Alluring Amsterdam : Part 2

After a colorful day at the Tulip Gardens, we reached the hotel and had a relaxed dinner. Our hotel was one of those many Airport hotels of Schiphol. It had some of the best amenities like luxurious rooms, a great sports bar , a greater fitness center and a spectacular spa. Spending an entire day at the hotel itself would probably make it a relaxed trip, provided that we cancelled all our other plans :)

However, after the quiet dinner, we looked up the internet to see how the weather favored us for the next day. "8 deg.Celsius and  70% chance of rain!" This immediately ruled out our plan to go to the beach at Den Hague (The Hague). While the thought of spending the day at the hotel hovered on my mind, I dint heed to it!
It then occurred to me that a city tour on a hop-on, hop-off would be a great idea. This way we could maneuver the rainy day and still manage to see a few of the attractions. So, a city tour it was!!

Day 2: Amsterdam City tour.


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The day started with a royal breakfast at the hotel. After such a start, we could be nothing else but energized! The shuttle dropped us at Schiphol Airport and from there we took a train to the Centraal Station (20 mins train journey). Next to me were a few teenage girls who were gossiped about their love life. They discussed how lucky or unlucky each one was ;and also went green with envy about another girl, who according to them was really blessed!! And why? Because, she had managed to marry a rich man! Their candid discussion surely kept me awake, in spite of a heavy breakfast! Thank you girls!

"Tours and Tickets" is a famous agency which organizes city tours, canal cruises and other tours around Amsterdam city. We went to one of their counters in the Damrak region (5 mins walk from Centraal) and exchanged our Holland pass coupons for a city tour!

This turned out to be a great plan since it took us around the city with guided assistance at some of the key attractions. The first and in every girl's opinion, the best attraction, was the famous Gassan Diaomond Factory.

Located in the Wasserplein region of the city, Gassan diamond factory is one of the many must visit places of Amsterdam! As a part of the guided tour, we had a brilliant opportunity to learn details of the Diamond cutting process and specifically about Gassan diamonds !

Gassan 121 Diamond

A lady executive took us through the process of transforming a raw diamond into a 121 facet diamond - a patented commodity from Gassan! Diamonds are girls' best friend .. and a man's axing enemy?? Just kidding :) After seeing these , I submitted a lengthy application to my husband (for some diamond jewelry)!

Stages of Diamond cutting

Famous diamonds from across the world

We could hop-off at this place and then take the next hop-on bus from the same point. Hence, we planned to visit Resistance museum!

The Resistance museum is a quiet exhibition about the disturbing facts of the World War! Apparently, a photographer who had taken a license to click the photos of those times, clicked most of the pictures which form the majority of the exhibits. The life and problems of the Dutch who witnessed and endured the events of World war; their works from their hide outs; their mechanized cycles; pictures of the crowded wagons which transported the Dutch; ration cards issued to the citizens by the government with the on-set of food scarcity and heavy pricing of commodities; some touching stories through descriptive letters and the like are all preserved here. By the time I walked out of this museum, I felt as if I had gone back to those days and that I had lived with them! It is indeed another must visit place! For information sake, this museum isn't much talked about and even the locals seem to  be less aware of it!  A guide book and the well marked direction planks at every street should really come in handy!

We walked back to the Gassan Diamond stop, hopped on the bus and to continue our guided tour. The next few stops were at the Heineken Brewery, the Vondel Park and the Dam square. We registered these places on our mind , marked them on the map and planned them as our next few destinations.  On our way, we saw a few "Coffee shops". These are what I call - the grass and weed bars :) With no inclination to hop-off here, we continued till Damrak - our last point on the guided tour.

After a quick lunch at a "Veg only" doner bar (Maoz veg is the name if I remember it rightly), we grabbed a double scoop gelato at a nearby parlor. With the melting gelato in one hand and the Wax museum hand-out in the other, we wasted no time and walked towards the museum.

The Madame Tussauds is so famous that it needs little or no explanation at all. So, here are a few pictures of life-like statues and about our pleasant experience meeting a few of the celebrities - all under one roof!
For those who have seen the wax museum in London, I am told this is a bit of a disappointment - for a reason that you don't get to see a many Indian celebrities here. The only Indian personality among the exhibits is Gandhi-ji. Most other statues are of the Dutch personalities and of celebrities from Hollywood.

It was time now for us to relax a bit, for we had had a tightly packed day until now. What better way to relax than to enjoy a Canal cruise! Again, by exchanging another coupon from the Holland pass, we took an hour long Canal Cruise.

We passed through some of the famous bridges like the Skinny bridge (of the "Diamonds are forever" movie fame) and passed through almost all the canals - the Amstel canal, Herren gracht, Kaiser gracht and the Prinzen gracht. Along the Amstel river are some of the most  beautiful and expensive house boats. These are apparently stationary and have now become Amsterdam's prized possessions!

It was dusk and a light drizzle seasoned the glamour of Amsterdam. The city looked perfectly romantic and all set to treat the people with its enchantment!

Continued..

Brussels-Ghent-Bruges

With the EU crisis in news all the time these days, who isn't familiar with the EU head quarters .i.e Brussels? However, when we planned a trip to Belgium, our intentions and agenda was not to solve any crisis :)
We planned it for a chocolate tour and complete relaxation of our mind body and soul!
Belgium is famous for its capture of historic beauty, financial development post World wars, and definitely its Chocolates!! With the claim-to-fame, it surely was my MUST VISIT country!!

We planned to keep it as a 3 day trip and we had just 3 cities on our mind - Brussels, Ghent and Bruges. The cities are well connected and it shouldnt take more than 30-40 minutes to hop from one to another. So, we planned to go to Brussels on the first day, followed by Ghent and then Bruges. To get to Brussels we chose Eurolines. It was a comfortable and short journey by road (3 hrs).
Without much ado, let me begin my experience in these cities.

Brussels: The capital city of Belgium and the Head Quarters of NATO and EU. It is a modern city with well connected transportation inter city and intracity and also with other countries of the EU. So, getting here is not a problem at all in any season and for any reason :)
It is culturally rich and vibrant. Our first stop in Brussels was none other than the Tourist Information centre. But to get here, it was some experience! The Brussels north station was our hop off point from Eurolines. From here, we had to go to the Central station and then from there a brief walk down the market square to reach to the Info centre which apparently happened to be in the Grand Markt region. The city map is not too intuitive and it did turn us off initially. But this city dint take too long to lift our mood!
The Grand Markt Square is like a huge enclave and is surrounded by ancient edifices. In the middle , we can see artists sketching portraits, some selling posters of the famous monumental structures and ofcourse, posters of the famous Manneken Piss.

Manneken Piss

Grand Market Square

We then planned to visit the Atomium - the famous structure originally built for the Trade Expo which happened in 1958.

Atomium

From here, we next went to Mini Europa - the park with all of Europe's landmark monuments' miniatures! This was a truly worthy place . The miniatures are full of life and activity. The detailing is very neatly done to exhibit how the life is like in the city of those monuments. For example - Ghent city is shown there - with Canals, some mills (depicting the cloth mills there) and even a miniature of the garbage carrier vehicle!! How better can it get? So, with this park's visit, I can claim to have seen entire Europe. So Mini Europa equals Europe in a nutshell!

From here, we headed towards Ghent - where we had planned to halt for the night.

Ghent: What a welcome it was! Initially apprehensive about this city because of our Brussels experience with the clumsy maps, we got down at St.Pieters station. And then, as we stepped out, we looked lost! There was some construction work going on and the place looked otherwise deserted. To add to the owes, we had forgotten our hotel address. But we walked like we would conquer the world ! After walking for about 200 m, we found another hotel - Trianon. This was the wisest thing we did during our trip - to go to this hotel and to ask the receptionist to "lead kindly light". 
The lady at the reception was sweeter than the sweetest praline chocolate of Belgium :) She called our hotel guys and took down the address and also offered us a room for sometime so that we could connect to the internet and jot down more information (in case we needed any). As we stepped out, a man came running behind us and handed over 2 tickets - day tickets to roam around in the city! Cant get any better, can it? :) I began to love the aura of this city.
It was already late in the evening, but we decided that we would see something in the city before we called it a day. So, we headed towards the Gravenstein Castle.
This castle is different from the usual ones. It has a strong stone structure surrounded by a canal and was formerly a place where people were executed for their misdeeds! The castle today holds an exhibit of the weapons and methods of execution of the former days. The occasionally spotted knights in shining armour are a highlight though :)
This city is calm, well lit and beautiful. We spent the evening walking along the pavements next to the canals, sat in the middle of the city in the open restaurant and experienced the light air as we had our dinner. We then took a stroll to explore the city a bit. It was beautiful - this city which is famous for its lighting during the evenings took my breath away!!

First glimpse of Ghent's beauty.

The heaviness that Brussels had created on our mind was wiped off by this enchanting city. Its aura like I mentioned earlier is captivating!
The next morning, we decided to see some monuments - The Belfry and Cloth Hall , St. Bavo's Cathedral ( of the Mystic Lamb fame) and some more. After these, we decided to do one of my big things on the wishlist - a horse carriage ride!!! It is a VERY romantic wish that every girl would have and truly by god's (and my hubby's) grace I must say, I got to do this!!

Fiona was our horse and Melanie was our Driver. Melanie guided us through the tour and spotted some of the famous structures of Ghent city. The main attraction in Ghent is the 3 consecutive towers - Saint Nicholas' Church, the Belfry and Saint Bavo's Cathedral. We also saw a statue there which Melanie described as that of a famous THIEF!! We laughed at it as she continued the story of this good thief. It is said that this guy had stolen a spinning wheel from England. But this had brought the people of Ghent lot of wealth since it enabled Ghent to grown as a cotton looming city! Ghent is even to this day, one of the richest European cities.

While we paraded in the carriage through the city, we not only enriched our knowledge about Ghent, but also about Fiona and Melanie. Fiona was Irish and Melanie was Belgian. The Irish horse with a mare's name was Melanie's breadwinner and favourite pass time. She loved Fiona and I fell in love with him (as in Fiona).

We bid adieu to this mesmerizing city after a brief shopping of chocolates (quite an oxymoron isnt it? coz chocolates shopping can NEVER be brief :) ). We now boarded a train to Bruges.

Bruges: Famously known as Venice of northern Europe, Bruges is a world UNESCO heritage site. This city is an abode of more museums and many canals with sparkling waters. Being Venice of the north means boats and more boats :) Here, we set ourselves footloose with absolutely no museums on our charter. We walked through the city and encountered more horse carriages every now and then! This city had horse carriages too - but here it seemed more commercial and not as enticing as it was in Ghent. However, this city felt like my home of my previous birth - because I felt so much at home and as if I belonged there! Just imagine this - a girl who loves horses and is in this city of canals and romantic boat rides - who wouldnt belong there?

We had lunch in a nice restaurant in the city's market place and enjoyed the flavors of the food and the folks. Everyone there were surely travellers and they dint leave a chance to contribute to the vibrance of the city. It felt like bliss!

Belgium trip turned out to be a tour savouring the splendor of the cities and less of chocolates (only by comparison)!!