A visit to the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam in The View from the Terrace

I can’t believe it’s almost 3 months since my last entry. There has been quite a lot going on. We had a weekend away visiting friends and relatives in late April and then a trip to Amsterdam in early May. We hadn’t been abroad for 13 years and I hadn’t realised how much there was to organise. I did it all myself as Hubby is no good at things like that - finding accomodation, booking flights, sorting travel insurance, getting a European health card, changing the money into Euros, buying a phrase and travel book, finding out about places we wanted to visit and even learning some Dutch! I needed the holiday after all of that!

My daughter told me I didn’t really need to learn the language to visit The Netherlands as everyone speaks English there, but I feel we should make some effort as it is rather arrogant to expect them to speak our language. In the end I didn’t have the confidence to use the Dutch much, but it was useful for buying the groceries and understanding bus timetables and so on.

I found us a lovely little self catering room in a house not too far from the centre of Amsterdam. The landlord was really lovely and helpful, in fact everyone was. The Dutch are a lovely nation and Amsterdam is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen.
We did a lot of things but one thing that really made an impression on me was our visit to the Anne Frank House. I have wanted to go there for about 12 years since I saw an exhibition in Hereford. I have read her diary twice. To see the house and all of the places that she spoke of was very moving. We took the canal bus to get there and my first sight of the clock tower of the Westerkirk really affected me. Anne mentions in her diary how the bells were so cheery.

She also mentioned how she and her sister used to take a bath in the first floor front room of the building on a Saturday when there was no one there. She says how she peeped through the curtains and describes scenes of seeing the Nazis marching by and of groups of Jews being taken away. When we were there I looked through the same window and saw a beautiful sunny day with people riding by on their bikes, and going past on boats on the canal, everyone seemed happy and it all looked so beautiful and I realised how different it had been in the war. I think that visit brought the reality of war home to me more than anything else ever has.

Today is Anne Frank’s birthday so it seemed look a good day to write about this and a good day to get back to my diary! I hope to write more about our visit to Amsterdam in the future.

Anne Frank House

Statue of Anne in Westermark, I was touched that people leave flowers.

Last updated July 01, 2015