Mapping the path

Around the Rhine

Day 10: Amsterdam 

We enjoyed one final breakfast buffet aboard the AmaKristina. Marianne and I would spend the day touring Amsterdam, but our cruise was complete.

Despite the detours and disappointments, I enjoyed our time on the AmaStella and AmaKristina. The ships were clean and comfortable, the food was tasty and attractively presented, and the Ama Waterways crews were pleasant and attentive. It’s difficult to assess the full experience of one of these river cruises after this trip, but I would certainly choose one of these over 100 ocean cruises — floating city blocks, 10 stories high, teeming with people and a carnival of amusements. It was more personal, less fabricated. We saw the same waiters, pursors, and cabin attendants each day. I got to know that Cosmin the Romanian bartender had a sharp sense of humor, and that one of the two Romanian waiters named Dragos (there were a lot of Romanians!) enjoyed charming the ladies. We also saw our fellow passengers just often enough. It felt more like we were embarking on something together, rather than all being crammed into the same seafaring amusement park.

At 9 a.m., we said our goodbyes to Janet and Karen and walked off the ship for good, heading to the street to meet our scheduled taxi. Our luggage was already there, but our driver was not. After about 15 minutes of confused waiting in the bitter cold, he emerged from the ship, where he had been looking for us. We piled into his van with Roberta, Keith, and a family of three, dropped off our things at out hotel, and caught an Uber back to Amsterdam to do some sightseeing.

The couples split up for the day, and Marianne and I started at Rijksmuseum, one of several museums in the “Museum Quarter” just southeast of the city center that includes the Van Gogh Museum. The Rijksmuseum is a national art and history museum with more than a million objects in its collection, including an impressive array of 17th century paintings by Dutch masters Rembrandt van Rijn, Frans Hals, and Johannes Vermeer.

When I was 20, I toured Europe with a four-week Eurail Pass and two weeks worth of money. To see as many cities as I could, I stayed in hostels, ate oranges and baguettes, and walked everywhere. In Paris, I developed water on the knee from the strain and could barely bend my leg far enough to put on my pants. By the time I reached Amsterdam, I had an extreme limp. Yet from my dump of a youth hostel in the Red Light District (my room slept 19 men, many of them on the ground between bunk beds), I did not fail to hobble the mile-and-a-half to see Rijksmuseum.

There is something illuminating (both literally and figuratively) about the paintings of these Dutch masters. They’re real. The lighting and shadows are real, revealing real faces with real wrinkles and discolorations. The eyes stare back at you from four centuries ago with expressions that are recognizable today, making a vivid connection with that instinct to scan faces for deeper understanding. Even with the faces are placid, in repose, without strong emotion, you can still see it: These are real people. You know these faces.

After a couple of hours in the museum, we struck out into the city. We walked toward the center of the rings of canals, through fashionable pedestrian streets full of pricey shops and bustling with activity on a Sunday. We squeezed into a tiny place called Lombardo’s for lunch and found two seats with about 14 total inches of personal space. I wrestled with a messy and delicious Reuben sandwich, sitting as still as possible, elbows tucked in, jacket and backpack directly underneath my chair. Aside from the confined quarters, Lombardo’s other weird quirk was that alcohol could be purchased, but it had to be consumed out on the street.

Our path after lunch took us past Bloemenmarkt, a flower market that has been floating on barges docked against the canal since 1862. Its stalls of tulip blooms and bulbs scatter color across the market scene, a reminder that the Netherlands is the world’s largest commercial producer of tulips, with some 52,000 acres of land dedicated to growing an estimated three billion tulips per year.

Next we turned up Kalverstraat, the main shopping artery in the center of Amsterdam. I resumed my role as the bag man, standing outside shops and watching the world pass by as Marianne sampled the wares inside.

By late afternoon, we needed a break. We checked out a few bars nearby that I had found on my phone, but none of them had the warm, relaxing vibe we were looking for. And that’s when we stumbled upon Coffeeshop 420.

I’ve never taken to the giddy-giggly way people talk about going to Amsterdam to smoke marijuana — especially in 2019, when it is legal and readily available in so many parts of the world. But I have to admit, the novelty of going into a clean, modern cafe and ordering a joint for the table was fascinating. Marianne and I added a cappuccino, then rejoined the city under a lovely balance of stimulants and depressants.

We strolled through De 9 Straatjes (“The Nine Streets”), a tic-tac-toe board of canals and bridges and pretty pedestrian streets full of quirky shops and little eateries. It was all very nice, but after a little window shopping, we were out of gas and called it a day.

We took an Uber back to our hotel and relaxed in the bar with our devices, unwinding our travel brains after 10 days of moving from activity to activity — dressing in layers, planning what to bring, listening to Pau, joining the tours, taking photos, eating on a schedule, learning, socializing, celebrating. It was good. And we were done.

But this story will continue. To compensate for not getting the cruise we purchased, Ama Waterways offered us a nice credit toward a future river cruise. We plan to take them up on it in 2020, sailing the Rhône in France between Lyon and Arles, with days at either end in Paris and Barcelona. I can see it now: gliding serenely past French châteaux, fields of lavender stretching to the horizon, sipping a glass of Châteauneuf-du-Pape on the top deck as I spread a little Camembert on a slice of baguette. Yes, this time I’m sure it will all go exactly as I imagine.

< Day 9: De Haar Castle & Amsterdam