Today we met our hosts for the first time. (That was Tuesday)

Up till now they had been phantoms, replying to emails and promising to “catch up tomorrow”. Jillis and Cristina are a lovely couple. Jillis, the husband us very tall, very blond, very cheerful and very Dutch. Cristina is Spanish, and a little more reserved. She keeps busy running her own shop just around the corner, and when I asked what she sold, I was a little taken aback when she said “Spanish hemp”. Well, the area has many a coffee shop selling all sorts of magic mushrooms and assorted drugs and seeds, so I suppose she is in the right neighbourhood. I asked whether people smoked Spanish hemp, and she laughed as she explained, “not hemp, hem, as in a peeg”. I suppose smoking a leg of ham is not such an usual concept, but the inhaling might take you somewhere else. When you see some of the kids smoking their joints, it is entirely possible that their hallucinations take them there.

Tuesday saw us hopping on a coach for a tour to the Dutch countryside. The main centres were Volendam and Marken, pretty little seaside places. Well they would have been seaside at some point, but the water is now fresh and the fisherman have had to find other careers.

As I write this, we are on the ICE high speed train to Basel, rocketing along at a cracking pace. Unfortunately our booked seats face backwards and Jenny can’t cope with this and has found a spare seat. The countryside is shrouded in mist, and the trees stand out starkly in their neat, ordered rows. It is the only dull day we have had.

Wednesday was spectacular, clear and sunny, warm, and a perfect day to visit Keukenhof, the famed gardens that celebrate the tulip but are adorned with orchids, hydrangeas and many more. The design and setting is stunning and one can imagine the possibilities for Canberra’s Floriade if it became a permanent arrangement. We spent about three hours there but could easily have spent days, just strolling through the glades with a surprising burst of colour around every corner. I don’t know how we would have managed in days of film.

We visited the Van Gogh museum in the afternoon. The queues were putoffable, but our pre-purchased tickets helped us to the start of the queue, or least near it. It is a wonderful collection of his works.

Then, of course it is time to start our preparations for the next part of our holiday, the train from Amsterdam to Luzern, via Basel. We did the laundry, re-packed, making, somehow, room for the various bits and pieces we have added along the way. For some unfathomable reason all these odds and ends seem to have migrated to my suitcase. We had dinner at a local Chinese restaurant. The restaurant was quite large, but devoid of patrons, though it was still early. I asked the Chinese maître d if he could fit us in and he roared with laughter like I was Spike Milligan. Anyway, our host liked to chat and loved to laugh at the most inconsequential things. Perhaps he was lonely for human company. When he asked how long we had been in Amsterdam, and we replied five days, he slapped his sides and and wiped the tears from his eyes with the shear fun of the answer. “Where are you going tomorrow?” He wanted to know. We plucked up the courage and ventured “Luzern, Switzerland”, and he put his head back and roared with laughter. By this stage we were not game to say anything. “The chicken and vegetables sounds nice”, said Jenny, steering the conversation to the hopefully neutral ground of a meal order. “Hahahah, of course it is nice!” We finally settled on a couple of dishes that caused him great mirth, leaving us to ponder what it was that evoked such hilarity. However the odd patron seemed to get the same treatment, so perhaps the air conditioning from the Magic Mushroom next door was being shared.

The meal took some time and we assumed he had sent for take-out from another restaurant. The meal was OK, so we felt nourished and warmed by the amusing evening.

The ICE 105 is making good ground across the German countryside now. There are quite a few wind turbines, but singular installations, not farms as such. We have used gentle persuasion and asked the conductor if we could swap for a forward facing seat for Jenny, and he was quick to oblige, finding us seats in the next carriage. He must have worked a major miracle, as people have been getting on and off at the many stops along the way, and we have been keeping our heads down in case somebody accusingly demands the seat they have booked. All good so far. As our typical luck would have it, when the train pulled out of Frankfurt, it reversed direction, so we were facing backwards anyway, and our old seats which would have been fine, were now gone. Poor old Jen, she is not the greatest traveller and we can’t walk past a pharmacist without popping in to see if they have a miracle drug for travel sickness. We acquired some new drugs today. Still, I am very proud that so far this trip we have tried a number of marine excursions including the Adriatic crossing, a Venetian gondola, Amsterdam canal cruise, a boat ride through the tulip fields of Keukenhof. We have a lake cruise tomorrow and we top it off with our river holiday in Brittany for a week. Up till now, Jen got sea sick if she took a bath!

Finally we reach Luzern, a very pretty, neat city with spectacular backdrops of snow clad mountains, and banks on every corner. The weather is perfect here, bright and sunny and warm. Indications are it might be as good as we get, but we have been blessed with the best of weather for our holiday. Our hotel is very comfortable and it is good to see a hotel elevator that holds more than 2 people. The ones in Italy were essentially single person jobs.

We have had our recce and worked up a plan for Luzern and environs, perhaps with a lake cruise, and a walk around the old city, just a block from our pub. One thing about Switzerland: I think we might fast, as it seems pretty expensive to eat.

We will post again after our train journey through Switzerland.