We finally made it to Madame Chapeau for lunch. Jeff and I ordered an aperitif (I could get used to this European tradition) and decided to share and meat and cheese board and a bowl of Cream of Leek soup. Josh also had the soup. As expected, the cheese was delicious, as was also expected, the meats were a bit funky. There was a salami and pate. The last meat was some sort of charcuterie that had paprika in it. I tried some, but was too scared for a whole piece :) The Leek soup was amazing! It was served with house made croutons, little radishes and green onions and shaved parmesan. Josh ate his whole bowl and I wish Jeff and I hadn't shared one. Really the best part was dessert - isn't it always? We shared speculoos ice cream - truly a work of ice cream art. It had crumbled speculoos cookies and caramel sauce as well. Who knew that the Belgians were so good at ice cream! We also had a Belgian waffle with red fruits and whipped cream. So light and delicious. Josh didn't like it as much, because the fruit sauce wasn't that sweet.
After lunch we really only had one more thing to accomplish - we had really neglected our chocolate intake and with a mere hour left, we had to hit as many stores as we could! In the end I think we managed 4 or 5 shops and macarons as well. At this time our new favorite is Mary, alongside our trusted go-to Leonidas :). We had just enough time to get back to the B&B and grab a cab to the train station - we were Amsterdam bound on the fast Thalys train.
The trip is only about an hour and 50 minutes and flies by. Literally. The train reaches speeds of 185 miles per hour! Since we were in 1st class we were also served a drink and a snack - lovely service :)
The first thing you notice about Amsterdam are the bikes. I am not kidding. There isn't a parking structure for cars, but there is one for bikes! There are more bikes than cars in the city and after walking for only a few minutes it is easy to believe. You really have to be on the lookout, because they are everywhere, which is a challenge with the space cadet in our family... A short bus ride brought us to our rental apartment along side a picturesque canal (they are all picturesque actually, at least the ones I've seen) and we got settled in. Of course that was after climbing three sets of exceedingly narrow and steep stairs... We have definitely been rethinking the large bag we brought - it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Since we got in early enough we decided to try our luck to see if we could get into the Anne Frank House. They were doing some trial that day were you could only buy evening tickets online, but tickets were available and they had free wifi, so we got tix and headed out to hit the grocery store before our museum entrance. The grocery store is small as expected, but has everything we need. The only problem is payment. Some store don't take cash and some don't take certain types of credit cards. As the woman started ringing our order she asked if I had Visa because they don't take it. I said no, because we were using Mastercard. What she should have said was American credit cards, because the Mastercard didn't work either! She had to transfer our order to another register so we could pay cash - score one for the the tourists! We had just enough time to run the grocery back up the steep, narrow stairs before returning to the Anne Frank House.
The house tour is memorable. It is very well done and by that I mean not over-done. There are few artifacts and the rooms in the annex are bare. This is by design. Anne Frank's father Otto, who survived, wanted this done purposefully so the visitor could imagine themselves what it might have been like. There are a few personal items of the Frank's and several photographs. The walls of each room have quotes by Anne that really give an insight into what she was thinking. The end of the exhibit has a few short interviews with Otto Frank and Miep Van Pels, who helped the family. Anne's diaries are also on display. The power of simplicity in this case is very elegant. Some museums can assault the senses with too much information and too much multimedia, but that was not the case here.
Finally, we were on our way home after another day of 10 miles of walking. Of course, we were waylaid by the tempting smell of pizza coming from the restaurants along our route home. Recognizing the name of one of them as a place recommended by our rental manager, we brought one home to incorporate into dinner!
It was a full day, spanning two cities, but a fun day nonetheless. I think we are all enamored by the city of Amsterdam, the canals, the people and the buildings. Some of them appear to be defying gravity and physics right before your eyes - leaning this way and that, bowing out at the middle, but still standing! The seems to be a good place to wander without an itinerary and just enjoy what you come across!
