TR Mother-Daughter London, Paris, Amsterdam May to early June 2026

Dinner was at L’Autre for Polish food. My friend and daughter's friend joined us and I think we all enjoyed it. I had the best pierogis – half with minced pork, half with cheese and potato and Borscht. It was fun to speak a little Polish and I even got Daughter to say prosze (please) to our server.
We walked back to our hotel via St James’s Park. Various flowers were blooming. There was even a squirrel hopping onto someone’s leg! It was a very beautiful and peaceful park yet active with animals that are borderline too friendly. The lake was beautiful, too. Eventually we made it back to our hotel, ready to sleep and hoping for a more energetic day 2.

May 20

We met our friends for breakfast at Gail’s Bakery near our hotel (friends were staying in air b and b about 8 minutes’ walk beyond our hotel) then took the Tube to the Tower of London. Daughter and daughter's friend photographed the Tower Bridge while we waited for a little past 9 to start standing in line (tip to not have to stay in line as long, don’t start in line before 9). We met Georgie, one of the ravens, right off. She was hopping on the stairs. After reading Our Island Story 3 times, I was especially interested in seeing the spot where the bodies of Edward the 5th and his brother were found in Charles the 2nd’s time. We talked to a worker for a bit about the ravens and the two little boys and the mystery involved there. We found a picture of Empress Eugenie who visited in 1860 so the Napoleon theme was continuing, even if it was in the background. The detailed armor both large and small (including some probably from future King Charles I when he was about 5. A giant ledger of receipts, returns and issues - 914 pages long - was interesting to me with my interest in budgets and record keeping. Norman foundations and Norman drains from the 11th century. Daughter and I visited the chapel containing many people’s bodies including Sir Thomas Moore and Queen Anne Boleyn. Funeral effigies for some reason are quite captivating to me. The most interesting part of our Tower of London visit was the Tower that was used as a prison and has much detailed graffiti. Including one from a prisoner who was in solitary confinement 8 months, 32 weeks, 224 days, 5376 hours (this is what the prisoner etched) and supporters of Lady Jane Grey etching Jane in multiple places. Of course we saw the crown jewels, and basically explored all the area and took the Tube to get closer to West End for our Oliver musical that afternoon. We had sandwiches at Victoria park and saw some statues for familiar people including Robert Raikes, founder of the Sunday school movement. Daughter has talked about wanting to go to China so of course I took pictures of her in Chinatown just before the theatre area. We still were too early for Oliver so we walked to the National Gallery for a quick visit and to see a few areas we didn’t see on arrival day. Then Oliver! I was expecting to enjoy it since I have loved this musical since I was 8, but it really exceeded my expectations. We had very good seats in the stalls. Fagin definitely had personality, it wasn’t just like the movie I have seen dozens of times. At one time when he was talking about being wealthy, he pointed to the front seats and congratulated us and then told the people in the balcony they needed to work on that. It did strike as quite funny. The performers all seemed to be having a good time and were energetic. After the “Who Will Buy?” I thought, oh I wanted that to go on a little longer. Then after a few minutes they had a little Who Will Buy reprise- just perfect. During “You can go but be back soon” one boy sings “the jewels from the tower” and Daughter and exchanged glances - we had just seen the jewels in the Tower! I was curious how they would handle Bill Sykes’ death but they did fine just shooting him twice. For the 16 nights of vacation this was the most fun thing we did.

After that, back to Chinatown to get Daughter a take away box and I got a salad. We ate at St James’s park amidst ducks and geese wondering if they would get a bite to eat. After dinner we walked around the park and encountered a man feeding parakeets. I know this isn’t good for the wildlife, and we saw the signs later, but he did give us a little bird seed and we had fun having them land on our hands. We just had to keep the pigeons away. On our walk back to the hotel we stopped a little at Parliament square for pictures of Churchill and Lincoln and a few more on the bridge.

Thursday May 21
We had a relatively long walk to St Paul’s Cathedral this morning. Highlights included seeing Wellington’s and Nelson’s graves (hmm, Napoleon theme continues). But also Turner, William Blake, Christopher Wren (whose grave says he doesn’t need a fancy monument, his monument is all around, essentially), Walter de la Mare, and John Donne (whose monument depicts him in a funeral shroud. A few years ago when Daughter was writing narrations about his life I concluded that the only happy thing that ever happened to him was when he died and moved onto Heaven). We climbed up the whispering gallery and one gallery above that but declined going to the very top. After that, just walking to the general area of West End, we came upon a Sir Thomas More statue on Carey street, and then bought some m&ms at the (of all places) m&m store. We had a simple picnic lunch at St James’s park again and some some of the horse guard passing by. Then Les Miserables matinee with our friends. I would have enjoyed it more if there hadn’t been a group of loud students behind us (theatre says they require under 16s to be seated next to an adult but this was obviously not followed) and even more distracting, a lady 2 seats from me who kept opening her phone to play games or text. Why pay so much for tickets if you don’t want to be there? At intermission, Daughter and I sat on the other side of our friends to get away from them and we did enjoy the 2nd half more. We were in the balcony and I wish we had just paid more for better seats but it was a good performance. After that the 4 of us went to the Golden Union for reputable fish and chips and had a good time together. The food and conversation were good and I got my sticky toffee pudding that I had wanted to try.

Friday May 22
We intended to be at the V&A museum at opening time and it was already quite hot out. This is at the beginning of the heat wave in London. But we arrived a bit before opening time so friends decided we should go to Kensington gardens then instead of after the museum. I wish we had decided this earlier because we would have gotten off at a different tube station instead of walking a bunch after the Tube. We saw the very elaborate memorial to Prince Albert, the very cute Peter Pan statue (complete with bunnies), ducks, swans, and various flowers. Finally it was time to walk back to the V&A. We decided just to ask where the Da Vinci sketch books were and it even took an employee awhile to find it (not them, just it, only one was on display) but Daughter really liked it. There were some cool plaster casts of famous sculptures including David (which we saw 2 years ago). We saw the Ardabali carpet completed 1539-1540. It was definitely quite details although maybe a little hard to see because of how dim the lights are kept in order to preserve it. Cool but maybe a little gross, a statue of St Roch, patron saint of plague victims complete with a dog licking his sores. Tapestry with bunnies quite similar to the Lady with the Unicorn tapestry we saw at the Cluny Museum in Paris last year. Then a lackluster meal at the cafe (lackluster and overpriced) before finishing up and taking the Tube to our London Walk. We had daughter's friend with us for this segment because my friend wanted to go to a workout class.
On to our London Walk focusing on Charles Dickens. We started with a Napoleon reference! Rules - London’s Oldest Restaurant’s plaque begins “In the year Napoleon opened his campaign in Egypt, 1798…” We saw the Old Curiosity Shop, the offices of Dickens’ magazine “All the Year Around” and the pub he used to eat at (and other places). Our guide pointed out the seat that Dickens always used. We had a glass of water with a few of the tour members before heading out. I had the British Museum on our list since it was Friday and it was open late but we first ate Dutch Pancakes on the way. They were good and at the end said “Dankuwel” and the server said, oh we’re not Dutch, there are Dutch workers there but not today. The chef was Italian. So I said Grazie Mille and the server asked if we knew any Russian. I said not very much, but some that are similar to Polish. So we had a few pleasantries in Polish and he asked where we were from. I think he was surprised that we were from the middle of the USA.

British Museum was more enjoyable after some semblance of sleep, unlike the arrival day. We found some statues that reminded us of the Louvre’s statue of Ebih-el and the Lewis Chessmen! The staff member seemed a little closed when I asked if they were all there or any were already taken to Bayeux. She said she couldn’t say much about that. I said it’s on their website that Bayeux is getting some of the Lewis Chessmen, I just wanted to know if any had been transferred yet. Then she assented that none of them were taken yet. It was so fun looking at the pieces individual expressions, ones biting their shields, a shocked queen, and others. Then we found the Sutton Hoo ship burial display and the Lycurgus Cup from the Late Roman Empire, AD 300s. I thought we were running low on energy when what should I see around the corner but a display of Napoleon artifacts, including his death mask. That seemed to perk Daughter up a bit, but then a staff member came who was only too eager to talk about Nelson and Napoleon for about 20 minutes. He and Daughter had a great time. Then we had a little time at the Enlightenment library which Daughter really loved. Then she found me a Heiroglyphic translation of Peter Rabbit in the gift shop I couldn’t resist.

Saturday May 23
Churchill War Rooms- Daughter and I were among the first to enter due to getting there a bit before opening time (of course timed tickets). I appreciated the signs “There is to be no whistling or unnecessary noise in the Passage” signs from WW2. Other highlights - Cabinet War Rooms records for the day from D Day and VE Day, pro and anti Churchill signs, cookie jar depicting Churchill holding excerpts of his “We Shall Fight” speech, Churchill’s honorary citizen document from the USA. His history books that he wrote that of course Daughter has read for school and Josiah and Noah are currently reading. Allies and Axis chess pieces (unfortunately not for sale at the gift shop), his paints, silent type writer and just seeing the rooms where they worked were very interesting.
After we were done, we needed some down time so we walked back to the hotel via the nearby grocery store for lunch and a little rest before walking to Tate Britain (emphasis on Turner, a favorite artist of Daughter’s). Some of the museum’s rooms were quite hot, some had decent air conditioning. I didn’t need as much time with the Turner paintings as Daughter did, so I explored other rooms for some time. Highlights for me included Dorothy Stanley’s “His First Offence” depicting a very Oliver-esque London street child, Brown Eyes by George Clausen depicting a girl in nature, and Hush! And Hushed by Frank Holl depicting a mother and sibling with a sick baby and the 2nd painting depicts the mother and sibling after the baby dies. After Daughter was satisfied with her Turner time we walked towards our hotel but stopped at Victoria Tower Gardens just for the scenery and to enjoy the shade and breeze. Daughter found bees to photograph and we also saw the Burghers of Calais. After a while I asked Daughter if she’d be up for Evensong at Westminster Abbey. It would be starting soon and we were so close. So we were able to make it there on time. I really enjoyed hearing the boys’ choir. It was also a change from our previous vacation church experiences and much easier to understand since it was in English. Of course this had been our experience the entire London segment, but this being our first trip to England, it was new for us to be in Europe but also be fluent in the primary language. Another full day, and still quite hot.

Sunday May 24
Daughter and I had timed tickets to the National Gallery but were up earlier than it opened so we walked to Trafalgar Square and decided to sit in the back of St Martin’s in the Fields Church quietly while the choir rehearsed. I really enjoyed this. Then the National Gallery for a few hours. This was technically our 3rd visit but the first one was right after arrival and we were so tired, and then 2nd was quite brief. This time we found the Arnolfini Portrait right off and the Da Vinci cartoon and Virgin of the Rocks, Boticelli’s Venus and Mars, a portrait of the Duke of Wellington, and of course others. Then we took a break to go to the National Portrait Gallery. Daughter especially wanted to see the side by side painting of Napoleon and Wellington but after that, there were plenty of portraits and photographs to keep us interested. Some highlights - Mary Wollstonecraft, mother of Mary Shelly, Chamberlain, Darwin, Emily Bronte, Dickens, photograph of the little girl who was the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland, photograph of Robert Louis Stevenson and his family, Sir Ernest Shackleton's portrait, and Marie Cures’ daughter Irene Joliot-Curie. Then what? So little art that day, so it was time to go back to the National Gallery, and yes we were thankful for short lines and not a real need for timed tickets (and of course, no entry fees). After that we went to Westminster Abbey for Evensong with our friends. I could listen to the boys’ choir sing all day, so I was glad to hear them again.

After that we walked 45+ minutes to go to dinner with our friends to Urumchi Uygher Restaurant based on recommendations from friends who visited this particular restaurant during their trip to London last year. These mutual friends had lived with Uygher people for years and were very eager to have their food again. At the end of the meal, the owner recognized our friends from a meal they had there the day before, and gave us each a small rice pudding, no charge.

Monday May 25
Bank Holiday. I didn’t think this would affect our plans since we had timed tickets but none of us checked the British Library hours before walking the 50 ish minutes to get there. Oops. And the heatwave continued. Fortunately it was going to open, just later, so we walked from the British Library to the British Museum. We headed to the 2nd floor Ancient Egyptian and related rooms first because we anticipated that they’d become quite crowded later. Good move. Not only that, but they closed some rooms a little later due to the heat. They have some air conditioning in the museum, but it really can’t keep up with all the body heat in the crowds (and 90-some degrees is hot any day). But we saw Philistines displays, Sumerians, and an extremely appealing First library to contain all knowledge! The Ashurbanipal Library project. Some interesting history and some surprisingly could have been written today “Why don’t you write your tablet and do your homework?!” (Ashurbanipal’s sister to his wife, letter 672 or 671 BC), a clever hymn starts each line with a syllable of the king’s own name, the treaty which Queen Zakutu has concluded with the whole nation concerning her favorite grandson, Ashurbanipal 669 BC. Clearly I enjoyed this display. We looked at other displays and then spent some time in the Enlightenment Library before our Afternoon Tea. I had read mixed reviews of the British Museum’s afternoon tea but it worked well to have it without a big walk to a different location and we all 4 enjoyed it. It was hot, of course, and they even offered to let us keep our menus to use as fans, which we did. We had tasty sandwiches, scones with clotted cream, and cakes. Except we were too full to eat most of the cakes so we took those with us. Then another walk in the heat to see the British Library. The Treasures Room was really not crowded but packed full of documents we wanted to see. Da Vinci sketch of an insect and studies of ballistics, original scores by Handel, Clara Schumann, Elgar, Beethoven. The only surviving original copy of Beowulf! Although badly damaged by a fire in 1731, it is there. Luther’s German New Testament, the first complete edition of Tyndale’s New Testament, the Emancipation Proclamation (why is it in London? But very cool to see), another copy of the Magna Carta, a 2000 year old homework book (wax tablets from a Greek speaking school), Wynflaed’s will, one of the oldest wills of an English woman from the 900s. I especially liked that she included books in her will. When the library closed, of course we had to leave. Due to the heat and the 45+ minute walk back to our hotel, I opted to use the bus back. Our friends were willing to walk (“slow gentle downhill” ) but I didn’t have the energy and it was in the 90s. So we 4 took the bus which was also hot and stinky but it dropped us off not far from our hotel. Daughter and I freshed up a little and rested before it was time for our 3rd and final West End performance, Mamma Mia. We had fun. Apparently they understand that their audience will want to sing along because the signs in the bathrooms explicitly say to restrain ourselves until there’s time at the end for singing all together. We had a good time. There were some less appropriate parts but we kinda expected that. I was a little worried about walking back in the dark and even asked a hotel staff member about it but she said it would be lit and we’d be fine. It was a late night but I’m still glad we did it.

Tuesday May 26
Westminster Abbey - yes, our 3rd visit, but they don’t allow lingering after their services and I wanted to really see everything. After entry, we bought Verger Tour tickets immediately. I really wanted to see the Tomb of Edward the Confessor and other things not on view without a tour. But first we walked around finding graves and monuments, then visited the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee gallery upstairs. Daughter again found a man who liked to talk about history. He asked where we were from and the USA wasn’t specific enough. When I said Nebraska he said he was learning all the US states and presidents and just “finished Kansas” he rattled off the date of their statehood and also some facts about the Civil War. Then he proceeded to talk some about English history and body snatchers/ grave robbers. Eventually we were able to walk around and see part of the gallery before our timed verger tour. Verger tour highlights, —-

The ceiling at part of Westminster Abbey was so intricate. Our verger compared it to a jigsaw puzzle. She explained some about the knights and their flags. And the tomb of the unknown warrior which is the only grave that’s never stepped upon.

We spent part of the afternoon back at Tate Britain for our timed tickets to the Whistler exhibit. On Saturday I questioned Daughter why they had Whistler’s mother paraphernalia for sale in their gift shop since I knew she was in the Musee d’Orsay. Then Daughter reminded me that it was probably there for the special exhibit. Sure enough, there she was. And also a smaller print of Whistler’s mother. Whistler sold prints for extra money. He purportedly had richer tastes than his budget and struggled quite a bit with overspending. Somehow our time in London was wrapping up. We rested at our hotel for a while then I suggested walking along the Thames River to say goodbye to London. We walked down to the rocky “beach” for a bit and just enjoyed the evening.

Wednesday May 27 -onward to Paris
This morning I learned that the London Tube doesn’t run all day and night. We got up early and my City Mapper app didn’t tell me the route I was expecting. We could wait for the Tube to open at 6 or we could walk to a train station. We were walking to a train station but ended up right by a tube stop as a lady was opening it. She asked where we were trying to go and offered that we could use it “although you’d have to transfer” as if that would be a deterrent. It was fine. We ended up at London St Pancras in plenty of time although it seemed a bit chaotic when they announced the platform and you know they don’t let people on late. But we did fine and got on our Eurostar train to Paris. Eventually we made it to Gare du Nord and took the Metro to St Sulpice, just a few minutes from our hotel - Hotel Bonaparte - yes I chose this on purpose. The location was excellent, the beds were a bit too soft and the elevator was a little scary to me. I’m sure it was just fine, but the ceiling was open so I could see the gears and it was so tiny it felt a little bit claustrophobic. We usually took the stairs but with luggage or to give our knees a break, sometimes we took the elevator. The concierge stored our luggage until check in time no problem, and we all 4 walked to Creperie Petit Josselin. Last year Daughter and visited the nearby Creperie Josselin, so the Creperie Petit Josselin was on my must-visit list for this vacation. After that, Daughter was eager to visit the Louvre. With my friends of the Louvre card, I got her in efficiently and arranged our meeting spot and time. I thought I did. But later I found out that we were both thinking of different places. I had wanted to visit Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois and was glad I did. It was a very quiet, Gothic church with beautiful stained glass.

I passed by the booksellers on my walk from the church to the left bank, and found Daughter a biography of Napoleon translated to French (from “American”) and couldn’t resist buying it for her, especially since she wanted more books in French to work on her language acquisition. From there, I walked to the Abbey Bookshop, an English bookstore in the Latin Quarter on a street once known as rue des Ecrivians, for the scribes and scriviners who formed the background of the booktrade. It was fun to see all the books but unfortunately, most of them were new and thus pretty expensive. Plus carryon luggage gets heavy fast so I left without buying anything. Next stop was a Polish bookstore - Ksiegarnia Polska. There were lots of fun children’s books but since we are out of picture book stage, I didn’t buy any. I did buy each child a small wooden painted egg, though. After that it was time to try to find shorts. I didn’t pack any since I didn’t think it would be too hot and also I understand that shorts are not as common to wear where we’d be traveling but after so many days of 90+ temperatures, I really was interested in having some. Fortunately I found a pair at a thrift store very near our hotel. Then it was time to unpack a little and relax before picking up Daughter at the Louvre. And I was very thankful for our air conditioning.
I got to the Louvre early but didn’t expect Daughter to be late. First I found one of my favorite things in the Louvre - the statue of Ebih-Il of Mari. I always have to say hi to him when I visit the Louvre. I enjoyed the current exhibit of Water in that general area and then headed downstairs to our supposed rendezvous point. I waited and waited and looked up where I expected her to come down from. People were clearing out of the Louvre because it was evening. Finally she was late enough that I was messaging Brian about it. I didn’t want to change places in case she’d show up where I was and we’d both be missing from each other but finally she came down after waiting for me where she thought she should have been. We briefly looked at the Michelangelo and Rodin exhibit but we were both tired. She had had a solid 5+ hours of Louvre time by then.

Thursday May 28
Last year when we were at the Louvre for the very first time, we asked where the Archimbolo paintings of the seasons were. Much to our disappointment, they were on loan to Lens, a city in northern France, at another Louvre location. We decided that it was worthwhile to take a day to visit the Louvre Lens during this trip so Daughter could see the “vegetable heads.” It was an early train from Gare du Nord to Arras, switch at Arras to Lens, then a tree lined path to the Louvre Lens. I was a little worried about finding the Louvre Lens from the train station, but apparently it’s one of the main attractions in Lens and the train station had very clear markings to get there. We also were on a train with a larger tour group all going to the Louvre Lens. So we walked with them to the museum, arriving about a half hour before opening time. We thus enjoyed some surrounding nature and walked past a school named after Marie Curie. Finally it was time to visit the museum. First stop - hot cocoa and coffee. Then on to find the vegetable heads. I became worried as we walked and kept on not seeing them. Finally we were near the back of the Gallery of Time and I saw them perpendicular to nearly every other exhibit (so we didn’t approach them head on and they were harder to see). We spent 2 hours at the Louvre Lens, mostly discussing the vegetable heads. They really are better in person, even if they aren’t my favorite art in the world. Daughter clearly was enjoying her time there and it was worth it. When she was ready to move on, we walked back to the train station and bought tickets to Lille from where we’d take the high speed train back to Paris.

We only had a few hours there but I wanted to get vanilla waffles from Meert. We bought a box of vanilla waffles and a box of speculoos waffles to take home. Then for lunch we had ice cream cones from Meert. Remember it was in the mid-90s and intense sun, so ice cream was a reasonable lunch. We enjoyed the architecture of the city square then walked to the Palais des Beaux Arts de Lille. I knew we wouldn’t have long to visit, but I really wanted to see the Brueghel paintings. Daughter and I had a role reversal when she was sitting down while I was enjoying art. They had some nice Monets, as well, and a Jacques Louis David painting of Napoleon that I really liked at the Louvre exhibit last October. I was excited to show that to Daughter. Les Vaches by Van Gogh and Le Becquee by Millet were two that stood out as well. We had a bit of a challenge finding bathrooms that were in order so unfortunately we had to wait for the train station for that. We walked back to the train station a little early so I decided to visit a very nearby church dedicated to St Maurice, which is also classified as a historic monument. We didn’t stay long but it was nice to step inside for a few minutes. Then onto the train station and it was small enough it was very easy to find our platform once it was announced. We had an uneventful ride back to Paris Gare du Nord, metro to St Sulpice then a quick freshen up time before our nice dinner with friends. This would end up being our farewell dinner but we didn’t know that we wouldn’t see them again at the time. We had a very nice dinner at Hebe Restaurant, with a 2 star Michelin star chef creating the menu (chef of the year in 2013 Michel Portos). Well, that sounded promising. We chose the tasting menu with 1 starter + 3 main dishes + 2 desserts. Daughter and I had white asparagus with arugula pesto, citrus mayonnaise, and feta cream; Trout with beetroot ketchup (very good), blackberry, pickled red onions and garlic crisps. For our main dishes - Octopus - grilled, piprade, sweet potato, black olive sable’, Galician style octopus jus; Duck - roasted fillet, bulgur, onions, Thai basil, mango with zaatar, miso caramel; Black Angus flank steak with braised pak choi, mint, Paloise espuma, reduced rich beef jus. For our desserts - strawberry based dessert with sorbet and whipped cream and strawberries, and also a cheese combo. Everything was so good and after our vacation was done, Daughter and I agreed this was our best meal of our vacation. As we were leaving the restaurant, I could see the church of St Etienne which I wanted to visit the following day but it was nice to get a better feel for where it was situated.

Friday May 29
We began our day with a visit to the Musee d’Orsay and in particular their Renoir and Love special exhibit. There were so many beautiful paintings and drawings. Enfant au chat (Julie Manet), Femme a la vache (woman with a cow), the drawing for the Music Lesson which I’ve been familiar with since I was about 9 years old and received a notebook with the picture on the cover. Some paintings depicting gentle mother and young children interactions and then we headed to the permanent collection. I showed Daughter some paintings I particularly liked last October that she and I missed last April when we were on our tour (we had to go immediately to the Orangerie due to our timed tickets there so we missed a lot). By lunchtime, we were ready to move on, though.

I thought it would be fun to go back to the 7th arr (“our old neighborhood”) and have lunch at a restaurant we enjoyed there a year ago. So lunch was at La Terrasse not far from the Eiffel Tower. We enjoyed French onion soup for our appetizer, then I had sea bass with vegetables, and Daughter had a shrimp risotto. Again, a very hot day, but we walked to the Eiffel Tower then took the Metro to the Jardin du Plantes. The Jardin du Plantes had quite a variety of blooming flowers and the water lilies were blooming as well. The ducks and other birds looked so hot. They had a zoo but it didn’t seem worth the admission price but we could see Kangaroos just from the fence. They also looked hot. We enjoyed what we could and then walked to the church dedicated to St Stephen - Saint-Etienne-du-Mont behind the Pantheon. This church began as a chapel in 1225 and contains a shrine to St Genevieve, patron saint of Paris. It was also appealing because Pascal and Racine are buried in this church. Eventually it was time to walk back to our hotel. We passed a Pret and bought cold drinks there which were helpful. I believe supper was gelato that evening.

Saturday May 30
After pastries at Maison Mulot and coffee from our hotel, we met a RS forum member who shares a strong interest in Napoleonic history with Daughter. Since we were going to be in Paris at the same time, we agreed on a trip to Fontainebleau together via train. We took the bus to Gare du Lyon, train to Fontainebleau-Avon station and then the bus was right there when we exited the train station and it dropped us off right by the Chateau. We had a couple of hours at the Chateau. I was eager to show Daughter some of the Napoleon artifacts in the museum including a little sword and the cradle made for his baby (king of Rome) then we walked through the rooms and found his abdication desk. I also wanted to show Daughter the gardens and the Diana fountain with the peeing dogs and barfing/spitting deer (this is at least how the fountain makes it look, not really sure what its maker was intending). After this we had lunch with our traveling companion. He suggested we find a Napoleon museum and gave us the address, while he finished his lunch. We went to the address but it’s no longer a Napoleon museum, it appears that its contents have been moved to the Napoleon museum within Fontainbleau that was just visited. We still enjoyed walking around a little in the town and then returned to our companion and made our way to the bus stop. We waited and waited. I checked the schedule, our companion checked the bus schedule, he asked a person waiting for the bus, and it did appear that one should have come (or 2 or 3 by then), and one should be coming soon. Finally I suggested we walk to the train station so we at least would catch a train going back to Paris. Daughter and I had an early train to get to Amsterdam in the morning and I wanted to get back to Paris and do the minimal packing we needed to. We had a hot walk back to the train station with a few rest breaks. Fortunately we made it to the train station and didn’t have too long to wait til the next train. We parted ways with our companion at Gare du Lyon and headed back to our hotel via the Metro. It turned out riots were likely the culprit for the buses not running. There was a strong police presence in Fontainebleau and there were fireworks in Paris due to the celebration of Paris Saint-Germain winning the UEFA Champions League. We didn’t have any difficulty but the next morning there were some drunk people on the Metro (it was pretty gross and I won’t elaborate).

Sunday May 31
We said goodbye to Paris and took the Eurostar to Amsterdam. It does seem crowded and inefficient waiting for the platform announcement but they checked people’s tickets at individual cars, so that made the line go faster. Daughter slept and I just read or relaxed on our train ride. I enjoyed seeing the animals, including some jackrabbits and then increasingly Flemish architecture as we went north. We had a stop in Brussels and a few other stops but no changes of trains so that was nice. A little after noon we arrived at Amsterdam Centraal. Unfortunately, I had a lot of difficulty getting the turnstiles to read my train tickets and then even had difficulty at the toilets. The scanner wouldn’t read either debit card I had in my Google wallet. I was worried that maybe our bank neglected to pay attention to travel notes and I didn’t have a payment method for Amsterdam, which would be bad, fast considering we wanted to eat the next 4 days and also take some train rides. Fortunately it was nothing that dire and eventually the scanner left us out (after asking 3 people for help) and we walked 35 minutes to our hotel. At this point I thought there was something wrong with my card and I didn’t want to hassle with the tram. It was fine and a good orientation to the city. We stayed out of the bike lanes and did OK. I loved the architecture and didn’t love the smoke. It burned my eyes and nose. We made it to the Owl Hotel in Museumplein and got checked in without difficulty. They had a small elevator but it didn’t seem as wobbly as the one at Hotel Bonaparte. We needed lunch so we found Dutch Pancakes not far from our hotel after getting some cash from an ATM at a nearby grocery store (I didn’t need the cash as much as I wanted to make sure my debit card worked before eating out or otherwise expecting it to work). The pancakes were fine. I was a little disappointed that the peach pancakes just had canned peaches on them, but oh well. We walked to the Van Gogh museum and we were allowed in about 15 minutes before our timed tickets.
I didn’t think the Van Gogh museum would be that big, but he was quite prolific and also they had paintings from artists who were inspired by his art, and artists he was inspired by. It was very well laid out and it was certainly crowded in certain spots (for example, around his Sunflowers), but we did OK just paying attention to other art when there was a crowd at something else. It was fun to see so many paintings in person after only seeing their prints in school. Before we left, we were studying Van Gogh for probably the 3rd time and I made sure that the prints I placed on display on our fireplace were all ones that we would be seeing on vacation. And I learned that he painted rabbits (during a hospitalization), they had a beautiful Monet of Tulip Fields near The Hague, and I really appreciated the frugality of Van Gogh’s box with balls of wool. He combined different wool colors before using actual paint since paint was so expensive.
We had a little downtime at our hotel before our timed tickets to the Anne Frank house. It was a pretty walk to get there. I was thankful we could visit the Anne Frank House. Of course it was sad, but it was interesting to see, as well. It was helpful that Daughter and I had seen the play Diary of Anne Frank recently and of course we’d read Anne Frank’s Diary at least once recently. They also had a temporary exhibit about school during the Holocaust and showed the absences that teachers marked. Children would miss school and the teachers didn’t know if they were hiding, safe, or taken to a concentration camp. If I remember correctly, over ⅔ of the teachers at Anne Frank’s school were killed in concentration camps and many of the students as well.
We went to a grocery store for supper and got to bed at a decent time.

Monday June 1 - breakfast at a coffee place and then Rijksmuseum at opening time. We went right to the Night Watch anticipating that it would get crowded with tour groups later. Indeed it did. It was nice that they are keeping it on display even while it’s under a multi-year restoration project. We saw some other Rembrandts and 3 Vermeers (couldn’t find the woman with the apron anywhere), and were quite amused by the information sheet pertaining to The Threatened Sawn by Jan Asselijn “let’s look at the swan poop. The artist studied pooping swans for some time” etc. ). They have a lot of nice artifacts, too, some nice pottery, ship models, and a piece of the stone on which Prince William III set foot on arriving in England. Very sadly, though, we couldn’t find the paintings by Jan Steen I was very much looking forward to seeing. After asking an employee who really had no idea, Daughter found a worker with an “Ask Me” sign and she told us that the Steens were likely in Leiden for a Jan Steen exhibit for his 400th birthday. I knew Leiden wasn’t too far away via train so I was hoping we could make it on Wednesday, our last day, which was pretty light.
We finished at the Rijksmuseum earlier than I had planned so we walked to Our Lord in the Attic Museum on the edge of the Red Light District. Just before, I found Daughter Parmesan truffle fries for lunch. It seemed like a good Amsterdam experience food. It was good, though salty. The Lord in the Attic museum was really more interesting than I had expected and had a pretty extensive audioguide. For the first half, I listened to all the optional tracks, then I ran out of steam and just listened to the general ones. There were many Roman Catholic house churches during the time that Catholicism was illegal in Amsterdam but people mostly overlooked them. But this was an actual church with confessional, baptistry, sacristy and other parts. Parts of the museum was basically a well preserved 17th century Dutch home (complete with tight spiral stairs, Delft tiles, and a kitchen. Then we walked up another level to the church with quite a bit of seating, an organ, altar, prayer books, candles, gas lamps, paintings, and others.
On our walk back, I was about to take a picture by a doorway with a lion that said Anno 1624, just 4 years after the Pilgrims signed the Mayflower Compact. Wow. But then the door opened and a lady on a bike asked if we spoke English and said an interesting feature was that when this door was made, the people in Amsterdam didn’t know what lion’s teeth looked like so they had human-like teeth. That was very fun, and then we noticed human teeth on lions later, too. We had some time before dinner so we went to Vondelpark and enjoyed the geese and goslings, ducks and ducklings, and flowers.

Dinner was at The Pantry. We ordered “The Full Dutch Experience” for 2 people. The bitterballen was one of my favorite parts with a crispy outer layer and stew-like insides. I thought the mustard was too hot but the sausage and meatball-like foods were good. Dessert was like a cream with pudding and mini pancakes arranged in a flower shape. While we were walking back to our hotel we saw all these bronze lizards! For a moment it seemed that they were real but alas, they weren’t. And we saw a seagull with a discarded book along a canal.

Tuesday June 2
Way back when I started booking things for this trip, in August, I booked Corrie Ten Boom House tickets so this was the main objective for this day. We took the train to Haarlem and had an easy walk to get to the city center. We were early but I wanted to get there early to explore the city since heavy thunderstorms with hail were forecasted for the afternoon. We found coffee and walked around the city square. I noted to Daughter that these would be the same streets the Jewish man with the bulldogs walked (in the Hiding Place the Ten Booms see a man walking his beloved bulldogs every day but don’t ask him his name until later. One day he is walking without his bulldogs and he explained that he gave them poison so that they wouldn’t suffer after his likely imminent arrest). It began to rain before our 10 a.m. tour but our volunteer guide let us in early and we stood where the Ten Boom Watch shop used to be. Now it’s a gift shop. No photographs are allowed except in the Hiding Place and all the guides are volunteers. We saw where the Ten Booms hid the ration cards, and of course we saw the Hiding Place with the door that only opened from the inside on the bottom linen closet shelf, and she explained how the Jews in hiding would have to all sit with their backs to the wall so when the Nazis would knock on the wall it would sound solid. We saw the Alpina sign that they kept up to indicate that it was safe to enter the house, photographs, Corrie’s embroidery showing how we can see a tangled mess but God is working something beautiful on the other side, and the Jesus is Victor sign. Our guide was an older Dutch lady. She had pretty good English but did ask for clarification on some of the questions and said her English wasn’t that good. She had a man on our tour read aloud a few sentences from a letter that Corrie wrote to a Nazi who was sentenced to death for his crimes and had particularly been cruel to her. I don’t remember all her words but “I want you to know that I forgive you for anything” were some of them. He did die from a bullet but before that he had received forgiveness from Corrie and most importantly from Jesus. This was a definite highlight from our vacation.
Following the Ten Boom House, we visited St Bavo’s or Grote Kerk very near the Ten Boom House. I was particularly interested in the famous Muller Organ that Handel and Mozart loved and performed on. There’s a cannonball from the 1572-1573 Spanish siege embedded in the wall with 1573 painted below. We looked at the choir area and were amused by the wooden people depicted chewing on a bit of a post. There’s a dog whipper depicted too. They used to whip the dogs who misbehaved in church. Someone was tuning the organ while we were there. The sounds weren’t always pleasant, yet I was glad to hear the organ.
After that we headed to the train station in hopes of missing the storm. I had wanted to eat lunch at a particular place in Haarlem but it didn’t seem worth it with the heavy storm coming. So we got to Amsterdam and even walked from the train station to the Dutch Resistance Museum before it began to rain. There was a small restaurant right next door and we had smoked salmon bagels for lunch. The Dutch Resistance Museum was unlike any museum I’ve ever visited. I think they did a good job of trying to accurately communicate the Dutch response to Nazi occupation. It wasn’t always flattering, either. We saw propaganda videos - one depicted Conrad, the blond Dutch Nazi who picks up glass bottles from the park, and a movie featuring Nazis in training who play chess and climb walls. We saw a radio that Jetje from the radio would sing songs making fun of Nazis. She was Jewish and broadcasted from London (where her family had fled from the Netherlands) and contributed to Radio Oranje created by the Dutch government in exile.

They showed printing presses and some underground printing, baby strollers and maternity corsets with hiding places for ration cards. They also had an exhibit on the Dutch in Indonesia and their persecution by the Japanese, and another exhibit on the Woman, life, Freedom movement in Iran which is a current event. After we left the museum we visited an Auschwitz Memorial and passed dozens of stumbling stones. I started photographing them, but there were so many, I gave up. But so many Jews lived in this neighborhood. The stones list the name, birth year, interned, deported, and death date and place. So very sad, but good to be reminded throughout the day of the people who were murdered. We passed the Rembrandt statue close to our hotel and had another grocery store dinner at our hotel.

Wednesday June 3 - last day of vacation
I had never taken a vacation this long before so I was wondering how 16 nights on the ground would feel, but we had been pacing well, and I think resting more in Amsterdam than we had in London so we were both feeling pretty well. If I didn’t have family and rabbits to return home to, I could have stayed longer. This day we took the train to Leiden, primarily to see the Jan Steen exhibit but I wanted to see the town as well, and hoped to see the Pilgrim church and museum. I couldn’t buy tour tickets on my phone. It requested a bank transfer and my bank was naturally not on the list. We started by taking a historic walk through Leiden. We stopped at Morspoort - one of the main surviving entrances to Leiden’s historic city built in 1669. The whole town had a quieter feel than Haarlem and definitely quieter and less smoky than Amsterdam. It was a beautiful morning and comfortable temperatures. From Morspoort we walked to Burcht van Leiden - an 11th century fortification. I was glad my knees let me climb all the stairs. Once we reached the top we read about the historic buildings we could see. Then we visited Rapenburg and the outside of Pieterskerk - it was still too early for it to be open but I took pictures of the plaques outside. After that we had time to walk to Museum De Lakenhal and arrived just minutes after they opened. We quickly made it to the special Jan Steen exhibit. There were a few people at the beginning of the exhibit but then I decided we should just go to the end where people hadn’t gotten to yet, and that turned out to be a good idea. Happily, we saw two versions of the Feast of St Nicholas which I loved, naughty children trying to teach a cat to dance, The Severe Teacher, The Merry Family (but perhaps too undisciplined), and others. Really everything was good there and I was really glad we went. There were some works that had notes that they were part of a collection that were placed in Dutch custody after recovering it from Germany post WW2 and they are seeking their rightful owner. After we spent all the time we wanted to in this exhibit (including going back to the favorite paintings again), we explored most of the rest of the museum. They even had a grand piano that had a sign encouraging visitors to play. So I played Bach French Suite number 5 (it had been a recital piece 23 years ago) and that was fun.

Wednesday and Saturday and market days in Leiden so we were fortunate to be able to get kibbeling (battered fried pieces of white fish) and keep it safe from seagulls. While we were waiting for our kibbeling we saw a man’s fish get knocked onto the ground from a seagull. So we walked a little away from the market before eating. Then we were on a mission to find warm stroopwaffels for lunch. We found nice warm-from-the-griddle stroopwaffels to finish our lunch and then walked back to Pieterskerch. I couldn’t get tickets to the Pilgrim Museum Tour in person either but it was OK because they’d still let us visit the museum at 2. So we had a solid hour at Peterskerch, church of the Leiden Pilgrim congregation, but also church of Jan Steen and place of his burial, burial place of the Rembrandt family. The organ is being restored so we heard them work on it but it really was off display with scaffolding and different construction equipment out. There’s a nice plaque from John Robinson, pastor of the English Church in Leyden. The admission to the church includes a nice full color guidebook so I read through that and found all the things in it while Daughter sat for a bit. Then we visited the Pilgrim Museum. Although we didn’t have a tour, the man who let us in talked quite awhile to us about the history of the Pilgrims and tried to find my Pilgrim ancestor on the map of houses from the Pilgrims but it hasn’t been identified. There were nice tiles, bones that were used for games, their Bibles, and an original piece of furniture from Plymouth colony. It’s a very small museum and we were familiar with the history but it was still nice to see. As we walked back to the train station we saw a pretty windmill and got some pictures, finally got to the train station to go back to Amsterdam around 3.
That evening we had reservations at the Seafood Bar I made long before our trip, but lunch was pretty filling and we didn’t feel like a 5 p.m. dinner. After cancelling it, we thought maybe we should go later because it was sad to cancel. They had openings at 7 so we decided to have a nice farewell to Amsterdam dinner. We had squid for the first time, we split a mix of shell fish and fish, sweet potato fries and still had dessert. I had chocolate dessert and Daughter had lemon creme brulee. I was surprised when she told me that she hadn’t ever had creme brulee before but it was really good. Then we walked back to our hotel for our final night in Europe.

Thursday June 4
We were thankful it was very light out for our walk to the train station then had a hard time finding our platform, as did many other people. Then a man told us this other train (that we weren’t aiming for) would also stop at the airport so we took it. I had arranged an appointment to go through security, but when we arrived, there was no real line anyway. I think we got to our gate from the train within an hour. I had some confusion about not being able to tap out with our ticket but we went to the NS train desk and she said we were fine, just go fly. I had a message from American Airlines asking if I was willing to give up my seat for flight credit so I asked about that, but they didn’t need it. I thought with our long layover we could probably afford to shorten that. In the end, we arrived in Philadelphia but they didn’t have our gate put into the computer correctly. We walked quite a bit to get to the supposed gate, then after a couple of hours they said it was another gate, then another one. But the point is, eventually we got on our flight and my husband met us in the parking garage. The main disappointment was finding out I had lost my US SIM card somewhere on vacation so I couldn’t get my US phone number. Daughter never switched her SIM card so she could text and my wifi went in and out. Eventually we got home, around 10:30 p.m., and the kids had taken out all the rabbits on chairs to see us. It was good to see everyone!

What a wonderful Trip Report, pbscd! I really enjoyed reading it, although I'm going to have to go back and read it in more detail. I kind of skimmed through it because I'm in a rush to get dinner on, but I did want to just mention the few things I found that I really enjoyed. First, I love that you saw Oliver. That's one of my favorite musicals, and "Who Will Buy" is one of the most beautiful songs ever. It always just gives me the shivers when I listen to it. Ripe, strawberry ripe! .... Okay, it's in my head now, lol!

And what a nice thing for the Premier Inn staff to do. I will admit that if I hadn't read it with my own eyes, I don't think I would have believed it. I mean, they're nice and everything, but I don't think I've ever seen them do anything like that, so that was pretty great of them. I'm glad you got to eat something AND coffee!