Our optimism yesterday crashed this morning. When we started François the check engine light was on again, so we began our day by reaching out to the Fiat dealer nearby. During the drive over the light went out so some optimism returned, but in the end we decided we needed to be sure the engine is ok before we head to Morocco. The earliest appointment for a full appointment to do the diagnosis was Tuesday, that was a little later than we hoped, so we contacted the dealer in Delft that did the work on our airbag computer, but their earliest appointment was also Tuesday. So we are now here until Tuesday instead of Friday. Bummer.
Since we were already out and the weather was nice Ton suggested we go to Alsmeer for the day. It was reported as a pretty town on a large lake. Since it was pretty close I agreed. The drive over was easy and we parked up about a kilometer out of the main town.
We had driven along the lake and it was pretty, but as we headed into town the lake disappeared behind houses and never appeared again. The downtown was nice but not exciting. We saw signs for old town Alsmeer and headed towards it. The entrance was promising with a nice canal bridge and a couple of interesting buildings. As we got to the end of the walkway we came on a ticket office and had all but decided to turn around when a nice old gentleman came up to greet us. In the end neither of us could tell him we didn’t want to spend the entrance fee so we went in.
There were a couple of workshops and hot houses with flowers, But after the beginning it turned into a garden with different themes. The gardens were nice, and if you were really into gardening interesting because it included a lot of plants that are no longer in style, so rare. There was no sign of an old town, so we did a quick turn thru the gardens and headed back to François.
When we started François the check engine light was back. So our decision to stay seems like the right one.