Central Station, Amsterdam

Today, a snap decision to head north to the capital!  Wonderful weather, and there's an exhibit of old maps at the Royal Palace, a building I'd not yet been to, anyway.  One of the extras shows the world, in marble on the floor, and the lights above programmed to give a show of which part of the world was explored in which year.  There are two such marble worlds, and the third one shows the constellations.  A very interesting way to teach this aspect of world history.  Various historical maps were also showcased, the largest of which is as wide as a double bed, weighing 125 kg.!

The other extra -- a cute horse ... haha!

Left the house at 13.45 and caught the 14.23 train, arriving in AMS at 15.30.  A 15-minute walk in the blazing heat and there was the palace.  My first memory of the palace goes back to 1989, on War Memorial Day, when we were strolling through Dam Square, a large part of which had been cordoned off for the memorial ceremony later in the early evening, so we had to detour to the back of the palace ... and there was Her Majesty Queen Beatrix' entourage, just arriving, and a bit later the queen herself stepped out of her car, stood about 7 paces away, and smiled at us all.  That wasn't the only time I saw her, though, and when we met again she was only about 1.5 meters away ... a thrill!

The palace itself can't be called more noteworthy than any other, but not any less either.  It has a beautiful, cool interior (a relief!) and stately rooms but you can also feel that our royal family actually works and not just 'sits'.  There's a kind of Calvinistic sobriety in some of the rooms where you can feel what they have even if you don't see it.  It's still very much in use, the latest 'great' event being the abdication of Beatrix in 2013 and 'our Willie' becoming king.

By 17.00, I was done (the palace closes at 17.00 anyway) and I used an hour to just walk around, eat some ice-cream, and then head back to the station.  By 18.00, I was in the train, when the first cancellation announcement was made, about the track at Schiphol Airport being closed to traffic due to a broken train.  We were directed to another train but of course that was cancelled, too, and the third as well.  Great!  So I hopped onto a train heading for Vlissingen, any train going south would have been fine.  We left the station and went past Sloterdijk and Haarlem, and were almost at Leiden, when the train stopped and the announcement came that all platforms in Leiden were full and we couldn't be accommodated.  Had the weather been less accommodating ... but okay.  Back to Amsterdam ... and, lo and behold, the track through Schiphol had been cleared and I could take the Intercity direct to Breda.  I had already phoned AW that I might have to detour through Utrecht and 's-Hertogenbosch and arrive hours later, but that was thankfully not necessary.

I usually visit AMS in my own car, and thought that perhaps next time I should do it that way again, but using the train can actually be a relaxing experience.  It did help, though, that it was 'only' a Sunday and I had no other appointments.