Thursday, June 26, 2014

Wednesday - This was a rest day. We do alot of that - Linda on the sax and me reading. Linda went for a walk and then we walked down to town for an espresso and four really delicious truffels at Jon Mets Chocolate and Wine Cafe. A stop at Erko, our new organic grocery store - tomatoes, sprouts, avocados, and watercress - for dinner. Yes, Frank Adamson, I love watercress too. With that we prepared a light and healthy dinner followed by a Netflix movie - Serendipity. But, before the movie, Jose dropped by to invite Linda to a garden club garden tour on Friday. She also wanted to know how we enjoyed our Amsterdam Garden Tour on Sunday. After she left, Hans came by to suggest we visit Dordrecht. He convinced us.

Thursday - Today's mission was to take the train to Dordrecht. A little research at an Internet site for Netherland's trains and we were ready. It gave a complete story on how to get from Soest to Dordrecht and back again. Turns out its pretty simple: one leg to Utrecht, then to Rotterdam, and then, finally to Dordrecht in 1 1/2 hours. Since we have a special train card that we have loaded with a LOT of bucks, we just swipe at the start and the finish of the trip. It makes things real simple.

Once in Dordrecht, we follow the crowd to Centrum and find a cafe where we can sit outside and have an espresso pick-me-up. Hans had told us to walk around some and then take the boat tour of the city. So, we walked around some and then took the boat tour of the city. That worked out really well. While we were walking around, Linda did a little shopping and found a very Dutch scraf. We both liked it.

Walking down one of the main streets we came upon this perfect sign for my cat loving sister.

The boat tour took us all around the city to see the canals, lots of houses and lots of boats.

 

 







 During the boat tour, we saw a lovely hotel restaurant at the end of a point where one river joined another. We walked back over to it and had a carpaccio dish and a proscuitto salad, french fries, and a glass of wine each. One of the waterways led to Rotterdam, but since our waitress wasn't sure of her geography, we don't know which one it was. Most of the traffic was composed of barges.

It was good fun to see these tugs push two and three long barges around the curve into the other river. 

On the walk back to the train station, we happened by a chocolate cafe and could not pass it by. Nice espresso - I know, 2nd today - and some very nice truffles. We even bought some chocolate to take home. 

Linda found a music store and bought a book of Gershwin sax solo's. Practice, practice, practice.

When we returned to the train station, the train was ready to leave in about 5 minutes. The connections were all close and as easy as the morning travel. We were back home a little after 6:30 which left time for Linda to practice some more before we watched some silly TV.