NORTHERN COUNTRIES TOUR - START

Finally the day of our departure arrived ! Mr. G drove us to the Waterloo station from where we took the train to Brussels North. As it was a Sunday the shops around the Bus station were closed ! Stupid idea ! We wanted to buy a little lunch to eat  in the bus as we were supposed to leave at 11 am. Finally we found a Starbucks in the Station where we had a coffee and a croissant and could buy a Sandwich and a drink for our trip.

The Bus arrived with nearly an hour late, but caught up as there was nearly no traffic on the roads. In the morning while we were waiting for the Bus it was quite cool but then during the day it became hot again. We arrived punctually in Amsterdam.

I had booked a taxi to take us from the Duivendrecht station to our hotel, which arrived 15 min later after I had called them.We had to go to the Hilton Hampsted in  Hoofddorp an outskirt of Amsterdam



The hotel is very nice, but had no restaurant. So we went to Hoofddorp center and found several once side by side, unfortunately I forgot to take pictures, which is sad because every restaurant had plenty of flowers around.



As we arrived in the city center, which is also very modern I saw from far this strange sculpture



I still do not know what it represents a ! Robocop perhaps ?



There was a beautiful park around with a little canal and a lot of ducks.

After supper we returned to the hotel and rested on our beds, we wanted to be fresh for today when the group arrives. We especially had decided to arrive one day earlier not to hurry to join the group.

This morning we had breakfast sitting at the window



with this beautyful view



And as we have time until 2 pm when the rest of the group arrives, I took the opportunity to start my little travel diary.