Tuesday, December 17, 2013

European holiday... Profferjies and Amsterdam

As Jaden had a party to attend in the afternoon, the rest of the household headed down to Leiden for lunch and a wander around. The shops were open, as were the Leiden Christmas Markets. The markets are only there for the Christmas period, they are small wooden cabins that the vendors set their shops up in. These wooden cabins are apparently burnt when they are finished with.

One of the delicacies on offer was profferjies, which are a small Dutch pancake, served with butter, and lashings of icing suger. We had to wait around ten minutes to be served, and enjoyed watching the cook at work.














After spending a couple of hours researching the public transport system, we had decided the best way to manage it was to buy an OV-chipkaart to use. This is basically the same as our Myki, you add money to it, touch on and off each time you travel, and make sure you keep the balance up.
So at ten to eight the next morning, in total darkness, we set off for Amsterdam. Liz dropped us at the station, and we were on our own.
Uneventfully, we found our way to the central station, and booked a canal cruise after filling our very empty cappuccino tubes.






Aysha and TRO doing a selfie as we waited for our cruise to depart. There were only five people on the boat, but a few more joined us along the way, as it was a hop on, hop off cruise.




Some of the houses lining the canals, almost every house has a different gable, with hooks at the top for hoisting up goods and furniture.

There were more Christmas markets in Amsterdam, selling everything from Christmas ornaments, chocolate tools, and all manner of food. Beanies were just not cutting it for the cold, so we had to buy ourselves a hat to cover our ears as well.



At about 3.30, you can feel the night air closing in, so we arrived home by about four, finding our way back to Leiderdorp on the number 2 bus. This drops us at the Winkelhof, and then it's just a short walk home.

The first day of managing the public transport went well!

Location:Leiderdorp,The Netherlands

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous21/12/13

    Lucky you found those special hats :) those pancakes look tasty .

    ReplyDelete