We awoke in our hotel just outside of Luxembourg city, had our traditional Germanish breakfast, cheese and meats. After filling up we headed towards the city. Luxemborg is the last dukedom in the world, the head of state is a Grand Duke. We arrived and parked and then wondered around the old city. A truly wonderful place, very affluent. The old city attained UNESCO status in 1993. The architecture is stunning and certainly the old city has much beauty. We manged to get lost and spend an hour trying to find the Ducial Place. What wasn't great was the rain, it was tearing it down, the first bad weather we had had all holiday. After much consultations with the iphones we found the place with its solitary member of the Luxembourg army on guard. We felt a little sorry for the fella as he had to march up and down to keep warm in the rain - 25 steps each way. After a little research we found out he was one of the 450 people in the Luxembourg army, a very select organisation indeed. Please don't think Luxembourg in languishing in the shadows of history, many banks are based here, another micro state with liberal tax laws. In fact the entire city, the whole of it, has free public access wifi. A totally unrealistic goal for London. So sad to be leaving such an interesting place bit happy to be out of the rain we got back into the car. Sodden but happy we headed for Amsterdam.
We noticed the landscape changing. Where there were once, mountains and hills the Netherlands is very very flat. There were many of the famous windmills of the nation although every attempt at taking a picture of them failed, our photography and the kit available failed us (John just can't point a camera straight - Ryan). We entered Amsterdam with John at the wheel, a complex city with trams and what seemed like a billion bikes challenged his driving prowess. It seems that Amsterdam's bike riders have no fear of life nor limb and many course remarks came from John as he traversed through the city attempting not to hit any of the reckless cyclists. We arrived at our hotel after a swap of drivers, John's nerve being broke. I had no trouble with the cyclists or trams but the hotel's under ground ( and pretty expensive) parking area was a different story. Almost getting the car crushed but the automatic door only quick thinking ( and reversing) saved us from an accident! Once we settled into the room we headed out to the city.
Amsterdam is a pretty liberal place and is shocking to the initiated - like me. Wandering through the streets and next to the canals we saw many eye opening sights. The smell of marijuana is everywhere with the city having one of the most lax laws on the drug in the world. Prostitutes display their wears in glass fronted buildings, they are lit with red and UV light. John claimed this colour combination was a particular alluring mix. The girls, there were only women, wore practically nothing, often just white underwear which caught the UV well. Feeling at little overwhelmed we went for dinner, the thought of getting closer to the prostitutes repelled us as we saw the number of men coming and going. What a different culture. What was funny was that these seedy area's were not just full of lecherousness men, there were the older tourists and couples too. Headed for dinner in a less seedy establishment and found a lovely taste of the Netherlands. Traditional pea soup and meatloaf later we went to a bar sampled the local. A little tip don't be anywhere near the the red light district if u want some booze, two double jds and cokes cost about 28 Euros. Damn expensive. What a fantastic and troubling place indeed, glad to have seen it glad its not just next door. We looked forward to seeing it in the daylight.
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