April 22nd A Strenuous Morning

April 22nd (Friday) was an arduous day. The original plan was:

Day 2 AMSTERDAM - VOLENDAM - EDAM
After breakfast, enjoy a scenic morning cruise through the historic harbor and canals of Amsterdam....Return to the ship for lunch while you cruise the Ijsselmeer towards Volendam. Enjoy a late afternoon tour of Volendam Harbor and see the fishing fleet and fish auction building. Continue by motor coach to Edam, a picturesque town with a rich historic past. You will have a walking tour of the Old Quarter’s beautiful houses, canals, bridges and churches, including one of the largest in Holland, the Grote Kerk (Great Church). (B,L,D)

WE DID NOT DOCK IN VOLENDAM, we did not see the fishing fleet or the fish auction building and while we saw the Grote Kerk in Edam, we did not get time to go into it.

We had a canal tour of Amsterdam (one of the goals of the trip) at 9 so we got up to get down to breakfast a little before 8. They have breakfast and lunch set up for partly buffet and I just cannot do the buffet - not only do I not have a place to put the food I take, but there isn't room for the scooter. So I ordered

poached eggs on toast

Bob did the buffet.

scrambled eggs, bacon and grapefruit

Now we had to get back to the docks next to the Movenpick hotel to take the canal boat. The slow walkers were to have a van to take them over. I didn't think the scooter would work that well on the canal boat, so I just took my cane.

Problem - we had moved so we were not right at the dock where we boarded last night. So I had to walk across another boat, and then down the length of the boat before I got to the main dock to walk to get the van. I almost couldn't do it. The van driver put me in the front seat (which I do like) because he said it would be easier for me (which I doubt). He tried to belt me in with the belt from the middle seat, but it wouldn't work. While he was doing something else, I found the proper belt and attached it. They let us off on the other side of the canal from where the boats were and we had to climb down some very narrow pointed steps, and then walk the full length of that dock to get to the boat.

Top of the steps and line walking to canal boat

looking under the bridge we had to cross

The tour was an hour. Bob got better photos than I did because he could move around better and I was away from the window.

Museo Nemo

Church of St. Nicholas

no parking sign for boats

line at Anne Frank house

Bobs photo of me

Museum of Bags and Purses

Drawbridge

One of the interesting things we saw was this house front which I took a photo of, but I don't remember that they explained it to us.From the photo, I thought at first it was St. George slaying the dragon. I didn't know what the elephant signified. But I found out that the man was really St. Michael (St George is usually portrayed on horseback) and he was slaying a dragon representing the devil. The elephant head was the symbol of the bakers which owned the house. The bakers made 'Kolkse Koeken', which was a spicy pastry made in a bakery at the Nieuwezijds Kolk which went by the name 'De Witte Olifant' (in English, the White Elephant). Owners of the bakery were Pieter van Scorel and his son Cornelis and this was their house. The family had made an enormous fortune by trading on the stock exchange with the money they earned from the sale of hard tack or ship's biscuit to the large fleets of the Dutch East and West Indies Trading Companies. On the side they sold other breads and those lovely Kolkse Koeken. The Elephant was regarded as a particularly apt symbol for pastry bakers and their spicy wares. Elephants were associated with the exotic regions from which the fleets of those trading companies brought back spices.

I was disappointed in the canal tour. I had hoped that Bob would be able to see more of Amsterdam.
The hop-on-hop-off canal tour that I did with my granddaughter in 2009 was better in two ways - it was out in the open so I could take photos with no reflections, and it was more extensive - plus the recorded tour was better. Didn't repeat itself so much. I wish I could have opted out of the canal boat cruise of Amsterdam and taken the hop-on-hop-off tour boat on our own.

They docked us closer to where the vans picked us up this time, and we drove back to the AmaViola (our ship), and I sat on my cane and waited for Bob to walk back to the boat and get my scooter for me. Otherwise I might still be there on the dock.

skyline leaving Amsterdam

Cruising to Hoorn