In my research for this trip I came upon this on the Onion (a satirical website) -
https://theonion.com/state-department-warns-americans-traveling-abroad-to-av-1819578957/
May 24, 2025 Weather Mostly sunny but chilly, 40’s when we left and high 50’s when we returned. Early morning walk-about We had some difficulty going through the locks this morning and arrived at our docking port, Kehl, Germany, 2 hours late. Viking juggled some tours and at 9:30 we were off on our first tour inside France. The city of Strasburg is big, some 500,00 people in the metro area. And so, there were many modern areas to go through before we reached the old city. The river L’ill passes through the town and the townspeople from a long time ago decided to channel the river more than natural and so we have a city with many canals. Certainly not like Amsterdam or Venice, but there are a lot of canals, nevertheless. The River L’ill Off the bus our tour guide, Gianni started walking. Shirley and Paul were in Group A while Bob, Loren and Pam were in group C. (Ann may have caught Paul’s cold and took the morning to rest.) We had different guides ...
WASHINGTON—In an urgent warning posted online Wednesday by the U.S. State Department, American citizens traveling to the Netherlands were strongly advised to avoid the “extremely lame” Amsterdam windmill tour. “We have received specific information from credible sources suggesting that this tour is a stupid waste of time, and we advise U.S. citizens not to blow any of their money on it under any circumstance,” the alert read in part, cautioning that the historic wooden structures, while quintessentially Dutch, are not nearly as large or impressive as one might expect, and that “once you’ve seen one, you’ve pretty much seen them all.” “We highly recommend that Americans alter their plans accordingly to avoid the lousy five-hour excursion to visit a bunch of dumb windmills. U.S. citizens should be aware that by taking the tour, they put themselves at significant risk of being bored as hell.” State Department officials added that if any travelers find themselves ripped off by an afternoon-long windmill tour that doesn’t even include lunch, they should contact the U.S. embassy immediately.
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