We started out in Holland, and I'd like to add some of the Dutch photos to the post mentioned above. We began in Bolsward, Anne's home town.
Jop and Hanna: Our Hosts in Bolsward
Siska and Molly Exploring Bolsard
Rudi and Anne at Anne's Home in Bolsward
Anne's Nieces and Nephew
Cool Pete
Dirk and Rudi at Rudi's Wedding---sorry, this one is sideways!
Rudi, Anne and Their 'Get-Away' Car
Reception at the Doule Restaurant
Now we move to our day in Amsterdam with Siska, and our friends Mike and Carrie.
This is the Reich's Museum (probably didn't spell this right), which showcased several famous Dutch painters, including Rembrandt, Durer and Vermeer.
This pic turned out a little fuzzy, but it's fun because it gives you an idea what it looks like in real life instead of in an art book.
After Holland, we flew to Italy and took a train to Florence. The train was more or less a local one, and stopped at every station on the way to pick up and drop off. In Bologna we stopped for a long time, announcements were made in Italian over the loudspeaker, and not knowing what was going on, we tried asking the man next to us what was wrong. He didn't speak English, Dutch or Spanish so we waited. People were poring off the train, walking around the station. Looked like we were stuck for a while. Dirk finally found someone who spoke English and apparently there was a small riot going on in Florence over a rigged game in the World Cup, and the people were keeping any trains from coming or going at the Florence station. So we waited. And waited. The another announcement came over the loudspeaker, again in Italian. Everybody began running, away from the train, and so I picked up our bags and started running with them. Dirk caught up and told me that a train was leaving Bologna right now for Florence, but one on the other end of the station. We barely made it on the train. So many people were stuck in Bologna trying to get on this train that people were almost piled on each other out in the hallways. We arrived at Florence eventually, at about midnight, at which time our hostel had closed. Fortunately, a kind soul had posted a sign for us to call a cell phone number of someone with a key. We were very happy to see our beds.
We stayed a few days in Florence, and I have to say, it was beautiful. It was definitely tourist season, but it was so much smaller than Rome and so much more sane. Our hostel room was very clean and we had a beautiful and CLEAN bathroom. Thank goodness!
We walked all through Florence and we found a little bake shop to have breakfast in. It was lovely, and the most memorable breakfast on our trip.
The duomo, or big church, of Florence was very unique in that the outside stonework was white and green. Yes, green. I've never seen anything like it, but it was gorgeous!
Florence had some very picturesque bridges. I believe this is a pic of the bridge over the Arno river.
There was a plaza in Florence that was circled by several famous sculptures. The David, Rape of the Sabine Women, Jason killing Medusa, and one of Poseidon, to mention a few. Here's Dirk with David in the background. This really gives you no idea of the scale of this statue---it's absolutely huge! But for the sake of getting all of David in the pic with Dirk, I put David far in the background.
