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Sunday 13th April 2014
Well the day has finally arrived when we join our Rhine Cruise, first we have the morning to enjoy a little more of Amsterdam, another sunny day a bit cooler but my warm coat takes care of that.
We have tickets for the Vincent Van Gogh Museum, on the way is Coster Diamonds that have show rooms and their own museum on how and where diamonds are found, produced and polished. Big mistake on going in!! We are now more knowledgeable about diamonds and how they are valued plus, I am the proud owner of a shiny pair of diamond earrings!! Bill was anxious to move on not sure why maybe he wants to see the Van Gogh paintings!!
Now we are later, there are queues and we have to wait, even though we have pre-bought tickets,
It was worth the wait though, a terrific display of Van Gogh's paintings and information of his life. He was born in 1853, decided to become a painter in 1880 and died in 1890 at aged 47. He had a troubled life and even committed himself voluntarily for 3 years during his painting years. The way the paintings are laid out shows how his style, colour and ability developed over the 10 period of his painting career. What I found particularly amazing was the amount of work he produced.
Time for lunch, walk back to the hotel to collect our cases, organise a taxi and we're on our way to the Rhine Cruise boat.
As we neared the gangplank staff from the cruise ship raced forward to help, welcoming us aboard and showing us to our home for the next 2 weeks. The cabin is a lot bigger than I thought it would be, has plenty of storage and our unpacked cases fitted under the queen sized comfortable looking bed with ease. We have a large full length opening window to view the passing scenery and well appointed en-suite, I think this will be very comfortable.
At 6.30pm we are all invited to join the captain Leo Gerdes and Cruise Director Arno Primig in the main lounge area for a welcome and safety briefing. Both were amusing while getting their points across. The boat in general is quite luxurious, spotlessly clean and tastefully decorated, while all the uniformed staff are extremely helpful, think we might enjoy this life style for the next 2 weeks.
A sumptuous dinner was served at 7.00pm, we sat at a table with people from Adelaide, Melbourne and Queensland, everyone we've spoken to so far have been Australian, quite nice after struggling with different languages for the last week or so.
The picture is of our ship MS Amadante.
Chat again soon.
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