For our stop in Rotterdam, we decided to do one of the organized tours. This was mainly because going in to Amsterdam is definitely the most interesting thing to do, and the tour we picked was actually a fairly cost effective way to get into town, for a change. We opted for the tour that included a short walking tour, a canal cruise, and then a couple of hours on your own.

So we met in our assigned area bright and early on the morning of the tour and were given our identifying colored number to wear. We were on bus 9 out of 10 on the red tour, so we traipsed around all day wearing a round sticker with a “9” on it. Made me wish we were in group 6 and I could pretend I was #6 from the Prisoner. Or maybe I should have aimed for #2?

We loaded our bus amongst the stable of buses lined up outside the dock. It was supposed to be about 1.5 hours drive into Amsterdam, 1 hour if traffic was good. We were soon on the freeway but within a few minutes we hit stop and go traffic, then just stopped traffic. We inched along and quite a while later we saw several emergency vehicles work their way through the congestion. We crept and crept along until we finally made it past the accident, which appeared to involved several cars.

By the time we got into Amsterdam, we were running about an hour late. So much for the walking tour—in fact, we had to drive instead directly to where we caught the canal ride. Fortunately, we were just in time so we had a very nice boat cruise through the canals, which is a delightful way to see Amsterdam. Following the cruise, though, they had to drive us to where we would have started our walking tour so that we would know where to catch the bus back to the ship. Apparently that was the only place where the bus could hang out for us. So we all piled back onto the bus and worked our way to the central train station. This was not part of their regular route, however, and at one point our guide somehow directed the driver to take a turn that left us driving down a tram line where motor vehicles most definitely do NOT belong. After a block they realized that the pavement ended and became just train tracks, so we had to turn around a large touring bus in the middle of the tram tracks. Somehow the driver pulled it off and got out of there just as another tram came along. Phew! The process of driving to the drop off point took about 30 minutes to cover a distance that can easily be walked in that time!

We spent a couple of hours wandering Amsterdam and soaking up the beautiful architecture and the massive number of bikes. We loved the bikeways everywhere, and some streets were even restricted to just bicycles. Bikes have their own traffic lights and you really have to watch when crossing the street to make sure you aren’t stepping into a bike lane.

We quickly found a shop selling sausages baked on a roll and Mike’s eyes became big. We absolutely had to get those, and they made a very satisfying lunch. We also enjoyed stopping at a sidewalk café and just watching the pedestrians and bicyclists going by. A very relaxing way to spend our last bit of time in Amsterdam, then back to the bus.

After we all found our seats again and started out through Amsterdam’s crowded streets, one of the passengers asked, no, nearly demanded, that we go to the floating gardens that we were not able to see in the morning because we lost an hour in traffic. The guide tried to explain that to even get there, we would have to work our way again through the major congestion and would not have time to actually go in and look at them. This lady started talking about how she was going to complain, blah, blah, blah. So one of the other passengers sitting near the lady loudly stated that he had three postcards of the gardens if she would like to look at them to see what they looked like. Much verbal approval from the rest of us, so away we went. She still muttered something about making a complaint because it was in the brochure after all! Mike and I were sitting there wondering why she didn’t go see them during our free time if she wanted to see them so badly.

Our guide was clearly feeling a little bad that we had lost all that time and the walking tour. (Secretly, Mike and I were wondering how that walking tour would have gone considering some of our busmates seemed to have trouble just walking a couple of blocks.) So as we were driving back, he said that we could stop by a Delft because it was right on the way. He asked if anyone wanted to do that, and most of us said yes. One man in front, though, loudly stated NO! So then more people said yes, the guide said, “Your wife is saying yes! Holland is a democracy so we will go to Delft.” Everyone laughed and the stop in Delft was short but a lot of fun. We appreciated how the guide and our democratic bus dealt with our spoilsports.

Taking the bus tour was an interesting experience. We could have had more time in Amsterdam if we had wanted to deal with the trains, etc, but it was good to see how these tours run. We can definitely say that we do not regret doing our own thing most days.

-T