Spent the morning on a canal boat cruise and city tour which was very enjoyable. The houses along the myriad of canals in Amsterdam are all very similar but they look really beautiful. Some of them are leaning because they are built on reclaimed land but they look really cute. After a brief tour of the city, we stopped in a flower market and had some free time. The main thing you need to watch out for are the cyclists which they call killer bikes as they have ...

We left Paris in the morning to catch the Thalys train - a high speed train- that does the journey from Paris to Amsterdam in about 3 1/2 hours. I think it is about 6 hours by bus. It is a very comfortable way to travel and would definitely recommend it. We board the boat today, but our cabins are not ready until later in the afternoon so we visited the National Maritime Museum and learnt a little about the history of sailing in The Netherlands. We boarded th...