After a more than 700km drive we arrived in Amsterdam last night. After a delicious group dinner at a Chinese restaurant (such a nice change, it almost feels home-y!) Susan and Kevin took us around the heart of Amsterdam with a carnival, great looking shops, lots of canals and of course the red light district. It was a very interesting place and hard to get my head around the fact that this is a very normal and accepted part of society. The girls pay taxes, are well protected by police and are not shunned or excluded from the community. It's a very legitimate profession here but I still feel saddened by it. It was funny seeing "lady-boys" because most of the time we honestly couldn't tell.

Anyway! We went and had another look at the carnival before heading back to our lovely hotel.

This morning was great as we visited a cheese and clog making farm and fishing village just outside Amsterdam. It's surprising just how soon you hit countryside here and the family (two brothers taught by their grandfather) that runs this farm were very friendly and funny. We were shown how they made both and they are very skilled at clog making and they were beautifully decorated. Oh and the cheese was delicious! The raspberry wine they make was also very good, it tasted like Ribena - yum!

After clogs and cheese, no trip would to the Netherlands would be complete without a windmill so we stopped at a big one on the way to Volendam. It was pretty though!

Volendam is a very cute fishing village with little boats and delicious pancakes. Dutch pancakes are small and puffy which they make in little hot plates with circular indents for the pancakes. It's almost like a madeleines tin but smaller and perfectly round. It warmed us up anyway!

We came back to Amsterdam for lunch to test the contention that the Dutch make the best hot chips and I must admit they were pretty good!

We then visited "Our Lord in the Attic", a 17th Century canal house that contains a "clandestine" church in the attic from a time when Catholics were not allowed to have public churches or worship in public. It was, however, tolerated to practice in private so the owner of this house built a church here for himself and others. It is much bigger than I expected and could fit at least 50 people. It is very well looked after and thankfully we arrived just after they've finished some refurbishment work as they move much of their exhibition pieces out of this building to the one next-door and build a tunnel under the alley between them to connect the two. It was a great insight into not only catholic worship but also everyday life and the homes during the period.

James, Julia and Anthony went on some carnival rides and them we walked the main shopping street again before meeting Clare at Anne Franks's House. Sadly none of the furniture no longer remains as much of it was taken by the Nazis and unfortunately Anne's father didn't want it put back to the way it was when they lived there. Nonetheless it is an informative and moving museum about the Holocaust, the Frank Family and of course Anne and her writing. The saddest thing for me was an interview with Anne's father Frank. He talks about being given the diary by one of those who helped them hide and how it made him feel as he read it. It was just so sad to hear him say with such utter sadness, almost in tears, that he has come to the conclusion no parent truly knows their children.

To end our time in Amsterdam most of us met up for a final dinner together. It was fun but a little sad. Tomorrow we will drive to Paris and catch an evening Eurostar train back to London. It has been an incredibly fast paced tour and I feel as though I've been running on empty for the last few days I am so tired. But we really have had such a wonderful time together and I have made some lovely friends. It will be sad to see them go.