Its raining again this morning and after yesterday's mammoth effort (that totally knocked me for six last night). I have come down with a cold and have been coughing like crazy. Thank goodness for Donna's Ventolin. At one point I woke Donna to ask her how to turn the electric blanket off. Hmm, no electric blanket on the bed - I was just burning up.
We decided to have a bit later a start and eventually checked out just before 11 am. Once in the car and out of the weather, we decided to head for Utrecht en-route to Schipol Airport. There is a cathedral that is supposed to be beautiful.
The tree lined avenues and streets make Utrecht a lovely place to visit and no doubt to live. We are taken down very narrow one way streets where the pedestrians just amble along in front of the car. Guess no-one is in too much of a hurry to go far. And then the GPS stops working. Trouble was, we didn't realise it straight away and just kept following the directions on the screen,so that we were getting deeper and deeper into the Old Town centre. In the end, we ended up in the market square and then had to reverse out, what with the plethora of bikes leaned one against the other and the vendors vehicles.
Its about now that we realise that the GPS had stopped and can only surmise that was because we were in the middle of narrow streets with tall old stone buildings. We can see the St. Martin’s Cathedral or Dom Church in Utrecht. In fact, if we had opened the windows we could have almost touched it. BUT, there is no parking and after negotiating the backstreets more times than we care to admit, we finally give in. I think that we had drive through the city for more than an hour!
We are trying to find a through road, something a bit more major than the ones we are one, we spy a police car. Surely he must be going somewhere as he is heading out of the inner city, so we tail him! At some point, the GPS kicks back in again and points us to the motorway towards Amsterdam and the Airport.
When we hired the car, Robby suggested that we fill up before we return the car because otherwise there is a 20 euro fee on top of the (price premium) fuel. No matter how we search, we cannot find a bloody petrol station (except one abandoned Shell one) and after finding ourselves almost 40 kms from the Airport, I admit defeat and we head back to pay the fee. It wasn't all a loss though. As we come down one of the back streets that connect to the motorway, we turn a corner and there is a windmill spinning frantically in the wind. So yes, every cloud does have a silver lining.
We arrive at Schipol Airport a bit after 3. We are famished and sit down to a caprese bruschetta, a sausage roll, a tall glass of fruit salad and two stunning fresh juices - orange and banana; and kiwifruit and orange. The rain continues outside from time to time, and we are glad that we are inside.
As we are flying internationally, we head over to the gates to check in. Very casual, I had forgotten that we are in the EU now and borders are a thing of the past. So simple.
I'm really flagging again and sleep for the 1.5 hours on the plane to Oslo.
Its getting dark when we land after 8:30 pm, so we don't see much from the taxi ride. Our taxi driver comments that Oslo is very quiet and comments that it is because it is so expensive.
It is a 50 km trip into the City Centre and I hear Donna quietly asking me if I have enough cash for the fare. It cost us 1,796 NOK (Norwegian Krone). That is just under AUD$300. But we are dropped to the door - some things are just worth the money!
Looking at the DK Eyewitness Guidebook, we soon realise that we are very central to most of the tourist attractions. So the next couple of days will be very busy and exciting with a walk of less than 300 m to the closest.
But first, we will do some washing. I booked an apartment knowing that we would be wanting a washing machine about now.
Its after midnight, I am sick of fighting with the touch pad on the computer to download the photos, so I will try to add them tomorrow. Nite all.
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