28 December 2025
Time for some more fun things in Amsterdam. The first plan was to just use Bolt to get us there, so I didn’t have to drive in the city. That quickly changed to us just simply booking parking near Amsterdam’s rather impressive-looking Central Station, and driving ourselves.
First up – Johan Cruijff Arena – the best soccer experience I could find short of watching an actual soccer match. So you get to go into the players’ changing rooms, enter out onto the pitch as the players would, and sit in the players seats, as well as see the press room. Jean loved it, of course, but was slightly irritated with the fan shop that didn’t have quite the array of merchandise he was hoping for.
Next up (after some Bitterballen, of course!) – Madame Tussauds. Here Jean insisted to have his photo taken with every single wax figure. (Don’t worry – I’ll only post a few ;))
After some shopping, Poffertjes, and an early supper (Bitterballen – what else??), we took a canal tour to see the Amsterdam Light Festival. Every year, Amsterdam has this light festival, with light art installation with a specific theme. This year (Edition 14), the theme is ‘Legacy’. Inviting us to really think about what the legacy is that we leave behind. In a way, that’s what this whole trip was all about.
Amsterdam, as Paris, is excessively busy. Even ‘excessively’ is not quite strong enough a word to describe the masses of people. It is clear that the city struggles to cope. We watched a young lady park her garbage truck, and having to empty some bins. Almost every bin I saw, was overflowing, And trying to get onto a tram was near impossible. To the frustration of the tram staff, who we heard shouting at people to ‘move forward, people, it’s not that difficult!!’
Tomorrow is our last day, and we are excited for what we have planned 🙂
