[Gill H]

Eventually the truck drives away, and we continue round to the market square of Niewmarkt and then pull up outside Hotel Misc Eatdrinksleep. Rachel, a vivacious American, is there to welcome us and give us information about the hotel, the room, and various things to do. She’s lively and friendly, rattling off dozens of helpful tips, but right now all we want to do is find our room and get to sleep! Interestingly, once she hears of our plan to buy the iAmsterdam card, she warns us to think carefully whether it’s worth it, as it doesn’t cover the Rijksmuseum or Anne Frank. She says there’s some info in the room about the various museums and discount cards available, or they can book packages themselves if we wish.

Before we head for our room, we ask if we can have an 8am breakfast tomorrow. Breakfast at the hotel is from 9am onwards unless you ask otherwise, which feels rather late for us as we want to be’up and doing’ by then to get the most out of our day. Rachel says this is fine, no problem.

Pepjin (prounounced Pep-EEN) is Rachel’s husband. He’s Dutch, and he’s definitely the quieter of the two, but nevertheless just as welcoming. He kindly takes our case upstairs to our room, negotiating the notorious narrow Dutch stairs to do so. Now we were warned that the hotel is a typical old Amsterdam house with steep and narrow stairs – which I took to mean that the walls either side were close together. Not so. It’s the steps themselves that are narrow – barely big enough for half the length of our feet. Plus, spiral steps! Definitely a ‘watch your step’ moment. We’re on the first floor (hooray!) and we manage the staircase well, but you wouldn’t want to bring toddlers or anyone with mobility problems up stairs like this.

Rachel has given us our hotel room keys – swipe cards which work in a similar way to the magic bands at WDW, by putting the wi-fi symbol on the card to the matching one on the door. She follows us upstairs to make sure everything is OK with the room. Well, OK is an understatement. The room is breathtakingly beautiful. All the six bedrooms in this hotel are individually themed, and we have been given the ‘Wonders’ room. It’s highly decorated , with a gorgeous red and gold canopy over the four-poster bed, and furnishings which make the room look like an Arabian Nights fantasy. Fortunately, though, the facilities are resolutely 21st century, including coffee maker, fridge with free snack s and drinks, flat screen TV and a beautiful bathroom with a rain shower and Rituals toiletries – very swish! The garden-facing bedrooms don’t have air conditioning, but there’s a pedestal fan provided, which cools us down nicely.

As we have let them know it’s our 20th anniversary, there’s also an ice bucket in the room with two individual bottles of prosecco, and a box of luxury chocolates too. We couldn’t ask for a more hospitable welcome.

Once Rachel has ensured we’re settled, she leaves us to enjoy our prosecco and chocolates, and soon afterwards we fall gratefully into the huge comfortable bed, and are soon asleep.

Goede nacht everyone!

>>>Day 2

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