Budapest to Amsterdam 2022
October 12
Amsterdam, Netherlands
On the morning of our last full day with Emerald, we arrived in Amsterdam, the included excursion for the day was a canal tour on a tourist boat. Since Norine, Afie and I had already spent a lot of time in Amsterdam on previous trips, we decided to skip that and instead would go check out the nearby city of Haarlem.
It was a bit of a walk from the Amsterdam dock to the train station, and one of the things we noticed was just how jam packed the streets and sidewalks of Amsterdam were, bikes, tourists, commuters, it was crazy busy.
We arrived at the beautiful Train Station, got ourselves some tap in-tap out cards and put some money on them for future train travel as we would use them on the next leg of our vacation.
About an hour later we arrived in Haarlem, it felt typically Dutch, and had way less people.
The Grote Kerk or St.-Bavokerk is a Reformed Protestant church and former Catholic cathedral located on Grote Markt (Central square). First mention of a church on this spot was made in 1307, but the wooden structure burned in the 14th century. The church was rebuilt in 1479 and became a cathedral in 1559.
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The Vleeshal (meat-hall) dating from 1603 
14th century City Hall of Haarlem
The original De Adriann windmill dates from 1779 and the mill has been a distinctive part of the skyline of Haarlem for centuries. The windmill burnt down in 1932, and was rebuilt in 2002.
We had a very nice lunch at Restaurant Zuidam under the windmill, before making our way back to the Train Station.
Haarlem's city centre hides more than 21 'hofjes'. These are typically Dutch courtyards surrounded by little residences, which were built mainly in the 14th century by Christian communities and rich individuals. It was an early variant of elderly and social housing.
Back in Amsterdam for our walk back to the ship. Kind of sums up Amsterdam in one
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if only it had hundreds of people in the shot.
Harry playing guitar in the lounge for our last night. We said our goodbyes, made sure our favourite staff members got a little something to remember us by and then packed our bags up for our morning departure.
October 13
We left our bags outside the door at 7:00, and had our last breakfast on the ship before a van picked us up and drove us to the airport. We checked some excess baggage at the airport storage, and picked up our rental car and hit the road for our Old Dutch tour.
On the Info board sign of the ship as we leave was a perfect quote...
"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened"
- Dr. Suess
We've had a mix of experiences when cruising, most of them good, the staff, the food, the unique locations, all usually very good. But this river cruise exceeded all of our past experiences on larger cruise ships. With less passengers you got to know more people, with a higher staff to passenger ratio we got treated a-maz-ing-ly. Emerald Waterways is supposed to be the 4 star version of their Scenic waterways 5 star experience, but it would be hard to top this one. We saw a few places we had seen before, and we saw a whole bunch of new places, we weren't even off the boat yet, and we were already thinking about our next vacation.
For the continuing adventures of this 3 part trip, click below.