The Seedier side ?

Bikes ! That’s your first impression when getting off the train at Amsterdam central. 1000s of them !Musiciens and magicians Beautiful buildings.The movies have just come out. That’s a cheese shop on its right. I wandered down this lane to photograph the buildings leaning in to each other with the hooks at the top to winch furniture up to the top floors. Then, we happened across that church down the end that is part of a closed in enclave called a Begijnhof .The Béguines were a group of pious catholic women devoted to good deeds and their religion. Like Nuns but without the Vows and Habits. ? This Begijnhof has been here since 1389 although a lot of the buildings have changed. During the Reformation Catholics were banned from practicing their religion so the inside of 3 houses were turned into a chapel, since renovated but still in the same place todayThat ban lasted 220 years up until 1795. To this day there are still only women living in this community. 108 of them . Whew. What happened to the other big church? Well it lay unused until 1607 and was then given to the English speaking protestants of Amsterdam. It is still now a part of the Church of Scotland and since the mid 1700s, it has always had a Scottish minister.Entrepreneur. ! We’ll find the flower market nowAnd there it is. All the shops are on barges although you wouldn’t know it from the street side. The barges on the left are purely to store more bikesNot many fresh flowers today but every type of seed and bulb imaginable. If you look hard you’ll probably find the one for you. Souvenirs .! Everything from clogs to key rings. It’s been a great day just wandering around and now it’s time to catch a train back to Schiphol

Well that’s it for this Blog. Tomorrow morning we have to bag the bikes up and catch our plane back to New Zealand . It’s been an amazing trip! A few hiccups with visas and bike thefts but nothing too bad . Certainly outweighed by some wonderful experiences and a heap of fun