Our last day in Amsterdam. We walked to the Anne Frank house Museum, and hooray hardly any queue. We have checked it out every day and the queues have been horrendous. We thought we might have to miss it. I am so glad that we went though. It was very moving indeed. We were able to see the secret annexe and all the rooms where the 8 people hid for several years. We saw Anne Franks real diary or diaries, she wrote several. We watched several short films with interviews with the people who helped hide them andtghe lady who had cared for them and had saved the diaries. a Anne’s father who survived returned in the 1950’s to the house and he helped to set up the museum and publish her diary. The secret entrance behind the bookcase, the room where Anne lived and decorated the walls with posters and postcards, some of which are still there.

We then went to the floating flower market on Singel. There are many shops selling tulip and other bulbs as well as fresh flowers.

We did a lot of walking today. We saw the narrowest house, barely wider than the front door. The reason so many of the old houses are so narrow is the tax that was imposed based on the width of the house, so the houses were as narrow as possible to pay less tax.

We visited a cheese shop and tasted some of the hundreds of cheeses on offer. The variety, shapes and colours amazed us.

We wanted to go and see the Old Church which dates back to the 12th century and is the oldest church in the Netherlands but it was closed today. Instead we visited St Nicholas church.

We also visited the hidden church. It was a Catholic church during the time of the Reformation when you weren’t allowed to be a Catholic. The church was hidden, a bit like Anne Frank’s house, behind another dwelling and reached by a secret staircase.

We went for a walk through the VondelPark Amsterdam’s equivalent to Central Park NY. It is very picturesque. It has many lakes and waterways and a large rose garden. Today was the sunniest day since we’ve been here so the park was full of people enjoying a lovely sunny day.

I took a lot of photos today of the stone tablets that adorn the entrances to a lot of the old houses. The stone tablet is in picture form and most are dated in the 1500’s and 1600’s when few people could read and write so a picture tablet told visitors what your business was.