Oct 30 Tuesday - Final Day in Amsterdam

My birthday today -- 70. A big number, but as my sister always says, its just a number. Nothing special planned for today. We decided to just wander around the city, do some window shopping, and see if anything grabs our imagination.  We walked past the same restaurant we had dinner on our first night here, Long Pura, the Indonesian restaurant that was a total disappointment. We hadn't realized that the street was a  major shopping street in Amsterdam on the edge of the Jordan area.

We stumbled on a new Italian jeweler and Donna found a lovely necklace and earrings that the jeweler had just placed on display. A bit later in the day she also found a fashion store that had a knit sweater in the window that caught her attention. She really did look good in it.

About the only other item we brought back was a wedge of cheese from a beautiful cheese store. It's infused with herbs and simply delightful. As I'm writing this after arriving home, I can say that it was not a problem getting through customs with the cheese, although we had a moment of concern as a beagle in the airport used to sniff out drugs stopped briefly at the bag we had the cheese in. The dog's handler quickly pulled him away, so we now have the cheese safely in our fridge.

We chose Van Vlaanderen for our last night's dinner, listed as the best restaurant in Amsterdam by Zagat's.  It was about a 25-minute walk to the restaurant from our hotel, and the meal lasted nearly three hours. We both chose the four course fish-centric dinner, and were not disappointed. Beautiful presentations, most with foam, with halibut for the main course preceded by an earlier course of a bass. Desserts were a lemon cake and a chocolate mousse. Very small, but very good. Three hours to get there? Probably not a place I would go again. Service was great, but intentionally slow.

We walked back to the hotel and packed for our flight home the next morning, a 10:30am flight that required we be at the airport by 7:30am. Glad we did as the lines we incredibly long and we had just enough time to have a quick breakfast and get ready to board for our flight home.

The flight home on Wednesday went by quickly and fairly comfortably, and we arrived on time just after noon. A very nice trip. Amsterdam is definitely one city I would like to return to.