Lyle in London: Amsterdam and Belgium!

Finally- Fall break! We started off our week-long trip in Amsterdam.

We arrived in Amsterdam early in the afternoon, got the train to the city center and then walked to our hotel. (Luckily, in all the cities we visited, hotels were the same price as hostels!) We stayed at the Eden Rembrandt Square, right off of, duh, Rembrandt Square and Amstel.

Our first day we decided to walk around and find the Anne Frank House. The Anne Frank House is right on the Prinsengracht canal, in the house the Franks hid in. They've modernized the building quite a bit, but all of the old rooms are still as they were 70 years ago. However, there is no furniture in the building, because after the Nazis came they took it all away and the owner of the house said he wanted it to remain empty. By the time we were done with the house, it was late so we went looking for dinner. Strangely, there are a lot of Argentinean restaurants in Amsterdam, so we tried one of those.

The second day we took an unexpected day trip to Ghent and Bruges. We had an extra day in Amsterdam because our flight from Amsterdam to Prague (supposed to leave in the morning) got cancelled and we were put on the later flight. So, at the last minute, we decided to get on a bus tour going to Belgium!

Our first stop was Ghent. It was a nice city, but a bit bizarre. I'm not sure if it's because it was a Sunday or not, but the whole place seemed empty! It had a very weird feeling to it. Here are some pictures from our short stop in Ghent. We mostly only had time to go on an hour long walking tour with our guide and then grab some food before we were off to Bruges.

Statue in the square

Ghent had beautiful architecture!

Me in front of the church

After lunch we hopped back on the bus for the 30 minute ride to Bruges. In Bruges (yes- that's a movie title) we had to park the bus outside the city center and walk through an monastery and park to get there.

The bridge from the bus park to the monastery.

On the way to the monastery

The monastery

Once we walked into the city we had another short walking tour with our guide. Bruges was so beautiful, and may have been my favorite place we visited! We got separated from our guide at one point, and unfortunately missed going in the church to see the Madonna and Child by Michelangelo! However, we did get a good look at a lot of fun side streets and buildings in the city.

The Markt square

We got back to Amsterdam late that night, so not much to report there!

The next day we decided to go to the Rijksmuseum, the I Amsterdam sign, and the Van Gogh museum. The Rijksmuseum was smaller than I was expecting, but beautiful! It had mostly Dutch historical art. The Van Gogh museum was a nice surprise- much larger than I expected and with work spanning his entire career. After the museums we just spent some time walking around the neighborhoods nearby.

We found a store that sells only US and British products! I haven't seen Easy Mac in months!

The Rijksmuseum

The more modern second part of the Van Gogh Museum

Dutch donuts- oliebollen- my new obsession

The next day we walked through the Vondelpark and took a tour of the Heineken Brewery. The park was beautiful! The Heineken tour was hilarious- they really know how to make it interesting. There are a number of rooms, starting off with the history, ingredients, process, and then getting into interactive rooms, taste test rooms, and more. It was really a fun time and I recommend it to anyone who goes to Amsterdam!