Ev's Georgick's Travel Blog

Steps taken:
1. Taxi from the hotel to the Liverpool train station. So far so good!
2. Take a train to the Port at Harwich where our ferry was waiting for us. One train was to take us all the way, but a mudslide over the tracks required us to get off the train at Colchester and immediately…
3. Hop a double decker bus. Wish it was light out so we could have seen the countryside, but it was still neat, nonetheless, passing, as we did, through these small towns, rounding their squares and suddenly coming upon an old church, probably centuries old, all lit up, before plunging back into near darkness and the occasional reflection of some unknown critter’s eyes watching us from the fields as we rumbled by in the night. [wooo weeee, how about that for a run on sentence?]

4. Ferry over to the Hook of Holland. The boat that took us across the channel was much larger than I was expecting. It was always referred to as a ferry, so I had more in mind our puget sound ferries that transport people and automobiles. The Stena Hollandica was actually a full sized shipping vessel, transporting plenty of freight as well as passengers, cars, trucks and semis. It had several decks fitted out with nice sleeping cabins.
5. Once at the port in Holland we had to pass through customs. The agents were a couple of spry, young, near vikings who, in addition to stamping our passports, wanted to see at least one credit card. I don’t ever remember having to do that in my travels before, and since we asked, they explained they wanted to confirm that everyone entering the country had some visible means of support. From here we grabbed the local train that stopped at the port.
6. The local train took us closer, but not all the way into Amsterdam so we had to jump off, I forget where, and transfer. Unfortunately, the train we were supposed to catch never comes (service cancelled due to some station issues, flooding? fire?). This necessitated relocating to yet another track. Where we had to catch a train that still only takes us partway to our destination.

7. Transfer and connect to the train that will finally bring us into Amsterdam. Once at the central station, we discover we still need to wait an hour for the Tourist Center to open at 11am. We pre-purchased transportation cards and museum entrance passes, and needed to pick them up here. Signs to the tourist office were confusing. Go both left or right.
8. Haul our bags and ourselves across the street from the central train station and catch a tram to our hotel, only it doesn’t really go by our hotel and we miss the stop, so we eventually get off.
9. Catch another tram going back the way we came, this time we get off close to our hotel. We can’t check in for another two hours, but we finally made it!

It was certainly fun, but it took longer than it needed to. I counted 9 separate transportation legs to this journey. I was pretty exhausted by the time we finally managed to check into our room.

Various scenes of Amsterdam we saw while riding the Tram past our Hotel
or while we were wandering about waiting for our room to be ready.

Haircut for Ev

Cheese shopping

Natural History Museum

Victoria & Albert Museum

Tate British

Tate Modern

Thames cruise   (short one between the Tates)

National Gallery

British Museum

Tower of London

St. Paul’s Cathedral   (only outside at night)

Pubs and pub fare – always an option

Afternoon Tea – disappointing, must try again

Dr. Martens shoe shopping

Indian Food   (but not Chicken Tikka Masala)

Vinopolis   (horrid)

Westminster   (bussed around it at night only)

-Open air street market shopping   (no time)

– Stonehenge   (not enough time)

London Eye

Jack the Ripper walking tour

Our first night’s accommodations will be our plane seats. They actually don’t look too bad in the picture. Apparently the airline is in the process of installing, throughout their entire passenger fleet, these new, leather upholstered seats with inflight entertainment system, and “maximum width of seats for maximum comfort” (whatever that means). Our cheap seats will have 32 inches of leg room, plenty for me or any of my mother’s kin, everybody else might be out of luck, though. You know, I can stand completely upright on a plane in a window seat and still clear the luggage compartment overhead without needing to duck down. I suspect that all of these pictures of our sleeping spaces, be it plane seat, hotel room, or ferry cabin, apply to the first, business, deluxe, or luxury class models, and not the economy versions that we’ll actually be staying in, therefore, actual size is smaller than depicted. We’ll inquire about upgrading when we check in. It would be worth it if we could snap up better seats for a modest additional fee. Sitting for 7.5 hours is never any fun, additional comforts would be welcome, plus its just plain fun to be offered complementary drinks, an endless supply of peanuts, and real utensils. Yes, another steaming face towel please.

Iceland Air uses WWTE, the World Wide Travel Exchange for their hotel booking engine. Its not connected to their flight reservation system so you have to book those two parts of the trip separately. Not a big deal. You needn’t even go through Iceland Air if you wish, but their site does offer comparable prices to Expedia, Travelcity, Hotels.com, Oribtz, etc. Really they all seem to be within a few pennies of one another, almost as though they were all drilling down into the same database. So both Tamara Georgick and I would browse through the listings on the Iceland Air site. I filtered my searches for a minimum of three out of 5 stars, free internet access and breakfast included (though the last condition not always successfully). The first hotel in Reykjavik (took me forever to remember how to spell that city’s name, but now I’ve got it down cold!) that looked good to Tamara Georgick was the Hotel Bjork. I favored it simply for the name itself. The only word of Icelandic I know is that one, courtesy of that odd singer with self same moniker. It apparently means willow or some such. I think it might be slightly further from the central shopping core, but its a trade-off for being closer to the shore, with views of the water and surrounding landscape. The building exterior is pretty nondescript, but breakfast and broadband internet is complementary. It received a 97% recommendation rating from the Iceland Air site and a 95% recommendation from the TripAdvisor site.

I have no inclination to go on a cruise, so I think this overnight ferry between England and Holland, will be the closest I ever come. The cabins look cute and tidy, and I opted for an outside berth so we can look out the porthole at the water in the middle of the dark night. Since it is an overnighter, it still allows us full days to play in both London and Amsterdam while also enabling us to save a little by avoiding an additional night and expensive hotel stay in either city. I think we leave London around 8pm and get into Amsterdam around 10am. And, hey, maybe the train travel will allow us to take in a little countryside scenery. [Maureen, I’ve already got the train tickets, do you suppose I need to reserve actual seats on the train?] The ferry has free Wi-Fi, so I’m sure I’ll be trying to catch up on my travel blogging then.

I threatened Tamara Georgick with another Best Western Hotel stay in Amsterdam, but instead we are staying at Die Port van Cleve. It is located in the original Heineken brewery building. It looks georgous, outside and in, but the reviews are very mixed. Only 53% recommended it on TripAdvisor, though 78% gave it a thumbs up on the Iceland Air site. One of the negative reviews complained of mice. Tamara Georgick’s counter to that is where there is mice there is surely cheese, so that’s where we are headed. By the way, since it would simplify things immensely, if you want a souvenir from this vacation, know now that it will be cheese. This hotel has free internet access, and although breakfast is not included it is available and looks like a nice spread.