy the drive past fruit trees, mountains, waterfalls, and a car ferry to take us to Lofthus. We stayed at the Hotel Ullensvang right on the Fjord. We got in after 8pm so we had dinner and went to bed.

Took the 8:15am boat to Fjaerland, the Norwegian book town. We first went to the Norsk Bremuseum (the Norwegian Glacier museum). We saw information on how glaciers are formed, what the inside of a glacier feels like to walk on (spongy) and even saw a replica of the “Ice man” later named Otzi. He was discovered “freeze dried” in the Alps in 1991and died 5300 years ago. There was also a replica of an ancient ski found in a Norwegian glacier. Afterwards, we visited the Boyabreen and Supphelbreen arms of the Jostedal glacier, which is the largest in Europe. After our walks up to and around the glaciers, we went back to Fjaerland for two hours in a town of 300 people that has 2.5 miles of bookshelves containing used books. We even found a Clive Cussler book that we had not read. Unfortunately, there is no restaurant in town except a bookstore that sold toasted ham and cheese sandwiches that were prepackaged. We quickly tired of the bookstores, had lunch and just waited for the boat to return. After returning, we went walking to try and find the other sites we missed last night. After we walked so far that Norm found a sign saying Balestrand town limits, we turned around and wandered the other direction back for dinner again. After dinner, Age was playing more popular songs at the piano in the hotel bar so we just relaxed and enjoyed his music. Since it is light out till past 11pm, decided to go in the correct direction this time and find the rest of the tourist sites in town.

We took a Fjord Boat to Balestrand today. It still rained but we saw many waterfalls from the Fjord. We went walking around this beautiful art village located on the Sognefjorden. They have one ATM, one museum and an Aquarium. This is the big time compared to Flam. We started to follow a trail with marked points of interest. We found half of the places before it was time to return for dinner as we had made a reservation for 7pm. We then decided to stay up for a piano concert at 9:30 this evening by Age Kristoffersen. His name is pronounced “Auga” and he says it is an old, proud Viking name. He is a native of Voss Norway and is a professional piano player who now lives in Palm Springs. He has played at Carnegie Hall and all over the world. He gave a performance of Edvard Grieg’s lyric pieces. It was a very nice concert, with information about the famous composer and stories about the songs. We learned about the Norway trolls and the composer’s wedding song representing his 25th anniversary which went from the turmoil of the big party his wife planned to the quiet solitude he wished for. We bought one of the performer’s CD’s and he even autographed it!

We took our train to Myrdal this morning. We got to the train station and Myrdal was not on the monitor, nor was our departure time. When Norm went to the information station, he was told to take the Bergen train, it stopped at Myrdal. We finally found a spot for all luggage with the help of the conductor. The train was not designed for people traveling for as long as us. The trip was through beautiful country. At Myrdal, we boarded the Flamsbana train for Flam. It was waiting for us on the next track and we only had to get our luggage onto the train through a sleet storm. This is the steepest railway in all of Europe. Somehow, we never felt like it was steep. The train stopped for us to get out and take photos of the Kjosfossen waterfall. Two women danced to songs played on a loudspeaker over the sound of the waterfalls. A bit sappy but fun. We traveled through areas of Tundra high above the tree line and saw lakes still frozen. The train stopped at Finse at an altitude of 1222 meters. This was the highest spot on the train trip. It was snowing when we stopped to look around. We continued on to Flam. The entire trip from Myrdal to Flam is only 20 kilometers but it takes one hour. We went through 20 tunnels totaling 6 kilometers in total length. We went through a tunnel that has a 180 degree turn inside the tunnel. We had views of the largest lake in Norway and the Aurlands Fjord which is a branch of the deepest and longest in all the world, the Sognefjord. We saw ski slopes that could still be skied but no one was on the slopes.

When we arrived in Flam, we saw the Queen Elizabeth II docked right in front of the train stop. This is the same cruise ship we saw Feb 3 in Punta Arenas, Chile. Could they be following us? That evening, we took a walk up the mountain and around the back side of the hotel area. It was a steep walk up, but the most grueling part was avoiding the cow droppings in the road. We did good and our shoes are still in good condition. We walked to an area near 2 waterfalls and found our way back to the hotel by continuing the loop without getting lost. Yeah! Back to the room for hopefully an earlier night than last, especially considering that we had to wake up at 6:30 in the morning. We are staying in a hotel that is very much like a ski lodge. There was a fire burning in the reception area. We asked why the room was still cold and not responding to the thermostat. We were told that the entire system had to be reset and that would not happen tonight so they installed a space heater in our room. It is now very hot.

Rain, rain go away! It finally let up and we took a tram to the Vigeland Park. He was a sculptor who has a park with over 200 of his sculptures showing families and children from infant to adults. It was very pretty and luckily the rain was not too hard. We took the tram back and went to a restaurant near the old theatre. Unfortunately, the Engebret restaurant was closed on Sunday’s. So off we walked into the night in search of food. Not knowing what the Sunday night crowd was like for meals, we walked toward our hotel. We finally found a small restaurant next to our hotel. It was called Amerikalinjen Steakhouse and Bar. Unbelievable that a place with the name American in its name does not have any menus in English. Luckily, the waitress gave us a translation. The food was good and the evening was saved. We walked to the Oslo train station which was right behind our hotel to get the lay of the land for tomorrows train trip. This is the only train station we have ever been in where it rains inside the main terminal! Back to the room for a short night. It is still daylight at 11pm so it is a bit difficult to go to sleep. Especially when someone Snores!

We went to Bygdoy Island by ferry to see the museums. We began at the Viking Ships museum with restored Oseberg, Gokstad and Tune burial ships from the 9th century, along with other displays excavated from the royal burial mounds around the Oslo Fjord. These are the best preserved Viking ships in the world. What a coincidence, Norm saw the Gokstad Viking ship this afternoon and in the evening, the book he is reading refers to a full scale model being made of the Gokstad Viking ship.

We then went to the Kon Tiki Museum which is the home of Thor Heyerdahl’s boats and objects from his many expeditions, including Easter Island statues and a full-size whale shark. Thor first sailed from South America to the Marquesa Islands is 1947 on the Kon Tiki, a balsa wood raft, to prove that Polynesia most likely had contact with South America in the ancient past. In 1955 he was the first to excavate the statues on Easter Island. In 1969, he built the Ra I papyrus boat in front of the pyramids with the assistance of native peoples from Chad, to attempt to prove that the Egyptians could have sailed one to the New World. This boat sank, but not too far from the coast. In 1970 he built and sailed Ra II (built in Morocco by natives from South America) and reached his goal of the Americas. It is interesting that at that time the papyrus came from Sudan and Morocco as there was no longer any in Egypt. When we were in Egypt there were papyrus art stores in abundance, wonder where the papyrus came from. Norm remembers reading his book, The Ra Expeditions in high school. Finding his museum was an unexpected surprise.

After Kon Tiki, we walked across the parking lot to the Fram Museum. The Fram was the first Polar explorer ship. It has sailed the Arctic and Antarctic. Roald Amundsen was the captain and was also the first man to reach the South Pole. He beat Scott by a couple of weeks and left his tent at the pole for Scott to see. The boat was made of wood in the late 1800’s and sailed throughout the early 1920’s. It is still in such good shape that we walked through the ship.

Another cold and semi rainy day. Laundry and off to Norway on the Crown of Scandinavia cruise ship overnight.

We went to the tourist information center to line up for the Hans Christian Anderson walking tour of the city only to be told that it would not occur until June. When we asked why the guide book said it happened now, the lady said that it usually happened now but the man who gives the tours spends his winters in America and decided to come back late this year. Then she said there was just a normal walking tour of Copenhagen about to start, just go outside and meet the woman in red. There was no woman in red outside and when we went back in for better description/directions to find her we were told “Oh well, she doesn’t work for the tourist office so we can’t help you.” Really helpful tourist office. We decided to take a hop on and off bus tour to make sure we saw the Little Mermaid and because it was raining. We stopped and got off for pictures. She must be a hot head, they told us that she has lost her head two times. She also has had her arm broken off but has always been repaired. She is the symbol of Copenhagen. After we left the Mermaid, we went to the Queens castle. Unfortunately, our driver did not stop. When we finally asked him when to stop, he said that no one had told him to stop. That’s funny, no one told him to stop at the Rosenborg castle or the Little Mermaid but he stopped there. Oh well. We stayed on the bus and went around again. We got off at the Rosenborg castle, toured the castle and saw the Crown Jewels. The jewels are kept in a room that is a huge vault. The exit was out the back of the safe but they made us check our umbrella at the entrance. When we walked back to the entrance in the rain from the vault and asked why the exit was not where our umbrella was the receptionist simply smiled. Bad Form!

Back on the bus to see the Mermaid again and then on to the Queens castle (Amalienborg). In the old days there was a lion head statue that the Queen would turn facing inward to let her lovers know that the King was not at home. The King was no great guy either. He had 23 children, 11 from his mistress. We got to the Queens Castle right when the guided tour started; at least that’s what the tour book said. When we asked, we were told that there was no tour, only a museum. We saw the museum and went back to get the bus to go back. The buses run every 30 minutes. Unfortunately, this one took 45 minutes and it was pouring rain. When we finally got back to the starting point and City Hall, we had a burger at Burger King and decided to see a movie. We were the only “drowned rats” at MI III. In the middle of MI III, Cindy says “those are the canals an hour outside of Shanghai that we visited.” She was right.

May 16-Flew to Copenhagen today. Rain all over. It finally quit in the evening so we went out for dinner and then to “Mojo” a blues bar. The band was good and we stayed up late again.

May 17-Cindy practically walked Norm to death today. We walked to the Thorvaldsen Museum. He was the most famous sculpture from Denmark. He lived for 40 years in Rome and returned to Denmark when he was in his 60’s (1848). He offered to give all of his sculptures and art collection to the city if they built him a museum to house it. He died before the museum was completed and he was buried in the inner courtyard of the museum. After that, we realized that it was 3pm so we found a Mexican restaurant and had lunch. We then walked to the Statens Museum for Kunst. This is a huge art museum here in Copenhagen. Unfortunately, most of it is closed for renovation until October 2006. We saw a sculpture display and drawings and paintings by the French masters including Picasso, Pissaro, Matisse and many others. On our way back to the hotel, we walked through the botanic gardens for 30 minutes until we were kicked out because they were closing. It did not rain today but it was cold. We had to order hot chocolate just to warm up. Dinner was at a deep dish pizza buffet restaurant. The dish was deep but not the pizza. Oh well, it was still good even though we chose not to eat the fish pizza slices. Norm was too tired and cold to walk to see the Little Mermaid statue at the harbor. That will be tomorrows project. Oh, we almost forgot. During lunch and even an hour later, there was some kind of protest going on. Banners and people shouting into microphones. We took a detour and did not attend the rally. You could still hear the loud shouting and cheering when we walked to dinner.

Woke up to a call that Norm’s jacket had been found and would be returned to the hotel in the afternoon. Wow! We spent the day walking around Stockholm. We toured the Royal Palace and saw the hour long changing of the guards ceremony. The palace has many statutes and antiques, including enormous crystal chandeliers. After that, we went to the National Museum only to find out it is closed on Monday.

We walked to City Hall. This is the place where the Nobel prizes are awarded and has a tower with great views of the city. We went up the tower and were rewarded with really pretty views. The elevator only went up ½ way so we walked the last 6 or 8 floors. The final view was worth it. City Hall is covered with gold statues and is very impressive.

We went to the Vasa Museum. The Vasa was a warship built in 1628 to be the “biggest and baddest of them all”. It had 64 cannons. The only problem was that it was too heavy. On its first voyage from the harbor, it sank like a lead balloon. It was on the bottom of the harbor until it was found in 1957 and it was raised in 1962. Due to the cold fresh water, the wood had not rotted. The next 20 years was spent spraying the boat with a preservative each day. Today, it sits in a museum in great condition. This is quite a salvage feat. The boat has hundreds of carvings and from analysis, they determined that it was brightly painted in 1628 and have recreated how it would have looked in color on a wall display.

We spent the day on Djurgadstajan Island. This is a tourist island with museums and an open air museum. We visited the Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde Museum. The Prince was an artist himself and has on display many paintings from his collection and many of his own landscape paintings. The museum was very nice but the price of admission was too high. One sweater or jacket. When we were done with the tour, we came to get our coats from the coat room and Norm’s was gone. We looked all over the grounds and inquired at the desk to no avail. Cindy loaned Norm her gloves and they walked to Cirkus for lunch. This is the theater where the Abba play “Mama Mia” is performing. We attempted to get tickets but were told they were obstructed view or not together. Just as well, it turns out that the performance was in Swedish! During lunch, we asked the Head Waitress where we could get Norm a new jacket and explained losing his. She called the museum twice to check on it and see if it was returned. No luck. As we were leaving, Cindy gave Norm her windbreaker to wear. The sleeves came way up his arms. As we walked out, the Head Waitress came running out the door with a heavy jacket. She told us it was used by the staff for winter smoke breaks, it was not a sexy jacket, but it was warm. What a nice person. Norm accepted it and finally was warm again. It even fit!

Happy Graduation Jeanine. You are now a Master. We flew to Stockholm this morning(7am flight that we were at the airport by 5:15). The Stockholm airport is about 40 kilometers from downtown and we drove through lots of beautiful forested land to get to our hotel. Once we settled in to our hotel, we strolled around, ended up at Stortorget Square and had lunch at an Italian café. We then spent a couple of hours in the Nobel Museum. This is dedicated to the winners of the Nobel prizes since inception in 1901. There is currently a large exhibit to Albert Einstein in his early years, which included photos of his time in Bern, Switzerland. It was fun to see pictures of the Bern clock so close to us just being there. The museum was really interesting with films about some of the winners and their creativity, along with summaries of each decade's award winners. We then found Stampen, the live Jazz and Blues club in Stockholm. The music was good but there were no chairs to sit inside. We sat outside in the sun but as the weather is still cool, we did not stay long even though the music was good. We had a light dinner at the hotel and off to snooze land after an early morning wake up to get to the airport.

Another rainy day so we decided to relax in the room and catch up on photos and writing. Tonight, we met Leona and Philipp. Leona was our dive guide in Fiji who told us last year she was getting married in February and moving to Basel.

After driving following street signs that often did not exist or difficult to locate, and Norm mis-interpreting the map, we found the home of Leona and Philipp. They have a 3 story town house with a hot tub and sauna (to keep Leona warm on cold days) and a bomb shelter in the basement. We were surprised to learn that all homes in Switzerland are required to have a bomb shelter. We had Swiss fondue and appetizers and a wonderful rubbarb desert. We saw beautiful photos of their wedding on Castaway Island, Fiji. Since both of them are divemasters, we asked why the wedding was not underwater. They still need to teach Philipp’s mother to dive first. We had a nice night and learned from Leona that she only has heard of 2 other Fijians living is all of Switzerland. She is farther from home than we are. We had a fun night of catching up.

May 10- Just relaxed in the room and rested.

May 11 and12- Drove to Zurich and relaxed in the hotel room. We updated our web log. Yay!

Now we know why the bakery was so crowded yesterday. Today is French Liberation from WWII day and nothing at all is open. No breakfast at all to be had anywhere. Good thing we are driving to Switzerland today where things will be open. We drove to Neuchatel and, after driving through the city unable to find the Chateau, we turned around and went back to the tourist information. We had to wait 20 minutes for it to reopen from lunch to find out that the guided tour of the castle started in 20 minutes and we had to walk to the castle as there is no parking near it. We made it to the castle right around starting time and a woman came out telling us she was the guide. We had a personal tour. The castle is used today as the home of local government. 150 people meet once a month to decide laws, etc for the area. If they cannot decide, the issue goes to Bern, the capital for decision. Oh, we forgot to mention that it was raining pretty hard while we walked to the castle and during our tour so no photos as the camera was left safe in the car. It then rained all the way to Bern.

Once in Bern, we went to Munster church, the 12th century church that is the center of downtown Bern. Unfortunately, it is closed on Monday so we had to settle for seeing the outside only along with the sculpture of Moses holding the Ten Commandments. We then walked across the river to the History museum where they have an exhibit dedicated to Albert Einstein who spent time in Bern working on the Theory of Relativity. Norm figured out his own theory of traveling. What goes down must come up.” We walked down to the river and of course had to walk back up. Good exercise. We wonder if Norm will have an exhibit at the History museum for his discovery. We had dinner with Pascal and Nadia, friends we met on the Via Australis cruise through the Straights of Magellan. They live in Bern and we had a nice dinner at Restaurant Rosengarten atop the highest bluff overlooking downtown Bern. The rain had stopped by the time we walked up the hill to dinner but started raining during dinner and the temperature dropped so much that we moved inside from the covered patio to have our coffee. It was fun to once again meet with people who travel for long periods. They just got back from over 3 months in South America. Cindy drove back to our hotel in the rain. We managed to get back through Basel with only a small direction error. We ended up in the truck route into France but we did find out way. Leaving France this morning, we got lost and ended up in Germany. What an adventure.

all rested, we took off for a driving tour of the Alsace wine country. We started at Thann which has the Collegiate Church built in the 13th century and has 500 sculptures built in sandstone all around the church. This is the start of the wine country. Unfortuately, the wineries were all closed as today is Sunday. We drove all along the countryside and eventually ended up in the town of Colmar. This is called the Little Venice of France as it has canals and boats just like in Venice. We took a city tour on the Petit Train for a 7 kilometer rider which took us in circles and we saw the same buildings twice. This was still fun. We returned to Saint Louis wondering where to eat as all restaurants were closed on Sunday morning (the bakery was open but had a line out the door and had no rolls or croissants, only bread. We drove to the town of Village-Neuf and found the restaurant “A L’Ange”. When Norm asked when they served dinner, the answer was “from now until we decide to close. If it is not busier, we will close soon.” We decided to eat right then just in case. We had a wonderful Chateaubriand which was basically a whole cow. Great dinner and our only choice except the order by computer restaurant at our hotel. Good choice.

A day of rest. Norm walked around the town and discovered that we are truly in the middle of no where. 3 restaurants, 3 hotels and no internet café. We had a typical Alsace dinner at a pub in town and Cindy had sauerkraut with meat. The tray of meat was huge! Norm was less adventurous and had Veal Cordon Blue.

Another travel day. We flew from Amsterdam to Zurich and took what was thought to be an easy drive to our hotel in Saint Louis France just across the border from Basel Switzerland. The only directions from the hotel were to follow the signs for France after reaching Basel. The road signs were crazy and we ended up in the center of Basel following tiny signs for France and St Louis. We eventually found the town but would never be able to repeat the trip exactly as we were so confused.

We became tour guides and took our friend to visit the Rembrandt House for her first visit. They had over 50 of his artworks displayed at the home he lived in in Amsterdam. We walked all around Amsterdam again today seeing areas not seen before. We saw the statue of Rembrandt in Rembrandtplein. In front of his statue are other statues from his painting “The Nightwatch”. Thus, a 3d painting is on display in the park. We met Henk for a drink at a small pub on the Leidseplein. We had dinner at Roses Cantina and introduced our friends to Mexican food. During dinner, they had 3 minutes of silence as today is the national Remembrance Day for the liberation from WWII. We went to Dam square where the war memorial is and saw the wreaths placed by the Queen today. People were lined up to place flowers in front of the memorial. It was very moving to see so many people lined up. Truus’s father was in the war and Henk’s father escaped from a German POW camp, walked from Germany to Holland and hid in a basement for 2 years until the end of the war.

We slept in and sorted through all the brochures and papers we had accumulated and put together another package to be sent home. In the afternoon we stopped at a Turkish shop and had their version of pizza, made into a roll-up and very tasty. Truus then took us to the local castle Muiderslot, built in 1296 by Count Floris V, subsequently destroyed and rebuilt in1370. The castle was built to protect the city of Muiden. We took a tour, in Dutch, but the tour guide did give us some English explanation also, and so did Truus. In 1823 the castle was considered a historical site by King Willem I in memory of the famous poet Pieter Hooft who had lived in the castle at different times during his life.

We visited the Anne Frank home and also went to the Amsterdam Historical Museum where we also saw the Anne Frank letters and postcards, along with history of Amsterdam. We saw the Rembrandt painting of an autopsy of the brain and many paintings from the 1500’s. We only were lost a short while until a nice person noticed our lost expressions and gave us good directions to the museum. We rode the tram from the boat to Dam Square and back. We are almost locals now. We had Bitterballen in a pub near Henk and Truus’s home and had a relaxing dinner at their house. Time to do more laundry while we have a chance and then relax.