Euro Treasure

Drawing comparisons is always tempting when travelling. A few days ago we were invited for dinner to the home of some old family friends in Amsterdam. They live in one of those gorgeous tall skinny canal houses filled with antiques, books, subtle lighting and the smell of delicious food. Being collectors of many things is no problem for them as they have five floors and lots of glass fronted cabinetry. I was struck with a serious bout of display space envy. In fact so struck was I that I forgot to take any photos, until the dessert was served, a mega rich chocolate mousse served in this lovely old pâté terrine with tastiest meringues ever. Mmmmm...

Over dinner we got to talking about old stuff generally, and in particular artefacts dug up during building. There was I thinking my old shoe discussed earlier was pretty special. Well, you can imagine what surfaces when you excavate the basement of a 400 year old canal house. Delft tiles, of course, but when these guys pulled out their floor in the 70's they dug up human skeletons, and have the skulls perched around the house to prove it. These days even they would probably feel the obligation to tell someone, but in 1976? No way!

Our travels have turned decidedly less glamorous since then, with a hotel in Brugge that looked charming on the net but ended up being almost on top of the bus terminal. I guess that is our obligatory (Belgian) rough to go with the (Dutch) smooth.

Well I'll be (Amster)dammed

Far from wanting to morph into a travel blog for the next six weeks ('here, look at my fascinating travel snaps'), the fact that we are a family on the road will mean that any posts for a while will be foreign-influenced and probably iPhone generated. At least they will be short.

The last time I was in Amsterdam I had a pretty good time. Let's just day the sort of good time that a pair of cranky jet lagged ten and twelve year olds being towed around in the rain don't facilitate.

We did however manage to squeeze into today a museum, beer in a gorgeous original very old bar and visit the sobering Anne Frank Huise. It was all good but the beer was definitely the highlight.

It is so refreshing to be somewhere where the patina of time is given the respect it deserves. I'm rejoicing in the glorious yet understated style that you only get in mainland northern continental Europe. That old combo of historical architecture and cutting edge contemporary design does it for me every time.

And then there's the bricks. (I can see a bit of a blog theme emerging here). Beautiful, teeny, clay bricks laid with a craftsman's precision 400 years ago abound. A wonder what our brickie would have made of that brief!