Day 17

Leaving at dawn we headed out via Eurail to Amsterdam. We arrived around 11AM and were able to drop our bags off at our Hostel and make it back to the Visitors Center to meet a group that was doing free walking tours of the city.
Here is the Anne Frank house, Ashley went here last time she visited Amsterdam, but with a line that stretched down the street and around the corner. So, we decided that the Van Gogh museum was more our style.

Here is an underground Catholic Church that seats 300 people and is home to one of the worlds largest organs. When Catholicism was banned in Amsterdam, more than 300 people would attend this church and shortly after hymns would be blaring into the streets.
The police, not being idiots and good Christians, would not work on the Sabbath. So complaints were filed on many Sundays, but not looked into until Monday came around. Which as we all know, there were no Catholics at mass still so the church remained "hidden."
Another beautiful and surprisingly not smelly canal.
Tulips! We did find some but the fields had not yet bloomed so we did not get to experience the fields of rainbow colors.

Day 15 and 16

The last two days that we spent in Troyes was spent shopping for souvenirs, taking pictures of the town, and having one last amazing meal! Here we are walking down the street with some of the beautiful decorations of the town. Here is Ashley's favorite sign, maybe in the world, a cat with glasses that light up at night. It is for an optometrist's office.

Here is a picture at Gerard our favorite boulangerie in town and all of the amazing pastries that they make fresh everyday (this is where I successfully procured breakfast yesterday)!
On our last night in Troyes we went to this restaurant called Crieux du Vin. It had some amazing food bought locally and they specialize in pairing food with wine.

Here are some of the fountains at night, the first is where the French men were fishing earlier in the week. The second was my favorite and was on our walk to the centre ville, or town center each day.

Day 14

We made it back to Troyes, both in one piece from the first part of our traveling.

Today was a big deal after waking up, Ashley decided that she was going to take a shower then we would go pick up a baguette from the Boulangerie. But I felt confident and wanted to prove myself in french. So, I took off into Troyes, where very few people know English, to provide breakfast.

Voila! I did it, I came back successfully with a Baguette and two Pain au Chocolat.

Later on, after some packing and eating our amazing breakfast we went to meet Ashley's friend Sarah and a couple of her friends for some drinks and walked around Troyes to see the sights.
Here are some of Troyes beautiful fountains (wait till you see them at night they are awesome).
Some French men sitting in the middle of town fishing with "cane" poles.

One of the parks in Troyes that Ashley walked through daily.