Sunday was a busy day. After waking up and getting ready, we joined a free walking tour of the city's attractions that started at 1 pm. As we were running late, we had cereal bars for breakfast. The walking tour went on for three hours but was very informative and we got to see most neighborhoods of the city. The walking tour started in Dam square which has the Royal Palace, the residence of the Dutch royal family and Queen Beatrix. Then we walked through Jordaan and saw a mall that's inside a Post Office. We passed through the Red Light District and saw the Old Church that's inside the district and was built here to sell salvation/redemption to sinning sailors who frequented the district. We walked through the Begijnhof Convent and were then shown the widest bridge and the narrowest house of Amsterdam. The common theme of the stories being narrated through the walk was the business acumen of the populace since the inception of the city. The walking tour ended around 4 pm outside the Anne Frank Museum.
After the tour, we had Amsterdam's famous Fries - mine with green pepper sauce and Samia's with peanut sauce. After that we went for a boat cruise that takes you through almost a 100 attractions of the city in a boat that travels through Amsterdam's canal system. After that, we went to see the Anne Frank Museum. The museum is the old house of a Jewish girl who hid there for 2 years with her family trying to avoid getting captured by Nazi Germany. They narrate the story with original artifacts, pictures and interviews that takes you through the various parts of the house including the secret annex where they remained hidden. They were finally captured after hiding for two years as someone in her father's office betrayed them and informed the German gestapo. No one except the father of the girl survived and the remaining 7 people died in Nazi Germany's concentration camps. The father later found Anne's diary that she kept before being captured and got it published in 1940s. The diary has been translated into more than 70 languages and is one of the most widely read books in the world. It was a moving experience walking through the house.
After the museum, we came back to our hotel. We had thought that we'll have dinner in a restaurant that's close to our hotel but it was closed. We tried searching for other places but nothing good was open. We had Dutch stroopwafels that we bought during the day and went to bed.
After the tour, we had Amsterdam's famous Fries - mine with green pepper sauce and Samia's with peanut sauce. After that we went for a boat cruise that takes you through almost a 100 attractions of the city in a boat that travels through Amsterdam's canal system. After that, we went to see the Anne Frank Museum. The museum is the old house of a Jewish girl who hid there for 2 years with her family trying to avoid getting captured by Nazi Germany. They narrate the story with original artifacts, pictures and interviews that takes you through the various parts of the house including the secret annex where they remained hidden. They were finally captured after hiding for two years as someone in her father's office betrayed them and informed the German gestapo. No one except the father of the girl survived and the remaining 7 people died in Nazi Germany's concentration camps. The father later found Anne's diary that she kept before being captured and got it published in 1940s. The diary has been translated into more than 70 languages and is one of the most widely read books in the world. It was a moving experience walking through the house.
After the museum, we came back to our hotel. We had thought that we'll have dinner in a restaurant that's close to our hotel but it was closed. We tried searching for other places but nothing good was open. We had Dutch stroopwafels that we bought during the day and went to bed.
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