I'm baaaccckkkk!

Well for such a short trip I have to say it was pretty exhausting so I'm glad to be back home and able to sit for a while. That being said, it was a good trip generally speaking, but as it was the first time the company had run this trip I'd have to say there was room for improvement too!

We travelled yet again with a local bus company that we've used several times before and have always found to be very good. We set off at 6 a.m. for a pretty miserable trip in the pouring rain, arriving at a place called Amnéville - near the Belgian border but still in France - at around 6 p.m., so it was a long day. In reality it wouldn't take nearly that long in a car but obviously our driver had to take regular breaks and we also stopped for a typical French (read "long") lunch at mid-day. So we arrived in Amnéville just in time to get settled into our hotel and then head out for dinner. And as ever with this company, they managed to pick out really good restaurants because the food (all inclusive) was  excellent. We didn't have much time to visit the complex where we were staying but it was located in a very well thought out hot springs and amusement park which seemed to cater for all interests!

Amnéville resort

Next morning we were up and out of there to head west towards The Netherlands where we picked up our boat at a place called Lelystad, cruising through the night to end up at the port of Enkhuizen. The boat was, of necessity, pretty small (you can't cruise down canals in the QEII, after all), but our cabin was nice, the crew were helpful and the food was consistently out of this world! What I hadn't actually realized was that from this point on we would spend every night on the boat and eat all meals on it too and by golly was the food good! The portions weren't big but the menus were so well thought out and cooked it was a real pleasure. Anything you wanted from the bar was also included (yay me) so I barely spent anything at all in the end (just a few souvenirs for the kids) and felt the whole trip was really good value for money!

Our boat "L'Europe"!

Port of Enkhuizen

At Enkhuizen we were met by our local guide who took us on to the fishing village of Volendam which was very pretty - if a little cold and wet! It may (or may not) still be an active fishing village but I suspect most of their income comes from tourism!

Volendam!

Then it was dash back to the bus for a visit to the Gouda cheese factory and a local clog-making shop (and no, I didn't see much point in buying a pair of clogs), before heading out to the open air museum of Zaanse Schans, where it was again pretty cold - not that that bothered us. It goes with the territory after all! The downside, however, was that we were a bit rushed so I'm thinking that the bus/cruise company might want to rethink some of their itineraries!

Windmills at Zaanse Schans!

When we got back to our boat I was talking to the guide about the Dutch farmers' party recent victory and she was pretty surprised that an outsider knew about it as their mainstream media had been trying to play it down, of course. As we were talking a couple from our group started heading towards another identical boat to ours when she called them back and explained that it was the wrong boat - "that was the migrant boat". If you stopped for a second and looked you could see that it obviously wasn't our boat as it was full of young men just hanging around smoking. Someone made the mistake of calling it a refugee boat and our guide said nope, that was the boat that had been commandeered to house illegal immigrants, not refugees - "I mean, do you actually see any women and children on that boat?" You could tell that she was pissed off about the situation and when she mentioned that they were also being given an allowance of €1,000 a month by the Dutch government half our party almost fell off their chairs in shock, outraged that illegal immigrants would be housed, fed and given cash! The same thing is obviously going on in many European countries (although I don't know about the cash part), but I was surprised to read just yesterday that Mark Drakeford, the First Minister for Wales, was trying to push through a similar scheme (where illegals would be given £1,600 per month) but it was squashed by Westminster this week! Then just this afternoon I saw this report about how the army barracks where migrants were being housed in Kent has been wrecked so I'm not surprised people have had enough (you can see the report here)! The trouble is, it takes sympathy and ressources away from genuine refugees who need it most! Greater minds than mine don't seem to be able to solve this issue so I'm sure I don't know what the solution is either!

Anyway, I'll write more about the rest of my trip soon, but before I go I just wanted to mention the sad passing yesterday of the inimitable Barry Humphries. Thanks for all the laughs, Edna, and RIP Barry!

Barry Humphries, aka Dame Edna Everage!