Amsterdam and area - Day 10

We arrived in Amsterdam in the afternoon and took a shuttle to our hotel in Hoofdoorp, planning to get a car to rent for the next day, our last day before returning home.

According to Google, there was a Sixt car rental office not far from the hotel, so we wasted some time riding there and waiting in line, listening to what sounded like a heated argument/negotiation between a customer and the desk clerk. They ended by striking a deal and shaking hands quite amicably, so maybe the conversation was friendlier than it seemed.

When it was our turn, the clerk listened to what we wanted and said, "Oh yes, I have ___" only to find out that he didn't really have it. This happened about 3 times, and we finally gave up, deciding to take the shuttle back to the airport and pick up a car there.

This turned out to be a good idea, and we ended up with a Ford Puma, a small SUV, which had an automatic transmission and lots of room for our bikes, as well as an almost magically good GPS system.

When we told the woman at the rental desk about what we wanted to do, she made some additional suggestions, so we were quite excited to set out the next morning.

First on our agenda was Edam and the last cheese market of the season. This was about 35 minutes east of where we were staying, and there was a large parking lot on the edge of town where we left the car, and then we rode our bikes to the downtown area. 

Being a little early, we had some time to ride around a bit and even stop into an old church, de Grote Kerk. I have learned that almost every town in Holland has one of these churches, and they are all amazing in their own way. This one had some beautiful stained glass windows from the early 1600s. 

"Edam Grote Kerk 05" by Hnapel is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

The cheese market was situated in the centre of the town, along a canal, amidst these wonderful old buildings.

There were a lot of people dressed in traditional clothing, and there were speeches, some kind of ceremonial weighing, and then a process of loading the boats with the rounds of cheese.

It's true that it might have been more interesting if we'd been able to understand everything, but we felt like we got the general idea just by observing.

After this, how could we not have lunch in a pub that served a cheese board?

One of the canal bridges

After lunch, we set out again, heading west to Zaanse Schans. This is a very touristy place to see lots of Dutch windmills. I've been to Kinderdijk, which is more natural and less commercialized, and I've also seen lots of one-off windmills in Dutch towns, but this place was also charming. 

The windmills are nicely painted and set just off a street of older homes and shops, many of which are painted green. We started off on the shopping side of the canal and walked to the end. 

Then we went back to get our bikes and rode across the bridge to an area that was more residential. We rode around in this area for about an hour, exploring the nooks and crannies, and then decided it was time to head west again, this time to the beach at Zandvoort. The town was quite busy and it took a bit of time to find a place to park, but we finally found an underground parking spot and then rode our bikes down to the beach.

Holland might not be the first place you think of when you think about beaches, but in my opinion, their beaches are first-rate. 

The sand is fine and clean, and the beach seems to go on forever.

The weather was gorgeous, and we enjoyed swimming and relaxing for a couple of hours. 

One of the highlights of this beach visit was the place we changed afterwards. When we first arrived we didn't know about this service, so we just changed in the public washrooms, but when we were ready to go we noticed people going to a sort of shop/tent/hut type structure. There was a woman selling new-age-type things (crystals, oils, etc.) but she also had changing rooms. For a couple of euro, you could use the washroom and a changing cubicle. It sounds really sketchy, but somehow it wasn't. Everything was clean and nicely maintained and we were very grateful to have found it.

By now it was time for dinner, so I used Google Maps to find this wonderful Indonesian restaurant, "Toko Bintang". The food was delicious, and as we ate, we listened to people, obviously locals, coming in for their takeaways and exchanging conversation.

I noticed that as they left, most of the people said, "Eet smakelijk" ("enjoy your meal"). I recognized this phrase from my Duolingo Dutch lessons, but it also rang another bell somewhere in my mind. Then I remembered that when we watched the Rick Steves video about the Netherlands, he mentioned that it is a common Dutch custom to say this as you leave a restaurant. So, when we were ready to leave, I casually said this to a diner as we passed.

Last day in Europe:

Our flight was scheduled for late afternoon of the next day. We drove to the airport, where we returned the car and checked our large bike bags. It would have been nice to keep the bikes with us, but it was easier to be unencumbered, as we wanted to do a little more sightseeing.

We took a train to Leiden. We had been here before, on New Year's Day in 2019. That day everything was closed and there was debris from fireworks everywhere.

We walked around the town a bit and when we came upon this windmill museum, we decided to go inside. This was interesting, as it showed how the windmill operates and gave some history of the town.

I liked this white goose -- it is real, not a plastic lawn ornament!

All too soon, it was time to get back on the train and return to the airport and real life. I always feel like I am in a dream world when I visit Holland -- where else are bikes given such priority and where else is everything so neat and orderly? 

Tot ziens!

Casablanca

Since I was about 19, I have dreamed of travelling to Morocco. And here we are in Casablanca. We booked our hotel, the Best Western Hotel Toubkal, using air miles. The hotel is quite close to a train station, so we thought we could take the train from the airport. However, it was after 10:00 p.m. when we arrived, and when we got to the train station, we saw that the next train wouldn’t be for about an hour.

We decided to fork out and take a taxi. Expensive, but so much faster, and of course easier than taking our bags on the train.

The hotel is nice, although since I requested a non-smoking room, I was a bit surprised to see an ashtray on the desk. We noticed that rooms on the floor below say “no smoking room” on the doors, so I think they made a mistake.

Breakfast was excellent, with some of the freshest, most delicious bread and rolls I’ve ever eaten, great coffee, boiled eggs, cheese, meat, yogurt, oranges, mint tea, and some sausages that I didn’t taste but Dave said were really good.

After breakfast, we set out to explore. One of the main sights in Casablanca is the biggest mosque in Africa, set right on the Atlantic. On Google Maps it looks like it would be a nice walk along the coast to the mosque, so we headed west to the ocean. Instead of arriving at a nice walkway along the ocean, we came to a massive construction site. The road and everything else in that area is boarded off, broken up and torn apart. 
So, we took the high road instead. We did stumble upon Rick's Cafe, which was so completely nondescript and faceless that we didn't even take a photo. It was almost literally a hole in the wall.

The ocean, when we finally were able to see it, was magnificent. It was low tide and we saw quite a few people wading in the tide pools. Some of them were collecting something; we couldn't tell what.

The mosque is impressive. Huge. Modern. Elegant. My photos don't do it justice. They also don't show just how close the mosque is to the water.

 

By this time, we were about ready for lunch, so we used Google Maps to search for nearby restaurants. It directed us to one further up the coast, a relatively pleasant walk through a sort of park/walkway, which was under construction. When we arrived at the spot where the restaurant was supposed to be, we saw -- nothing. Except more construction.

A taxi came along, so we decided to get a ride back to the train station near our hotel. 

Once there, we had a tasty lunch at "Restaurant les fleurs".

Dave had a lamb tagine, and I had chicken couscous, served with whole wheat Moroccan bread. Everything was delicious. 

This photo of Restaurant Les Fleurs is courtesy of TripAdvisor

After lunch, we were ready for more exploring and decided to check out the old medina, which we had passed through unawares on our way to the mosque. This time we paid more attention.

There were orange vendors...

narrow alleys...

... and cats.

These women were heading for the shopping area...

... and these women were getting water from a public fountain. 

We meandered through the market, enjoying the sights, but not buying anything, until it started getting dark and time to head back to our hotel. Actually I did buy 2 postcards.