I can begin to feel that inherent dichotomy of “sad to be finished” and “happy to be heading home” creeping into my bones. On our last day in Amsterdam we incorporated some bike riding, some sight seeing and some people watching. Our day started by stepping out onto our small garden where the flowers on the Magnolia tree and other shrubs are declaring “spring is here”. For maximum enjoyment of the the moment it was a quick and obvious decision to head to the bakery at the end of our street and bring home a chocolate croissant.

Our bicycle wanderings brought us past numerous sculptures, and a constantly changing visual feast of street scenes.

One of our destinations today was to find the horticultural garden that we had seen on our Ann Frank Tour. Hortus Botanicus  is one of the oldest botanical gardens in the world dating back to 1638. The garden is composed of a number of greenhouses with various temperatures and climates simulating rain forests, a butterfly house, deserts, a palm house and surrounding outdoor trees shrubs and walkways.
I had a great time chasing around after a Greater Spotted Woodpecker and viewing a close relative to our Black-billed Magpie.  All in all a great day to end our journey. Thanks for following along on our journey to Moscow and back.