Up bright and early it's a continental breakfast of salami, edan knobbly knees, rusks, OJ & coffee. As we're staying in the Museum Quarter, it would be rude not to visit the Van Gogh Museum - free to locals but 15 Euros to the great unwashed....that'll be me then. Grant got in free after I lied about his age....tut tut. That said it was a very interesting museum with a large collection and the history of how Van Gogh attained his style. Looks like it was hard work and would have driven me mad as well. We spent about 2 hours there and it was well worth it...recommended to all you culture vultures out there.

We then spent quite a lot of time walking around the city, we went to the flower market ...mostly selling bulbs at this time of year. We also attended the Flea Market, which was a bit grubby but I'm pleaased to report we didnt take any fleas away with us......well hopefully not.

We must have walked all over this interesting city...and in the end we hobbled back to the hotel. We jumped into the tiny hotel lift to avoid climbing the stairs......only to have the joy of the lift stopping in between floors and refusing to budge.......claustrophobia anyone? Several large helpings were delivered to me during that that sweaty 5 minutes. Eventually the hotel management got it working. Seriously no fun.

Later we headed into a very wet downtown Amsterdam and it was totally unlike the previous night. Absolutely quiet...all the conferences & delegates had hot footed it out of town. So we headed back to the hotel......except we went way out and ended up in the residential part of Amsterdam.......luckily a young lady on a bike put us on the right path and 40 minutes laterwe'd made it back home. Amsterdam seems to be a safe place late at night as there's plenty of people cycling alone...and happy to stop and help the lost idiots.

I awoke early this am after having a nightmare about being stuck in a tiny lift. Fun.