A day to explore and we were both looking forward to it as we had heard so many good things about Amsterdam. First of all made our way to the Anne Frank house museum and on arriving discovered you can only enter if you have pre-booked a ticket online. Otherwise at 3:30pm you can queue and buy tickets at the door but the queues are massive. 
I decided to buy tickets online but as I only had my phone with me it was a bit tricky. After about half an hour I succeeded and we had a booked time slot for later in the afternoon which meant we had time to look around in the daylight. 
On the map that John had bought there were little camera icons showing the best photographic opportunities in the city. One of them was 5 canal bridges all together in a picturesque setting. We set off following the map, it is a lovely city with small cobbled streets, canals with waterside houses towering above in the typical Dutch style. 
Everywhere there are bicycles, people riding them or parked against bridges and against lampposts or in the numerous cycle racks scattered across the city. We arrived at the designated photo spot but I didn’t take a picture, it didn’t appeal to me so we found a restaurant next to a canal. 
It was very busy but we found a seat outside and enjoyed a glass of beer in the sunshine. 
We gradually made our way back to the Anne Frank house and went inside to view this moment of history. We were both struck by the hushed tones that everyone adopted as they made their way through the museum, it was very thought provoking. It showed many sides of the people and what they were going through during that terrible time. There was constant fear for people like Anne and her family. There was was courage and bravery of the people that helped the Jewish community and there were the people that betrayed them, everyone desperate in different ways. 
We walked quietly back to our hotel each deep in thought about what we had seen. After a stop in our room for an hour we went out again to see more of Amsterdam night life.
We couldn’t decide which way to walk, the streets were busy and we ended up following the crowd again. This time it led us into the red light district. There were streets with large shop windows bathed in red lights, and standing in each one was a woman dressed only in underwear moving in a sultry way. We couldn’t figure out how anyone who wanted to spend time with them would go about it, would they knock on the window. It was very busy and weird but we couldn’t help looking along with everyone else. There are walking tours of the red light district that is how popular it is. It was quite late after our meandering so we found our way back to the hotel.
rosemarymeekistravellingbytrain 