Anne Frank House & Embarkment Day

Today (Friday) we get to board the ship, but first we are going to do a little more exploring.

We woke up to a grey start to the day and rain predicted for later in the day. We packed and put our bags out to be transferred to the ship. Since we couldn’t get on right away we had pre-purchased tickets to the Anne Frank Huis (house).  We had the pre-tour presentation of the story of Anne Frank and the history.  Such a sad story, but one we should never forget.  Mom and I re-read/listen the book before we left so that our memories could be fresh when we visited.  If you haven’t read it since Jr high or high school, I highly recommend give a read again. It’s great as an Audible since every diary entry is a chapter, so it’s easy to listen in short spans. Better yet, if you have a child that is reading for school, read with them and discuss the events and compare them to what is going on today in our world. I vaguely remember reading the book in school, but of course reading it again now, you have a different perspective and appreciation of her writings and how lucky we are to have them.

The house they lived in with the (other people) was so small. The sacrifice they made to keep their family alive and together along with the other people that kept them safe was amazing. It was heartening to see people of all ages wanting to come and see and experience this living history. Out of respect of people who might be visiting the house, no pictures were aloud and unfortunately, the front of the house was having worked done. I highly recommend if you are in Amsterdam, to get ticket and the pre-tour introduction.

For the last stop for the day, we just “walked by” the Rijksmuseum, which the building itself is very impressive.  It looks like a palace, but it was build as a museum and opened in 1885.  The museum is the home of the Old Dutch Masters like Rembrandt, Frank Hals and Johannes Vermer. If I have a chance to go back to Amsterdam one day, I would love to go inside and look around.

Trying to beat the rain, we ended our time exploring Amsterdam. We took the underground metro back to where we were boarding the boat and was able to get to our room and our bags arrived safely. We settled in and explored our new home for the next week.

13,677 Steps 6.50 Miles