2013.07.16/17 – Ottawa – London (UK)

Surprisingly our bags were easily prepared over the past weekend. We had no last minute purchases or packing challenges.- possibly a sign that we had a bit of travelling experience under our belt. Victoria had already started her school summer break a few weeks ago. She had begun purging her previous school years notes. As I had booked Tuesday off, I made some errands mostly for my Aunt estate handling. By 2:15pm, I picked up Jenny at work. She felt like a child at daycare waiting for her parents to pick her up. At home, we prepared for supper with our friend, Gang, who would be driving us to airport and keeping an eye on our house. Although our flight was only at 9:00pm, we showed up quite early which made Jenny more comfortable. Our Air Transat aircraft to London appeared much nicer than our 2011 flight with Thomas Cook. Nonetheless, Jenny still found the seating space smallish. I managed to sleep a fair amount as the six hour flight appeared to go by fairly quickly.

Upon our arrival at London’s Gatwick airport, the queue at immigration was shorter for non EU passengers. We waited longer for our final luggage to arrive on the carousel. At the international exit, Jessica greeted us as promised. With our local London girl in tow, we quickly purchased our trains tickets. We got off at the station closest to Jessica’s and Jack’s flat. Jessica gave us a grand tour of their flat and offered us a light lunch of pasta salad , cheese and beer. After lunch, Victoria and I dozed off a bit while Jenny and Jessica chatted. Later, we walked back to the train station and bought our Oyster cards for the Tube and train commutes. We took the taxi to our hotel after which I stayed in our room while the girls went out for some clothes shopping. Later, we went to meet Jack in the downtown area for our evening meal. It was nice get together but the fatigue started to get to us all. We bid farewell to Jack and Jessica at our hotel room. We all fell asleep quickly.

2013.07.18 – London (UK) – Bruges (Belgium)

We woke up at10 am after a good night rest. We left our hotel and made our way to the St-Pancras Train station where we boarded the EuroStar train to Brussel. We had some expensive coffee and muffin at the St-Pancreas station while waiting for access to the EuroStar boarding area. The EuroStar train to Brussels encountered a few delays along the way. At the Brussel train station, we managed to buy train tickets to Bruges without much trouble. One hour later, we arrived in Bruges and took a taxi to our Novotel Hotel where a room awaited us. The hotel was modern similar to the one we had stayed at in Paris. We noticed a one hour time change when we arrived in Belgium. By the time, we started wandering the streets of Bruges for supper it was already past 9:00pm. All the boutiques and many restaurants were already closed. Nonetheless, it was interesting to still be able to see some daylight at 10pm. After roaming the streets for more than half an hour, we ended up in Markt Square surrounded by restaurants. We stopped at one of the first one we encountered. The service was poor and the bill was fairly hefty for what we had ordered. We strolled back to our hotel with the hope that we would manage to find better restaurants the next day. In our hotel room, I undertook a search for a hotel room in Amsterdam. Booking.com reported a hotel occupancy of 91% for the period we were looking at. After some time reviewing the various offerings, we made a two night reservation at the Citadel Hotel.

2013.07.19 – Bruges (Belgium)

It was still pitch black in our room when we awoke at noon. We quickly prepared and headed out from our hotel. We stopped at a close by bistro for a light breakfast. Later, we embarked on a self-guide walk which combined two walking tours detailed in our travel guide book. We were able to experience the atmosphere and architecture of the two main squares: Berg and Markt. We also enjoyed the many water canals and the still windmills. Back at the Markt Square, we ordered some French Fries with our choice of 24 topping sauces – a Belgium creation we were told. Jenny and Victoria were thrilled to drop into the Dumon chocolaterie to buy some travel supplies. Back at the hotel for a short rest, we headed out for supper at an Italian restaurant. Along the way, we had to take a long detour around the Mark Square due to some barricades setup for a live concert. Our pasta plates were all very delicious. On our way back to the hotel, we watched a bit of the live concert through cracks in the fence. Again we were surprised by how early the boutiques closed here given the number of tourists.

2017.07.20 – Bruges (Belgium) – Amsterdam (The Netherlands)

Given that we had no train reservation for Amsterdam, we left our hotel shortly after 9am by taxi. At the train station, we quickly activated our Eurail pass and confirmed that we did not require any train reservation to Amsterdam. We had a quick breakfast at the train station while waiting for our 10:43am train. We arrived in Amsterdam around 3:30pm. We stopped at the International Train Ticket office to determine whether we needed reservations for our next trip segment to Cologne, Germany. Unfortunately, it took us over one hour and half to get to our service ticket number. We were told that although reservations were not mandatory, they were recommended, hence we opted to purchase our tickets reservation. By 5:00pm, we were leaving the train station and walking to our hotel about half a kilometre away. The Citadel Hotel, to our relief, was a nice quiet place. After settling in, we ventured out on the streets in search of the Anne Frank House. Upon our arrival there, we saw a long queue so we opted to have supper before coming back to check the place. After walking for a while, we came upon a small Thai Restaurant owned by a Thai lady and her Dutch husband. Food was great and service was very friendly. On our way back to the Anne Frank House, we queued 20 minutes for its visit. The museum was extremely popular for good reasons as it was very well organized and very informative. On our walk back to the hotel, we noticed that the streets, bars and bistros remained packed with patrons – naturally as it was Saturday night. Our hotel hallway smelled heavily of smoked weed – after all this is Amsterdam where “coffee shop” signs were strictly speaking pot smoking facilities.

2013.07.21 – Amsterdam (The Netherlands)

I awoke before the alarm clock this morning due in good part to a soft mattress. I took the opportunity to book our hotel in Cologne for our next trip segment. The hotel’s courtesy breakfast was very nice and filling. Later in the morning I was a bit excited because I had convinced Victoria and Jenny that we should rent bikes in Amsterdam to really experience this bike-friendly city. We rented in the mid-morning a tandem for Victoria and I and a three speed bike for Jenny. Armed with a city map and a proposed biking itinerary with a stop at the Van Goth Museum, we experienced the extensive bike lanes and many other cyclists on the roads. Although the rented bikes were not top notch, they did allow us to wander throughout the park and streets. In fact, most bicycles in the city appeared very basic as there were no need for speed in this bicycle friendly city. Along our biking route, we stopped to visit the Van Goh Museum for more than 2 hours and later we stopped for some well deserved ice cream. We returned our bike around 5pm. Back at our hotel room, we all had a rest before heading out again for supper. We ate at an Italian restaurant where the food was great and the prices were very reasonable. During our last evening in Amsterdam, we enjoyed walking on the streets and bridges which crossed the many water canals. We even ventured out in the Red Light district but we saw very little activity – except for a lot of tourist walking around. Victoria just finished her last book of the Harry Potter collection. This evening she appeared a bit lost. We’d been hearing about Harry Potter everyday since our trip began.