Irish Coffee – Beauperi Investments

Posted on August 12, 2017August 13, 2017 by beauperi

The Rhine Gorge

Thursday, 10 August, 2017 – weather: Rained all day

We are to enter the Rhine Gorge at around 6:00 AM so we are encouraged to get up then to view the entry. I wasn’t going to do that but since I am awake I put on some clothes and go out. Well, it is pouring rain and it is hard to see anything, so I go back to bed.

After I get up we have a good breakfast, similar to yesterday, and go out to see the sites, especially the world famous Lorelie.

Its out there somewhere – the rain makes it very hard to see

Refer to this link for the Lorelei

As we travel along the Rhine Gorge, there are lots of old castles and towns. So here are a few photos of some of them.

We dock at Rudesheim. There is to be a tour around various parts which starts with a small train ride into town to the Music Museum. I was going to go but all the rain dampened my spirits, pun intended, I decide to stay on the boat, maybe I will never leave it. But Julie goes on the train. There is a long queue to get into the museum so she prances around town. Following are her pictures.

The special coffee – the following are the steps

It continues to rain all day. Eventually the troops start arriving, walking back from town rather than waiting for the return train. Julie eventually is one of those. Around dinner time we turn off of the Rhine onto the Main River. From here we pass through a number of locks, of various sizes, I think there was the mention of 68 or something like that. We pass by the towns of Mainz on Main and then Frankfurt

Dinner tonight is downstairs but there is an ala carte menu.

Lots of folk, including Julie, danced to disco

The dj played such outstanding songs as YMCA, Macho Man, Nutbush City Limits, etc. I stayed up fairly late until he started playing rap, rap, eat my cr*p. It was time to go.

Somebody stopped by with an Irish Coffee.

Posted on August 10, 2017August 10, 2017 by beauperi · 1 Comment

Cruisin’

Tuesday, 8 August, 2017 – weather: grey, again

Although we were on the boat overnight, we still have not left the Amsterdam docks. Additionally, there are a couple of tours around Amsterdam scheduled until we finally get cruising in the afternoon. We start the day with breakfast downstairs. It too is a smorgasbord which is really quite good for that sort of thing.

The two scheduled tours are a canal cruise and a windmill tour in a bus. I decide against both of them and so does Julie, but she decides to go on another prance around Amsterdam. Some photos.

An important destination because of Julie’s Son

Grotesque. Julie wanted to buy it, I am glad she did not

I had had brekkie but decide to get a cheese platter from the River Cafe

Julie returns just in time as we are actually going to start moving on the water. Sure enough we get going. But in the mean time lunch is on downstairs – once again a buffet lunch.

A string quartet of young girls from around the world performed

First of several Irish Coffees for the madam

Tonight is the welcoming dinner downstairs. It is ala carte and we are supposed to dress up somewhat.

We had not slept well over night so have a relatively early evening.

Posted on August 10, 2017 by beauperi

On the Boat

Part 4 – the River Cruise

Monday, 7 August, 2017 – weather: grey, again

We are to move to the last major part of our journey, to the Riverboat for a two week cruise from Amsterdam to Budapest. But we have been told not to go to the boat too soon, although there are conflicting messages. We had thought that we would go on our other river cruise but had already made the decision that that was too boring.

We have breakfast upstairs in the buffet again. Then Julie decides to go out prancing until around Noon when we should checkout. Some of her photos.

Julie returns at 11:59:58. We finish packing and go downstairs to checkout, which we successfully do. My plan is to stay in the lounge until about 1:30 and work on the Blog because the lightning speeds on the Internet are stunning. Julie has more prancing to do.

Julie returns and we pack up ask and ask for a cab. It takes a while. The driver drives us to the docks, it seemed like a very roundabout way but I guess it was OK and it was expensive but we got there. When we arrive the room is not ready so we settle in the large lounge.

There is a small buffet where we can have some lunch before we check in as well as drinks. We meet a nice USA couple, Ruth and Larry and have a long chat. Eventually I manage to check-in and we are escorted to our rooms.

Well, I am disappointed. I thought we had booked upmarket rooms with lots of space. No. We are in perhaps the second bottom level with a room that is quite small but modern and well done. My illusions were shattered. Never mind, we unload our suitcases into the cupboards and slide the suitcases under the bed, never to be seen again until we leave. Hooray!

We have a small balcony and Julie mixes up a gin and tonic from the mini bar. There is a bit of sunshine which helps. After that we go to dinner and meet another nice couple. Well, it too is a buffet and it would seem that most of the meals will be buffets, which are not our favourites. I pick up a dish from just inside the room where the cook is preparing prawns.

I grabbed a range of stuff with the “special” course being roast beef which is OK. I ask for horse radish sauce which they bring from the kitchen, again quite OK. When finished, we go back up to the bar.

Julie departing the bar with her Irish Coffee

We have a chat for a while with some fellow Melbournites. Then to bed. I sleep OK for a while until some one starts doing activities. A lot more sleep would have been welcome.

Posted on August 9, 2017 by beauperi · 1 Comment

Tours of Amsterdam

Sunday, 6 August, 2017 – weather: grey, again

We wake up to yet another grey day. We were told that it rains 250 days a year in Amsterdam but, gee, this is the middle of Summer.

We decide to have breakfast in the smorgasbord on the second floor. It is OK.

Smoked salmon salad the feature for Julie

We have decided to do formal tours of Amsterdam today. We walk down to Central Station where the one we want to use starts. This tour does one bus trip around the city and two different canal tours. We start out with the Bus tour. It is not as good as Edinburgh but better than Brussels. Once again we did not take any photos from the bus. When we get back we cross to the place where one of the canal tours commences, albeit the instructions on how to find it were quite confusing.

When the boat finally arrives it is chock full but almost everyone gets off. As we board, we get good seats forward and on the water. There are two columns of tables with six seats per table, 3 on each side. It looked like we were not to have any one sitting with us but at the last minute two guys sat down opposite us. Some of my photos follow:

Looking out from the boat to the Victoria Hotel

I think I took this photo because there was something very rare – blue sky

We finish the canal tour and to be frank we considered it a bit boring. We were intending to do the other canal tour tomorrow before going to the Boat but decide that the one was enough.

On the way back we look at this restaurant that has very large serves of ribs, steaks, chicken etc. We will consider that for later. We also walk by and go into:

We reach our Hotel and Julie decides to immediately go out for a short prance. She heads to the red light district. Some of the photos.

Apparently people saw her taking photos and yelled at her. Julie ran away and back to the Hotel. She wants me to make a decision about dinner for tonight so, perhaps foolishly, suggest we go back to the place we saw earlier when we came off of the canal tour.

Salmon for Julie, apparently not very good

A mess of ribs. Fall of the bone but tough as buggery

Baked potato for a change, best part of the meal

As I hinted earlier, not a good choice. Any way, we are on the Boat tomorrow.

Posted on August 8, 2017August 8, 2017 by beauperi

Pride Amsterdam

Saturday, 5 August, 2017 – weather: grey and then slow improvement to a very good day

Our three day visit to Amsterdam is coincident with one of its biggest Holiday weekends from 4-6 August, the Pride Amsterdam. This a celebration of Gay Pride in Holland and attracts many visitors from overseas. There is a splash of gay colours all over town and it is amazing how much the people embrace the celebration, young and old, hetero and homo, married couples, children etc. It is in direct contrast with the attitudes of our Australian ruling politicians. I am not preaching or anything like that but I just cannot understand the dramatic difference between the peoples.

Any way, enough of that – this is a food and wine blog after all. I will put a few photos of the events in this post and Julie has taken lots of them. We head out to a local breakfast place I spotted yesterday.

Ham and Cheese Omelot for me, overcooked and not very nice

We then decide to go walking to a nearby Saturday market.

We were told that there is more control of pot by the government since 2012, at least for foreigners. Notwithstanding that, the smell was frequently around.

We reach the market which I did not think was much

Fresh herbs – the smell was divine. Julie’s favourite part of the market

We then decide to walk back to the Hotel using a different route. A few of my photos along the way.

Every city needs these outdoor in the open, multi-station men’s toilet

We bought a bottle of this which I thought the dealer said was from Korea

We walked for a long time and with the walk, the cobblestones, bricks, etc. it is very tiring. We get back to the room and I tell Julie that I am buggered and that she should go out prancing for the afternoon while I relax. The following photos are from her afternoon.

There is a gay parade with a difference – there are floats but they are boats on the canals

It was said that there were 800,000 people watching the parade. They were 6 to 8 deep everywhere and it was hard to get decent photos.

Great Menu – especially like the Codfather

Julie returned just before 6:00 and did not really have any ideas of where to go for dinner as the only reasonable places she saw were too far away. However, Julie spends a bit of time on the Pad and comes up with an idea that is not too far away.