As you know we were in Amsterdam and we had to visit Anne Franks House. We said we were going to book tickets before we went but when it came to it we forgot and thought it would be fine, we can book them when we get there. How wrong we were! We were near Anne Franks House on one of the other trips we booked so we popped to see if we could get tickets on the door. Er no! you can’t! they are all taken!. I thought we could try and book them on the internet on my phone. Again, no they were sold out for all the days we were in Amsterdam. Nooooooooooo!? Why didn’t we book them while we were at home?  Well that is a lesson learned?  I guess we are not going to Anne Franks House.

Then it happened, what I hear you ask?  I overheard someone say ‘they release 20% of tickets every day and if you want tickets go on the internet in the early morning and you might get tickets.  Ok that’s what we will be doing tomorrow morning.  The next morning came and as soon as I opened my eyes I went straight on the internet to Anne Franks House website and I am in the queue number 278………  Chris did the same in the queue 305…..  I said we should keep both of us in the queue and see which one of us if any can get tickets.  As it went down and down we got closer to discovering if we were going to get tickets.

Finally I got to the website put in my day and time and did we get tickets? did you guess correctly?  No! They sold out.  Chris got to the website and BINGO we got tickets…….. But they were for an hours time and we were at the other side of Amsterdam and had not even got ourselves out of bed yet as we had been trying to get the tickets.   Now we were on a timescale and the clock was ticking.   We got showered and dressed in record time and without breakfast dashed out of the hotel toward the tram.  The tram came, can you direct us to the Anne Frank House on trams please.

Yes you need to get this tram for 10 stops and then change and go for another 6 stops (roughly) and you will be across the road from the Anne Frank House.  How long will this take? we asked.  About forty five minutes said the tram driver.  Great we have fifty minutes until our ticket time.  We finally made it with minutes to spare.  We queued and finally walked into the museum.  I say museum as they have kind of attached a museum to the side of the house so you enter through a museum and make your way through into the Anne Frank House following a route starting on the bottom floor of the house almost at the front door.

I have to apologise for the lack of photos of the this trip specifically as we were not allowed to take photos in the house.

Although I had to at least sneak one or two, naughty but necessary!  We started as I said at the front door.  Just an old front door of an old house.  Just like you will have seen a dozen times.  Leading off them was a staircase, quite steep but a plain old staircase.  At the top of these stairs was another set of steps, even steeper, leading higher.  We reached the top of the second set of stairs was a short hallway leading to a room and all it contained was a bookcase.  That’s what the Germans thought.  Behind that bookcase was a whole world.  Anne Franks whole world.  Behind the book case was another house of sorts and this was the house that Anne Frank and her family spent the almost all of the last years of her very short life.

We have all heard the story about the little girl locked away in a house during the war writing her diary which was later found and published by her father after her death in a prisoner of war camp.  I don’t proclaim to know all the facts of the story as I have not yet read her diary so as always bare with me if my writing is not always historically accurate.   So we entered behind the book case into another world,  Into another time.  This was a time we can only imagine the horrors people had to suffer.  The house was laid out like any other house, only it was empty.  All the rooms were there but the furniture was missing and the family was missing.

We walked past where the family ate, slept and lived.  It was very sad and quite haunting, to think we were walking in the footsteps of Anne and her family.  We had headphones on throughout the tour telling us various details of the different rooms we were in and what they were used for but the one room which sticks out in my mind and will live with me forever was the attic.  We were not allowed in the attic but there was a strategically placed mirror which reflected into the attic.  In this mirror you could see out of a window into the world.  The tape said this is where Anne spent most of her time and this was were she wrote the most of her diaries as well as some other pieces of literature she wrote.

This got me thinking about Anne, how she could spend all that time locked away and document her time like that.  What spirit must this young girl have had, what courage for such a short life.  All I kept thinking was what it said on the tape, ‘Anne used to sit looking out at the sky and this was the only glimpse of life outside the four walls of her prison she was able to see for the time she was hold up in this house’.  It was really good walking around the house of Anne Frank but I felt like I made a connection with her not her house, almost like her shadows were still in the house.  If you ever have the chance to go you must go here if it is the only thing you do when you are in Amsterdam.  It will challenge everything you think you have suffered through life and lets you know you are the lucky one no matter your suffering.

Very humbly loving being me……

Thanks for reading……

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