A Little Bit of This and a Little Bit of That . .: Bike Barge Trip - Amsterdam - August 2015

Bike Barge trip from Amsterdam to Amsterdam - Day 0 & 1

We left our home on the 5th and drove to JFK with our son. Our daughter was supposed to meet us there but her flight was delayed and eventually rerouted to Boston to London and from there to Amsterdam. We flew via Reykjavik. Our flights were on time and we arrived to Amsterdam at the time we were supposed to. Laura's flight from London was over an hour later. We ended up waiting for her at the baggage claim for 2 hours but eventually we met there. We took the train to Central Station and from there it was a short walk to our hotel.

Our hotel, Grand Hotel Amrath, had upgraded our room to a suite. And wow what a suite it is. It was called the Oriental Suite. When we opened the door we had a staircase to climb, and then another. Up we went and ended up in a sort of a living room with an open bathroom up few more stairs. The bathroom was luxorius but it was in the middle of a living room. At least the toilet part was behind a wall. Couple more steps up and there was the bedroom with an additional sitting area. From there through French doors to a rooftop balcony with a table and chairs. It was also open to the rest of the roof with wonderful 360 degree views of Amsterdam. The only drawback about this suite, other than the open bathroom is that there were not really any comfortable chairs to sit on. But at least the bar was fully stocked and free. The kids got a regular hotel room, might have been the same one we had when we stayed here the last time.

After settling in we went to the Nieuw Markt area and had dinner at the same restaurant we ate last time, Cafe Piazza. The food is really good there and we got an outside table. We walked around a little bit and then came back to the hotel and had a drink on the roof top. Everyone was exhausted from the long trip and sleepless night at the airplanes.