Amsterdam - Europe 2010
2:12 PM
Amsterdam was our next stop on the way to Munich. I've never been to the Netherlands before so this stop officially makes country #36 to my travel list.
We arrived to a reasonably overcast and slightly wet Amsterdam. We were greeted by a bloke from the apartments we were renting and he led us into the red light district to find our apartment. We arrived at a little door in a street and were informed that everything above was ours. Entering the building and negotiating the steep winding staircase revealed a three level apartment, which was pretty cool. We met up with a few others that night and partied the night away.
The first full day in Amsterdam and it was wet and miserable and there were a few sore heads amongst us. We had an easy morning, which was probably needed anyway, before heading out for a canal tour, in the rain, after lunch. Was hard to really appreciate the canals in the rain but there is a lot of them and the general infrastructure in Amsterdam is very bike and canal focussed. It's noticeable the lack of any land area, with all buildings butting up against the other building and all going up, rather than across.
Day 2 saw a couple of us take a train to the Hague, renting some push bikes and then cycling about 30kms to Rotterdam, via Deft. It was a nice day fortunately and given how flat The Netherlands is, an easy cycle, except for the headwind. Delf is very quaint and is the home to that blue and white china you see around the place. Rotterdam, by contrast, is a huge port and we did a tour of it in the afternoon. It's massive and very busy. Containers and container ships everywhere. We trained it back to Amsterdam and again hit the town that night.
Our final day in Amsterdam saw us float around a bit. I visited Anne Frank's house, which was really interesting, before meeting up with the others at the "I am Amsterdam" sign for some photos before heading to the Heinekken brewery for a tour, which was pretty cool. I even have a beer bottle at home that says "brewed by Dave Wylde". hahaha.
We took the overnight train to Munich that night - next stop Oktoberfest!
Cheers
Dave
We arrived to a reasonably overcast and slightly wet Amsterdam. We were greeted by a bloke from the apartments we were renting and he led us into the red light district to find our apartment. We arrived at a little door in a street and were informed that everything above was ours. Entering the building and negotiating the steep winding staircase revealed a three level apartment, which was pretty cool. We met up with a few others that night and partied the night away.
The first full day in Amsterdam and it was wet and miserable and there were a few sore heads amongst us. We had an easy morning, which was probably needed anyway, before heading out for a canal tour, in the rain, after lunch. Was hard to really appreciate the canals in the rain but there is a lot of them and the general infrastructure in Amsterdam is very bike and canal focussed. It's noticeable the lack of any land area, with all buildings butting up against the other building and all going up, rather than across.
Day 2 saw a couple of us take a train to the Hague, renting some push bikes and then cycling about 30kms to Rotterdam, via Deft. It was a nice day fortunately and given how flat The Netherlands is, an easy cycle, except for the headwind. Delf is very quaint and is the home to that blue and white china you see around the place. Rotterdam, by contrast, is a huge port and we did a tour of it in the afternoon. It's massive and very busy. Containers and container ships everywhere. We trained it back to Amsterdam and again hit the town that night.
Our final day in Amsterdam saw us float around a bit. I visited Anne Frank's house, which was really interesting, before meeting up with the others at the "I am Amsterdam" sign for some photos before heading to the Heinekken brewery for a tour, which was pretty cool. I even have a beer bottle at home that says "brewed by Dave Wylde". hahaha.
We took the overnight train to Munich that night - next stop Oktoberfest!
Cheers
Dave
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