Our last morning in Paris, another lovely blue sky morning, we certainly cannot complain about the weather we have had over the last 6 weeks. A bit chilly at times and we have had one whole day of rain other days a shower or two, mostly it has been fine - I told everyone we would take some sunshine with us!!

We packed and after breakfast arranged to meet up with Maris, John, Sheila and Sharon in the cafe next door to our hotel for a final chat before we catch a taxi to Gard de Nord the huge station in Paris that has trains going to all parts of Europe. Sad saying our goodbyes but no time to linger the taxi was double parked with a line of cars behind all tooting!!

It only took 20 minutes to get to the station and the taxi driver soon had us unloaded and we stood for a moment to catch our breath and get our bearings. It's a vast area with people going every which way like ants and rows of train lines, some with trains all have big numbers identifying which line it is. I asked at the info desk and from the broken English managed to understand that you stood either side of the huge lit up board that listed all the trains and 20 minutes before your train was due to depart that important big number above the train line would appear against your listed train.

It was fascinating watching everyone standing with their cases and bags as we were, all staring up at the big board waiting for their number to appear, then scurrying off to the waiting train. It all works very efficiently and within 10 minutes of our number appearing we were sat comfortably in our first class seats to await our 12.21pm departure.

The 3 hour 15 minute train trip from Paris to Amsterdam was really quick, we were served a lunch and afternoon tea, a bit like being in airline seats but you had double the space. We stoped briefly at Brussel's, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Schiphol and finally Amsterdam Central station. The scenery along the way was interesting especially seeing the vast green houses in countryside holland, they were as big as fields.

We hopped into another taxi to arrive at our hotel Best Western Apollo Museum well before 4.00pm. Great location next door to Van Gogh and the Rijks museums and 2 minutes from a busy little restaurant area. The hotel was a good choice and quite luxurious comfortable rooms, staff couldn't help enough, good value.

We set out walking to explore a little, we soon found a laundry to get our washing up to date before joining our river cruise in Sunday. We hopped onto a tram taking us into the central part of the city, Dam Square. Lots of people and bikes everywhere. It seems everyone rides a bike from tots to 90 year olds, they're everywhere and you really have to watch in all directions when walking. They have multi storey bike parks where we have multi storey car parks.

We returned by tram to the restaurant area near our hotel to have dinner before having a well needed early night.

The picture is a typical canal scene in Amsterdam, note the blue sky again!!

Chat again soon.