Starting in Amsterdam

 Below is a typical scene along an Amsterdam canal, tall skinny buildings some of which have a slight lean due to the deterioration of the posts which support them in the water.

We were both wiped from the flights over which took us from Calgary to London and then here so we spent a good portion of the first day on the canal cruise boats.  There are three differents routes for the boats and we saw a lot of the city that day.
Some of the canals are lined with private house boats like the one below.

There are lots of bikes and only a small number of cars in the city center. Below is a bridge, used by both bikes and cars, over one of the canals.

The old ship Amsterdam in front of the Maratime Museum.

I haven't quite got the knack of taking a picture of myself. Here we are having supper at a sidewalk cafe.

The former palace at Dam Square.

Betty in front of the floating flower market.

I bought some blue tulip bulbs at the market and have them stuck behind my back for the picture.  You can't tell can you?

The front of our hotel.  It was OK and clean enough but a little smelly.  Trying to keep our costs down I got our land accommodations switched to 3 star.  Betty hopes they don't get any worse than this.

This is the church beside Anne Franks house. We toured her house first thing the first day and it was very interesting.

We walked in the neighbourhood on the second morning waiting for things to open.  Our hotel was not in the central area where all the canals are and it looks different, more like things at home.

After three days with no Internet we finally got over to our ship this afternoon to find slow but adequate Internet service here.  More about the ship in my next post.