Amsterdam,Rhine Cruise & Berlin

September 23-October 8, 2026

It’s been a while between blog entries. But now we are off again with our friends, Esta and Jay Feinsod. We always said we would do a river cruise when we’re old. Well, we’re old! We faced this trip with some trepidations since our cruise down the Rhine River is being truncated by the drought. So we board in Amsterdam, get off the boat in Antwerp ( a different itinerary than was planned), get on a bus to Luxembourg then head to Strasbourg where we board another boat to complete the voyage to Basel. Moreover, our friends the Loststein’s who were supposed to join us cancelled, and the train we were supposed to take from Basel to Berlin was cancelled. And we hadn’t even started the trip!

Nevertheless, we arrived in Amsterdam, our jumping off point, with nothing amiss. We are staying at the Amstel Hotel where we stayed many years ago. It’s still a beautiful grand hotel.

Of course, our rooms weren’t ready so we took a long walk to the Albert Cuyp outdoor market featuring cheap clothing and trinkets and trash but also Rudy’s, the best place for the local Stroop waffles—very thin wafers filled with caramel. Very tasty and sticky. Back to the hotel for a lunch in their elegant dining room and then naps for all.

We haven’t been to Amsterdam for years, but while much is the same a lot is different. Coming in from the airport, it’s all very modern buildings and high-rises. The core of the city is unchanged for the most part—beautiful old buildings, canals (with bridges lit nicely at night) and bikes—thousands of bikes with very few cars on the road. You have to be very careful not to get run down because the bikers are speed demons. We walked to a very interesting and good dinner at Char.D, passing many, many bars and bistros filled with young people drinking and smoking weed. Retail is not dead here with many small and interesting local retailers lining the streets.

Next morning was sunny and glorious. After breakfast we took a tram to the Ruks Museum which is famous for its Rembrandts , Vermeers, and other old Dutch Masters. Behind a glass barrier we could watch restorers working on Nightwatch, Rembrandt’s huge masterpiece. Fascinating how they remove the varnish and reveal the original oils as Rembrandt painted it. An interesting factoid—if there is a fire, the painting is automatically lowered into a fire-proof vault.

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Rembrandt’s Nightwatch under restoration. Lacquer removed on section on the right

We Ubered to the Jewish Quarter and the old Portuguese Synagogue. Built in 1675 it was at one time the largest synagogue in Europe. It served the large and prosperous Sephardic community that originally was forced to convert to Catholicism but reverted to Judaism when they left the Iberian peninsula. It was saved during the Nazi takeover by a Fire Brigade that convinced the Nazis to lock it up and save as a “museum for the Jews who once lived.”However, of the 4300 members of the Amsterdam Jewish community who were sent to concentrations camps, only 800 survived. The Synagogue to this day has no electricity and uses candlelight for services still conducted today.

After a bagel lunch we walked back to the hotel, passing the small brass squares in the sidewalks that mark where Jews who were killed in concentration camps once lived. Ironic on a sun-splashed, beautiful day to walk among those who were dealt a horrible fate.