This time I am writing from Athens, Greece. But first I wanted to post the last pics from our day north of Amsterdam with our outstanding guide, Hans. I found Hans (as well as our guides in Athens and Barcelona) through Tours by Locals. We have used this company before and they are all over the world. The reviews on the site are usually right on and can be trusted. We have found you get some great local insights you would not get from a ship tour because these are the people who live right there. You learn so much.

Hans met us right on time at our hotel and we were off. Since we had already toured Amsterdam on a prior visit, we were looking to see the outskirts of the city as well as some of the countryside. Hans did a great job of doing just that. See the photo captions for some of what we saw. Don’t forget, if you click the first shot, you can then scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping…and PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…

On our way north we would pass villages on both sides of the highway. Every one had a very high church steeple.

And windmills dotted the sides of the road

Very pastoral

In Ondermolen we stopped to see a working windmill.

From the one that we stopped at you could see others in both directions.

This is inside looking up to the gears

We were surprised to learn that other than the one we were touring, most windmills are someone’s home.

My brother is checking out the Archimides Screw that was used to move the water out of the fields and into a ring canal.

You can’t tell from the pic but there was a good wind and this one was really spinning.

We visited a village not far away where the picturesque town hall was built in 1630.

Hans took us to many small villages like this near the North Sea. Lovely and charming.

And this was very typical of the roads between those villages.

Of course it’s the Netherlands so there are canals everywhere.

And the churches are always the dominant building in any village.

This very friendly dog was greeting us to his town.

We passed through Edam, the namesake of the cheese…which is no longer made there.

I loved this cottage that is now a B&B and a cafe.

This old lock hadn’t been opened in years. There were huge cobwebs all over it.

This is very typical in that part of the Netherlands. Big trucks crossing tiny canal bridges not built to handle them.

These two ladies greeted us in a restaurant converted from an old church. I loved the faces.

On to Athens

We had dinner the night of our northern Netherlands tour at a place Kathleen and I had eaten at on our last trip that Jamie and Steve wanted to try—Restaurant Zaza. It’s a short cab ride from the Banks Mansion. It was just as good as it had been in 2016, it both service and food. Had a great time.

The next day we had a flight to Athens at 12:20 pm. The hotel as well as every post we had seen online suggested we get to the Schipol Airport no later than four hours before we flew. So off we went at 8:00 am and check my previous post for how we did at the airport. The flight itself was “fine” (you know what that means) and they gave us an actual sandwich…not really, it was just two pieces of VERY stale bread with a single slice of the worst cheese in The Netherlands between it 😜. But they got us (AND OUR LUGGAGE) there almost on time and as soon as we got to baggage claim a rep from Viking Cruises met us and whisked us and our luggage away to a waiting coach for our almost hour-long trip to our hotel, the Athens Marriott. You should know that this hotel was not our choice, but Viking’s as we are now in their care on our pre-cruise extension. I will say that it is a very nice Marriott, it has the best water pressure EVER (I took too many long showers) but it is located in a very non-photographic part of town. The first night I tried taking a photo walk and you will see what I came up with below. Then in my next post I will show you shots of the Athens you were expecting.

On my evening photo walk, I had to settle for some trial motion shots with my new camera.

This tiny creche was in front of a small Greek Orthodox Church on my walk

This office building provided the best color I saw.

More motion trials

And this AMAZING one-of-a-kind car. It is a Bullitt. A green mustang built to exactly match (but modernize) the car that Steve McQueen drove in the movie Bullitt.

Watch the next post for my report on a very HOT but rewarding day in Athens.

I like the look of a windmill. —Jeff Duncan