We were very sad to leave Colmar this morning, we have loved our time here and had forgotten how much we like French towns especially one as lovely as this.
An early start to retrace our steps a bit before heading back through Germany to The Netherlands. Thankfully all the trains were on time today and we arrived in Arnhem in the late afternoon. We did have a slight wobble on the last train as it started out as two trains joined together that then split during the journey. Thankfully more by luck than judgement we were in the right half but whilst checking this with a member of staff using google translate, we were also told that the last part of the journey would be by bus!
Arnhem station is very curvy and modern but easy to negotiate and we were soon settled in our hotel. We had originally planned to stay in Amsterdam but as it is the weekend it was going to be extremely expensive. Arnhem is only an hour away by train and we can easily get there with our passes so this seemed like a good compromise. Arnhem was actually really nice and there were lots of people out enjoying the sunshine on a Friday evening so we decided to go for a walk and sit in the sun with a drink.
Historically Arnhem was the site of a stand-off between British paratroopers and the Germany army during World War II. The bridge at Arnhem was immortalised in the film ‘A bridge too far’ and has now been renamed the John Frost Bridge in honour of the commander of the British paratroopers.
A lovely sunny day dawned for our trip to Amsterdam and the train journey was lovely through the Dutch countryside. We were soon in Amsterdam and ready to explore. I don’t think we have been anywhere quite as busy as Amsterdam on a Saturday but we spent a happy day exploring the canals and enjoying the sun.
Unfortunately we hadn’t had the foresight to pre-book entry to any of the museums and they were all fully booked so no ‘grand masters’ for us. I can also confirm that we didn’t go into any ‘coffee shops’ either so I will leave you to judge if we did Amsterdam properly.
We were actually quite glad to head back to the peace of Arnhem for our last night before beginning our journey home tomorrow.
We have had a truly wonderful trip and we feel incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to do it. All the hours of research and planning have been so valuable and we have learnt a lot as we have gone along. We have seen amazing things and met some lovely people, these memories will stay with us for ever. Thank you for sharing in our adventures and we look forward to seeing you all in person soon. Now where did we put our house keys?
The final blog post will be the stats which I know some of you will love.
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