Day 12 ... highlights country-side bike tour and a small cafe in Nieuwendammerdijk

... today, again through Yellow Bike Tours, we went on a 4-hour bike ride through the Dutch countryside of North Amsterdam, which ended up being 5 hours and every minute of it was breathtaking and a great time - this tour is well worth the cost. We rode through three small - oh, so quaint - villages, through a rainshower, and to one of the best little cafes I've ever had the pleasure of acquainting.

Initially, we were supposed to stop at a cafe in the first village but because of the rainshower all the folks that were there ran inside for cover - and, to be inside you have to order a meal so by the time we arrived that first cafe was full and there were 30 orders ahead of us. Our guide decided we'd carry on and if we found another cafe we would stop for a pint (or 2 ... or 24 ... as he put it ) ... or we would just arrive back and end early. We did happen upon the Cafe t' Sluisje in Nieuwendammerdijk ... they were super busy but indicated they would be able to accommodate our group. I marveled at the abilities of Simone our waitress whose ability to multi-task was simply amazing. The three of us ended up having the best kersen kwarktaart (cherry cheesecake) - truly the best cherry cheesecake I've ever eaten in my life, not even exaggerating! Sabine was thrilled ... we each had a piece and it took a lot of willpower not to have a second piece .

We also went on a Holland International 4-course canal dinner cruise, the food was amazing and the canal cruise (which lasted 2.5 hours) was much more indepth and we got to see so much more than the one hour cruise the day before - highly recommend this one. Unfortunate part of this was that Beanie had to skip the whole meal (including dessert) because they could not guarantee that any part of the meal had not been exposed to peanuts or almonds ... but you know our Beanie - she is such an easy going gal she just had apple juice and indicated she'd just finish off the gingerbread once we got back to our temporary abode ... gotta love that gal ...

We ended up renting three yellow bikes for the duration of our stay in Amsterdam ... looking forward to getting around to much more sights and visiting Cafe j' Sluisje at least one more time (for a meal and more kersen kwarktaart )!

Today's photo [taken during the dinner cruise @ dusk]: "The Amsterdam" ship ... this is a replica - the original sunk over 100 years ago on a run to England. The original took 8 months to build ... the replica took 6 years ... hmmmmmm, go figure?

P.S. I was really tempted to throw in a pic of Beanie eating her cherry cheesecake - it's a keeper ...

P.P.S. I almost posted a photo of Sabine and her Dad posing for a picture on a drawbridge in one of the small villages ... folks have been asking me if he's still with us or have I thrown him into a canal ... rest assured folks he's still here he's just not that interested in public messaging or blogging ...

Prost! - RGR

P.P.S.S. I was also thinking I should keep tabs on my liquour consumption while on vay-cay [could be an interesting part of the diary] ... while I still remember ... perhaps I should back it up and put a section in each day's Blog entitled "Liquour Consumption" and list what and how much of "what" I consumed ... but ... NAH!