This morning we were up and out of bed early, we left the house before 7 and walked to Centraal Station. We caught the train to the airport to meet Frank, a colleague of our friend, Craig. They are in the flower import/export business and Frank was to give us a tour of the auctions at Aalsmeer. I wasn't sure my text messages were getting through and we were standing wondering if the guy in the apricot shirt was him, turns out it was. He was a lovely man and quickly whisked us away from the airport to the centre of the flower business in Aalsmeer.
The first thing you notice when you walk into the big processing area is the sweet smell . It is the most aromatic market you will ever go to. The air is cooler as you walk in and then you see the mad movement of traffic on the floor. We were up on a catwalk area watching all the action down below. It is like ants moving sugar. A guy in a small pallet moving type machine reverses into and hooks up a trolley carrying flowers to be delivered to a buyer. They rush around in all directions, dropping flowers into the right bays, leaving dockets and then going back and doing it all again. It is crazy to watch, and a lot of fun. There are hundreds of these on a busy day. Frank filled us in on all the workings of the business and took us trough the various stages.
He then took us over to his company's operation where we had coffee before going down onto the floor and seeing all the different flowers they had imported, ready to be sold. We even saw some of the wax flowers Craig had exported. It was a pretty cool (and cold 4c) thing to see.
Frank generously took us back to the airport where we caught the train back to the city, it only takes about 10 minutes .
You can do the flower tour as a tourist, but we certainly had an in depth and personal guide and learnt much more.
We walked back to the library where we had been the day before, but this time went all the way to the top floor where they have a beautiful cafe with great fresh foods for lunch and lots of other delicious treats, which is what we had. A couple of tarts and coffees as we looked over the city. These are some of the best views, in the top of the free public library. You can also go to the top of MENO, the science museum.
We went back to our boat for a little while. We had booked a boat tour with Those Dam Boat Guys for 4pm. Fortunately, we decided to give ourselves a couple of hours wandering time to get there. We hadn't read the map properly. We knew the tour started near the Anne Frank House, but the map was showing a "soul sight" Anne Frank in the outskirts of the city. At 3.15 I looked at my map and saw where the Anne Frank House really was and we started back, quickly, trying to work out where we were and where we needed to be .
Hot and sweaty and a little bit tetchy, we made it a 4 o'clock. The tour guide was there and fortunately there was a bottle shop next door. The instructions on the email said "bring all your clothes" (it will be cold) and "bring all your wine". We grabbed a bottle of wine and headed to the boat.
There were three people from the US, one from Georgia, one from Austria, one from Rotterdam and us. Our guide, Geoff was a Canadian expat. The tour was entertaining and informative. It was great to see the city from the water and hear tales of how the houses were built and see the crazy angles they sit at. We went past our barge, which was cool. The barges were brought into the canals as homes after the war to cope with the influx of immigrants. They were basic homes with no services and were meant as a short term measure. But, the people loved them and they stayed, but now with services.
We hadn't made any plans for dinner, so went searching in the tourist area, which is never a good idea. We stopped at a tiny little Italian place and when we walked in we realised we were the only people. It was run by a young couple, she was actually sitting eating her dinner. We ordered a pasta dish each. It was ok, they were very happy to have us there and were very sweet.
We had a waffle on the way home They are everywhere, so we had to try one!


Steps 25,439
Kms walked 19.4