Shamballa Cruising Yacht Club: Amsterdam and Kiel

I was last in Amsterdam in 1977. It was my first trip overseas and I was a wide-eyed, naïve 23 year old that was totally blown away by the city. Bob had never been to the Netherlands and I was eager to show him the capital city. Well, the city changed a bit in 41 years and I barely recognised it. The main change was the number of tourists. (Yes I know, we are two of them.) The streets were teeming with so many people that one could barely see the iconic buildings along the canal.

Along the canals

The ornate train station

Our first stop was the Van Gogh Museum. In 1977 this was a fairly new museum. Since then additions had been made but the Van Gogh painting are as wonderful as I remember.

Van Gogh Museum

The next day we continued to walk around the city taking in the sites and stopped at the Maritime Museum. This was a nice museum but the exhibits were mainly aimed at children.

Outside the Rijksmuseum

For the tourists

Everyone rides bikes - bike rack outside the train station

Maritime Museum

Outside the museum we met a woman from West Australia, who told us about the Batavia useum in Lelystad, about 15 km from Amsterdam. She was involved in the restoration work of the sunken Batavia off the coast of WA so the museum was a very special place for her. We thought this would be a great outing and planned to go on our last day in Amsterdam. We took a quick train to Lelystad and then walked along the waterfront. The whole area has been reclaimed from the sea only about 50 years ago. It is a delightful area of pretty town houses, ponds, canals and quaint gardens. We watched boats going through the locks while eating our packed lunch.

Barge going through the lock

Then on to Batavia Land where there was a fantastic replica of the Batavia. The Batavia was a ship of the Dutch East India Company build in 1628. It was shipwrecked off the coast of West Australia on its maiden voyage. A very bloody and nasty mutiny followed the shipwreck that ranks as one of the most blood-curdling tales in maritime history.

The Batavia

Now that is a block!

It was a grand day out and a wonderful way to end our stay in the Netherlands.

The next day we caught the train to Kiel. Here we stayed in an AirBnB for the first time. I wasn’t sure what to expect staying in a room in a stranger’s house, but our host and the accommodation was delightful. Kiel had a very nice feel to it – a ‘real’ city with minimal tourism. We only had one full day in Kiel and this was to go to Naval Museum in Leboe. We took a ferry there, which was filled with happy local holiday makers. Laboe is a pretty seaside town filled with beachside shops selling knickknacks and ice cream. There were thousands of sailboats out in the bay. We walked along the beach, got our feet wet in the Baltic Sea and did lots of people and boat watching.