Our warm and fascinating time in Hamburg ended at the train station, where we enjoyed people-watching and perusing the variety of colorful cafes and shops.
091148 Hamburg Station
The train ride was fast, comfortable, and relatively inexpensive but by far the best feature was the people! A girl’s soccer team quietly brought life and smiles to the car we chanced to choose.
111730 Quiet Delight
This composite of three screencaps from a panoramic video was our best effort at capturing the whole team. Soon we were in the capital of Netherlands where a dam on the river Amstel in the 12th century grew into the bustling bike haven of modern Amsterdam.
5905 Busy Sidewalk
This main square had enough space for the sidewalk crowd to spread out and give an impression of what it’s like on a quiet day.
5888 Cobbled Square
I found the buildings fascinating, especially the ornamentation of course. Like the open clock tower carillon.
5886 Carillon Sculpture
Nearby was a pointed and windowed dome with crown splash topped by a “gyroscopic” golden orb reflecting the clouds.
5898 Golden Globe
There was a noisy busker putting on some sort of show. I snapped the international tourists in front of the distant 3-line gold-lettered transparent banner in the center that reads, “Truthfulness Compassion Tolerance.”
5899 Motto For Our Times
We paused for a delicious meal by a main canal with our wonderful new friend Richele who so richly enhanced our introduction to the city.
170015 Serene Richele
She helped us find quieter parts of Amsterdam, where parked bikes far outnumber the people on sidewalks.
190144 Bikesterdam
We wandered leafy canals and wildly different quarters of the downtown core in this thriving city of culture and contrasts.
190253 Quiet Canal
After a fabulous dinner she guided us to our hotel in the dusk, and we paused to take in the reflective canal.
205247 Reflections
John & Anne Wiley 
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