This was our longest day yet, with around 50km to cover. Today was also a carbon copy of yesterday, with temperatures topping out in the low 70’s and a pretty stiff wind. I’ve read other comments and I am in agreement with them, that an electric bike was not just a luxury, it was essential for arriving at the destination with enough energy left to do the tourist thing. These last two days have certainly driven that home.
The route took us nearly straight north, through quite a bit of rural areas, and then smack through the center of Amsterdam, ending up at the central bus/train station.
We happened on a bakery in the little town of Ouderkerk ann de Amstel. We never pass up a good bakery and this one looked like a good one. Looking at the case, we could see all kinds of delectables, and we settled on a piece of chocolate cake with marmalade strands running through it. The cake did not disappoint. We find that these small-town bakeries serve amazing food and the workers are usually pleasant and are willing to banter with you. They appeared to do a good business also as there was a steady stream of people coming in and out and even a delivery van with their name on the side stopping in and picking up some items. This was one of our favorite bakeries.
Another benefit of stopping at the bakery was the use of the restroom. Public restrooms are scarce along these routes, so you take any and all opportunities, including stopping at a bakery for some sweets or a cup of coffee.
Directly across the street from the bakery is Beth Haim (or House of Life), a Jewish cemetery. In the 16th century, Jewish refugees from Portugal and Spain that settled in Amsterdam were not allowed to bury their dead in the city, so they bought land in Ouderkerk and turned it into a cemetery, which now houses some 27,500 graves, some of them with very ornate gravestones. Over the years many of the gravestones have sunk into the soft ground and are no longer visible, and there is an ongoing effort to identify and restore these. In dry times (such as right now), you can see the outlines of many of the graves in the grass. We walked around this for a while before pressing on.
As we biked into Amsterdam the idyllic countryside disappeared, replaced by narrow crowded streets, traffic, and busy intersections. Just navigating this takes every ounce of energy as the prescribed path follows one bike path and then another and it’s easy to miss the markers telling you which way to go. Not too many wrong turns later, we arrived at the final point in our guide, a wide terrace overlooking the river in front of Amsterdam Centraal Station. We had lunch here, sitting on a bench and watching all the traffic go by. We then bought a 24-hour bus ticket for use later and rode the bikes the remaining 2km to the hotel.
We parked the bikes for the last time, dumped off the luggage in the hotel room, and took the bus downtown. We really didn’t have a big agenda, other than to visit the Anne Frank House Museum later on this evening. We went to the Royal Palace downtown, hoping for a tour, but it is closed for renovations until July. So we strolled around, visiting some of the downtown shops.
We happened on a street performer who was juggling and watched him for a while. He had as many as nine balls in the air at once and also juggled with flaming torches. By the end, he had drawn quite a crowd, and rightly so, because he was quite good.
We had a light dinner near the hotel, at a small middle-eastern restaurant we went to several days ago. The lamb wrap was good, just like the last time we were there. Then back downtown to the Anne Frank House Museum as we had booked a tour for 7:15.
Anne Frank was a Jewish girl who, with her family, hid in this house in Amsterdam for two years during the Nazi occupation. She kept a diary of her experiences and did some other writing while in hiding. Their hiding place was discovered and the family was sent off to German concentration camps. Only one survived: her father, Otto, who collected the diary and published it. It is now a well-known book, published in many languages.
This very popular tour winds through the house, including many of the rooms hidden behind the movable bookshelf that concealed the passageway., telling the story of this family and the people who helped them out. Well-done museum and a chilling reminder of the depravity of man, that one nation would try to exterminate another.
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