To the Caribbean......via Amsterdam!

We were invited to join friends on a sailing voyage from St Martin to Martinique and the easiest 'open jaw' flight we could find was by AirFrance/KLM going via Amsterdam, returning to Paris.
We saw an opportunity to spend a day in Amsterdam........ a first visit for me!
And as expected, there were bikes everywhere!

We were very surprised to see just one bike attached here....

as most buildings had no free space!

We were very lucky to have a fantastic, sunny day in the first week of March.... and decided the easiest/best way to get a feel for the city was to take a boat ride on the canals.

 This allowed us to see some beautiful facades of the homes on the canals....

We were intrigued by the extended post at the top of most buildings and learned that because the homes were rather narrow the furniture had to be winched up........

We visited the Rijksmuseum......which has been under renovation for many years but they have an area which has the main paintings of Rembrandt still on view.......

We decided to stay at the airport as our flight to St Martin was an early morning one. We chose the Citizen M hotel as it looked the most interesting.  It was! The rooms are aproximately 14 sq m but we were going on a boat which only gave us ??? sq m per cabin( but obviously not luxurious in size!) ........ so we were preparing!
One enters through the bathroom....

there was a full shower......

and then there was the bed part of the bedroom.......

It actually was extremely comfortable and we would stay there again!
It was also very convenient to take the train in from the airport to the main station in Amsterdam......

And, of course, we did see a few tulips........