October 4, 2015
The alarm sounded at 7:30 a.m. We opened the curtains to see thick fog,
couldn’t see the Ij River below, but the roof of the third floor mezzanine 12
storeys below was blurrily visible. Again today, we enjoyed the extensive breakfast
buffet in the Silk Road dining room. Today we sat with a couple from Dartmouth,
Nova Scotia who are starting an Avalon River Cruise to Basil, Switerland, later
this afternoon. We returned to our room to lock the luggage, then, took it to
the concierge to forward to the ship, while we went sightseeing. This morning, we walked the shortest route,
along one of the canals, to the Amsterdam Hermitage. It is closely associated
with the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia, which we visited six years ago. Along the way, we stopped in Rembrandt Square
where there is a statue of the famous Dutch painter, Rembrandt van Rijn, along
with many other smaller bronze statues of the characters in Rembrandt’s famous
painting, Night Watch. There were also
stalls being erected for a Sunday Market. Most of the fog had left ground level
by the time we reached the art gallery.
We had less than five minutes to wait for the 10 a.m. Amsterdam
Hermitage opening. We bought the tickets
to see both the Alexander, Napoleon and Josephine exhibit and the Portrait
Gallery of the Golden Age exhibit. The
Alexander, Napoleon and Josephine exhibit gave a history of some of Napoleon
Bonaparte’s battles between 1797 and 1812.
It explained the friendship of Napoleon and Russia’s Tsar Alexander I developed during peace
talks and the subsequent end of the friendship which was the catalyst for
Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in the summer and fall of 1812. Napoleon’s Grand Armée of close to 600,000 soldiers
and infantry straggled back across the Nieman river out of Russia in December
1812 with only 5% of its original army. Napoleon’s first wife and
French Empress, Joséphine de Beauharnais, was an art collector and much of her
collection made it into the Russian tzars’ Hermitage collection in the 19th
century. We learned that Tzar Alexander I
of Russia entered Paris in April 1814 causing
Napoleaon to go into exile on Elba Island. The second exhibit was a selection
of group paintings of life size or larger 17th century Dutch wealthy
class merchants, civic guards and regents, painted by the renowned painter of
the day. There was also some history of
the political climate of 17th century Amsterdam.
We walked back, with the sun
shining, to the Centraal Station area to get to the river cruise ship docks
just a five minute walk further. The cars are smaller here, but we have tiny
cars a bit smaller a Smartcar. We
checked in at the reception desk within 5 minutes, much faster than on an ocean
cruise ship with over 3,800 passengers to embark. All that was required was to
show our passports to find our reservation.
We were escorted to our cabin on the second level above the water line,
only the open third deck was above us.
The cabin is a compact 150 square feet, about a third of the size of our
hotel room with a floor to ceiling picture window and the width of the room
(about three metres wide). We enjoyed a
buffet lunch in the lounge, where we chose chicken soup with rice and wontons,
a toasted BLT sandwich, some pasta choices plus there were salads and we chose
a dessert of raspberry compote with raspberry mousse. Then we left our jackets and backpacks in the
cabin and walked over to the National Maritime Museum via the Centaal Station
to take advantage of daylight in order to photograph the four storey bicycle
parking garage. Step count was 17,349.
At the National Maritime Museum, we learned
about the naval and maritime history of the Dutch and their Golden Age of
dominance in the 17th century. We left at the 5 p.m. closing and
walked back to the area of the hotel, so we could take a photograph of the
Cunard ship, Queen Elizabeth 2 that had docked beside the hotel in the early
morning. We walked past Jamie Oliver’s
restaurant “Fifteen” which we knew was within a five minute walk of our hotel,
but didn’t search it out. Then, we walked 10 more minutes to get to the river
cruise ship docks, (about 25 minutes in total).
Our luggage was in our cabin so we unpacked with fifteen minutes to
spare. At 6:30 p.m., there was an
orientation meeting for all passengers in the lounge followed by dinner in the
dining room at 7. We were shown a safety
video and advised that tomorrow their will be a safety drill before lunch. We
were also advised that the Danube River water level has been less than a meter
deep and way may need to switch ships midway.
The crew is hoping that with rain the ship may be able to continue its
voyage past Nuremburg for the first time this season. We sat with a couple from
New York state, a couple from Minnesota and a couple from Toronto. With
complimentary Riesling or Pinot Noir wine, we had a crab and seafood cake as an
appetizer, a choice of Sea Bass and asparagus or Veal Loin and potatoes as a
main course and Chocolate Mousse for dessert with coffee or tea. We returned to the cabin to change shoes and
checked the step count at 20,793, then went to the lounge to dance for awhile
to the singer/pianist. Then we returned to the cabin after 10:30 to finish the
blog. The final step count for today was 23,124
which is a distance of lightly more than 19 km. The ship left its mooring at 11:30 to start
the journey to Kinderdijk, Netherlands.
The Internet is
via satellite and sometimes the connection is weak, so we may not be able to
upload the blog each day.
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