Raison d'Etre

We returned from Grenada in December 2015

Bed of red tulips - Keukenhof

I had my eye on a river cruise in the Holland to see the tulips for some time. I had many discussions with my travel agent Cal Ford about the best company to do this cruise with. Viking seemed to have good itineraries and some of their boats had elevators which went up to the top deck, but they are apparently difficult to deal with for bookings. So Cal was promoting AmaWaterways, and that was the one that we went with.

I wanted to revisit some of the places in the Netherlands where I had been in 1950 when I was 12. Of course we were in Amsterdam, but I have been in Amsterdam since 1950. I remembered going to Marken and Volendam, and the Ama cruise had Volendam as one of the ports. The cruise also went to Antwerp in Belgium and Antwerp was a place that we visited in 1950. I went to Kinderdjik in 2009 with my granddaughter and the cruise was also scheduled to stop there. I thought Bob would enjoy seeing that.

And I also remember the cheese market in Alkmaar. So I made hotel reservations in Alkmaar at the end of the cruise on a Friday when the cheese market would be in operation. I ordered some prints of my dad's pictures of Holland and Belgium and this proved to be a great idea.

Goals for the trip

• Do a canal tour of Amsterdam with Bob who has not been to the Netherlands since about 1962

Best way to see Amsterdam- 2009

• Revisit Volendam

• Revisit Antwerp (railroad station, Rubens house and the zoo). Possibly also see Brussels although the recent bombing made me a little apprehensive about going there

Our family outside the museum in the zoo in 1950

• Show Kinderdjik to Bob

Windmill at Kinderkjik in 2009

• See the tulips in Keukenhof

• Revisit the Alkmaar cheese market