Our next stop was the Rosslyn Chapel made famous in the Da Vinci Code movie. It was a cool little chapel with a lot of history. But alas there is no secret room, that was purely a Hollywood embellishment.
From Roslin it was a 4-hour drive down to the City of York. York was founded by ancient Romans and it’s a very well intact medieval city. We had detailed instructions on how to get to our accommodations. While we weren’t staying within the city walls, we weren’t too far out. The streets are still quite narrow especially with cars parked on both sides. For breakfast the next morning, we walked back into the walled city and enjoyed a great breakfast at Double Dutch Pancake House. They serve Dutch style pancakes which can be either savory or sweet and they have gluten-free. We all really enjoyed our breakfasts.
Time was winding down for most of our party. We had a few days in London and then the cousins and Will’s mom were dues to fly home. So, we dropped off the car and took the train into the center of London. We were staying in the Covent Garden area which makes getting back to Heathrow airport quite easy. It is also an easy area for us to get around to the theater district as well as many of the main tourist areas.
We got checked-in, grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed out for a London musical. We saw Six, which is a musical about the six wives of King Henry the VIII. it was quite a fun evening and we liked that both the cast and the band consisted entirely of women.
The Iconic Red Telephone Booths
We got up the next morning to walk around and see what we could see. We headed out initially towards Big Ben and ended up at Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guard. The weather was great, so we continued walking around and found ourselves outside of Westminster Abbey for the start of the new legal year. All of a sudden, the bells were ringing, and people were streaming out of the Abbey in robes and wigs.
Big Ben 
Westminster Abbey 
Palace of Westminster
As our feet were tired of pounding the pavement, we got on a scenic boat tour of the river Thames. It was the perfect way to give our feet a rest and take in more of the sights of London.
London Eye 
Palace of Westminster 
Tower of London 
The Tower Bridge
That night was our Jack the Ripper walking tour. Our guide was very good at storytelling and painting a picture of what it was like living during 1898.
Well, time was up for the others in our group. We walked them to the Tube and they headed to the airport. Will and I headed to the Tower of London. One of the Warden’s gives a tour about every hour that provides a history of the tower and some of the prisoners that have been held at the tower throughout history. It’s included with your ticket and if you have the time, I recommend it. It’s also where the Crown Jewels are held. They wouldn’t even let me try them on for size. 😞
That night we found ourselves at yet another musical Only Fools and Horses. It is based on a British television series that ran for a number of years and was subsequently turned into a musical. Once we got a hang of the accent it was enjoyable. We didn’t catch on to all the comedy as we hadn’t seen the series. Guess we’ve got something to find on Netflix when we get home.
Our time in London was up and the next morning we got on our flight to Amsterdam for the next leg of our adventure. Going through customs at Schiphol Airport is a process. They are installing the electronic readers to help get you through but currently they are only set-up for EU passports. So, that didn’t apply to us or most of the UK passengers since Brexit. Needless, to say with only 2 customs agents, it took a while.
It was then an easy trip by train from the airport to the city center and quick walk to our hotel.
We had access to the Sky Lounge at the Doubletree Hotel, and they have some nice views of the city from there.
The next morning, we got up and out as it was a beautiful sunny day. We did a canal boat tour and then had tickets for a tour of the Anne Frank House that afternoon.
That evening an old friend picked us up and we had a lovely dinner with him and his family. It was great to reconnect with someone I knew as an exchange student, but haven’t seen since those high school years.
The next day was a little cloudy but cleared up and we went to the Rijksmuseum. They have a number of Rembrandts including the famous ‘Night Watch’. It was a nice museum. We then managed to find me more gluten free Dutch pancakes and then we took a walk through the infamous red-light district.
Amsterdam’s Soup Nazi, everyone was waiting for Ramen
It was time for our Viking River cruise. We managed to find out where our ship had docked and what time we could start boarding.
Our home for the next 15 days 
Viking served us a light lunch and as the ship wouldn’t leave until later on that night, we left to check out the National Maritime Museum.
Back on board in time for the wine and cheese tasting and dinner. The ship pulled anchor that night and we were off on a 15 day cruise down the Rhine, Main and Danube rivers to Budapest, Hungary.
Our first stop was Kinderdijk. This is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is famous for its 19 windmills. These windmills have been around since the 1700’s and were built to pump water. The vast majority of the Netherlands sits at or below sea level and they must constantly pump water out or the country will flood. So, it’s a constant battle to keep both the ocean and the rivers from flooding their country. Now of course this is accomplished by electric pumping stations instead of the windmills.
It was interesting to learn the history of the windmills and how the millers were given free rent to live in the windmill as long as they kept the windmill running.