Arnhem

Location: Holland

Today (9/21/10) we woke up at the ripe 'ol time of 6:45 am to get packed up, eat breakfast, and get on the bus by 8:15 am. BTW, our tour bus is awesome! Sweet Rock Star blacked out windows, double decker with plenty of room to get your own pair of seats, stretch out, and get your own little tables (a la 747). We will be on the road for approximately7 hours today traveling to Bacharach on the Rhine river. A pit stop will be in Arnhem which is the Netherland's first open air museum--what means I'm not sure but I'll let you know once I find out.

An Open Air Museum is basically a historic town with working villagers (weavers, paper mill, laundry, bakery etc.).  The village was really cool, it gave a sense of what life was like in Holland back in the day.  We had a 3 hour walking tour throughout the town where we got to explore each part of the town.  We could have easily spent more time there.  One of the coolest trades we got to see in action was the making of paper.  He workman soaked cotton cloths into a pulp, mashed them up and then soaked the material more.  Then he put the pulp in a screen in the form of a 8.5x11 sheet of paper.  Let dry for 10 minutes and flip.  Really neat.

Of course, Mike found the brewery and got himself a sample.  Very interesting blend--coriander seed and orange peels.

 

 Gateway to a botanical garden near the center of the town.