Day 12: Wednesday 16 July

Today we travelled back to Nürnberg. Officially our travel-times were

• depart Klagenfurt 09:42, arrive München 14:42
• depart München 14:56, arrive Nürnberg 15:59

Day 13: Thursday 17 July

My only records from today are a photo in Köln Hauptbahnhof, some screenshots of place-names that interested me and cyclemeter’s recording part of the journey (from Nürnberg to somewhere near Amsterdam). Our official travel-times were

• depart Nürnberg 10:58, arrive Frankfurt 13:04
• depart Frankfurt 13:27, arrive Amsterdam 17:52.

Day 14: Friday 18 July

We took a quick visit to the Amsterdam city archives, one of Elly’s favourite places in Amsterdam. The exposition about AFC Ajax didn’t enthral me – I don’t understand a word of spoken dutch (and almost no written dutch) but I love the time-lapse cartoons about the growth of Amsterdam. I still don’t understand why these appear to show the Amstel being damed just where it flows into the sea (the Damrak). Perhaps there were bridges rather than a full blockage.

Then we took the bus to IJmuiden, and started the ferry-journey back to the UK.

Day 15: Saturday 19 July

Apparently I didn’t take any photos today. We simply arrived in North Shields, encountered UK bureaucracy, took the bus to Newcastle and then the train back to Edinburgh.

Postscript

Readers might think the I didn’t enjoy this latest trip to the Muttiland, but that would be wrong. It’s true that I didn’t enjoy the pain that limited my walking, but it was lovely to get to understand a bit more about my maternal home-country, to enjoy long train-journeys ‘with my thumb up my bum and my mind in neutral’ (a phrase from a school history teacher), to achieve a conversation in German that enabled me to buy Guglhupf tins, to find excellent chocolates for my wonderful better half, to relax with her – and to see her relax. It’s just that the cantankerous old git in me often takes over the keyboard.