April 17, 2018

I arrived late Tuesday night in Orlando in preparation for my departure this evening to begin a wonderful European vacation. I'm flying on Icelandair to Reykjavik, Iceland where I change planes and then on to our first destination, Amsterdam, Netherlands, where I am scheduled to arrive at 12:40 pm CEST (Central European Summer Time) which is seven hours ahead of Pensacola's Central Daylight Savings Time.

Sharon is flying from Portland, OR and will get to Amsterdam several hours before my flight arrives. She will have an opportunity to get the lay of the land, so when I arrive, we can hit the ground running.

Our itinerary is: 

April 19 - 22 ~ Amsterdam, Netherlands

April 22 - 25 ~ Brussels, Belgium

April 25 - 29 ~ Vienna, Austria (with a day trip to Salzburg, Austria on April 27)

April 29 - May 2 ~ Venice, Italy

May 2 - May 6 ~ Rome, Italy

May 6 - May 12 ~ Castro die Volsci Frosinone, Italy for a Flavors of the Roman Hill Country Culinary Tour 

I will be posting pictures and updates as often as I can and hope to hear from our family and friends with comments and/or suggestions while we are on our adventure.

The adventure begins...

April 18-19, 2018

My flight from Orlando to Iceland was uneventful with the exception of my getting upgraded to first-class. This was a wonderful surprise and made the long trip very nice. The amenities for first-class passengers are certainly a step up from my usual coach seats. I received a zippered storage bag with a sleep mask, lotions, ear plugs, toothbrush and toothpaste. Each passenger was offered a pair of Bose sound-cancelling headphones, which I prefer to earbuds. Because of space, I had brought my earbuds, but not my over the ear Bose headphones.

We left Orlando a few minutes early and arrived in Iceland about 30 minutes early. Our plane did not have a jetway, so I had to walk from the plane to the terminal in rainy, 30 degree weather. The airport was very busy, but efficient. Again the plane left on time and we arrived in Amsterdam a few minutes early.

I was fascinated to see the large number of windmills in the sea off the coast of the Netherlands.

I took the train from the airport to Amsterdam Central Station where I met up with Sharon. Together we traveled by tram to our bed and breakfast, Blossom. We met our hosts, Joop, and his husband, Topp, who were both very helpful and accommodating. The house is beautiful and our room overlooks one of the many canals in Amsterdam.

We were not able to get tickets to the Anne Frank House due to a restoration project that is underway, but we did walk to the house, which wasn’t far from our B&B.

We had made reservations to do a canal tour on our first day and we were not disappointed. Our captain was very informative and we got a great overview of the city. After the tour, we walked around for a good while and finally settled on a hamburger restaurant for dinner. The burgers were wonderful, but the Belgium fries were the best I’ve ever had. After dinner, we strolled back to our B&B and went to bed.

Amsterdam is a very unique city with 2,500,000 bicycles. Children, who haven’t learned to ride a bicycle or how to swim, are taught in school.