At the end of November, Mandi had a conference in Amsterdam so we decided to extend it into a family weekend away. The best flight was out of Rome, which meant me leaving Siena early in the morning with the girls for the 3-hour drive to the airport.
We arrived without incident, checked into our apartment and headed out for lunch while we waited for Mandi’s flight to arrive.
RIght away we were struck with the differences compared with Italy.
We met up with Mandi and headed out to explore the city. There were lots of great shops, restaurants and one particularly interesting gallery.
After lots of walking we had a great dinner and headed to bed.
The next morning I woke up early and went for a run to get my bearings.
After I got back we went for breakfast and then had a pretty intense morning at Anne Frank’s house. After that, we decided on a change of scene and headed to the ‘Catboat’ - a nonprofit houseboat sanctuary for cats. Polly was in her element.
We spend the rest of the day exploring Amsterdam’s various neighbourhoods and then went to pick up a boat that we had rented to cruise the canals and check out the Amsterdam Light Festival that had just started.
The next day I had a companion for my early morning outing.
We had another great day of eating and exploring and then got an Uber back to crash at the apartment.
The follwoing morning we got up early, said goodbye to Mandi and headed to the airport to return to Italy.
And then the real countdown began. We were leaving for good in three weeks. I had a few things on my list of things in Siena I wanted to photograph. Like the ‘ferri’ that adorn many of the walls (used in the middle ages for tying up horses).
And the great variety of storefronts.
I also revisited my favourite alleyways.
The Christmas festivities were by now in full swing.
And the weather had turned even foggier.
I also managed to get the drone up in the air for some final aerial shots.
Pretty soon it was the last day of school.
And the last workout.
And then the last night out before we headed off on our final adventure and returned to Sydney.
