J and K Adventures: Amsterdam, our last European destination

It was sad to leave Copenhagen but arriving in Amsterdam assuaged our feeling. Kathy and I spent time here 4 years ago but we loved the city so much that an encore was no great sacrifice.

We took a bus, the good old 387 in from the airport. After being left off, we finally found our hotel after some starts and stops. GPS is only as good as the user and being told to head East when you don't know where North is can become problematic. Our hotel was certainly not 5 star but was more than adequate for our needs. Friendly, clean and well positioned is all that is necessary to satisfy.

We stowed our luggage, tossed some water on our faces and headed out for new adventure. Amsterdam is a wonderful city of old and new, cobblestone streets and scenic, well used canals that make you feel like you are living in a postcard.

Traffic is amazingly light for such a large city but it makes up for that with an over abundance of bikes, scooters, trams and buses. Upon arriving in the city, one needs to learn how to cross the street. Firstly, at each intersection, there may be 4 green walk signals. One needs to carefully look both ways, not once but twice as kamikaze scooters earn 2 points for wiping out overweight American tourists, or so it did seem. First you cross the designated bike lane where riders consider stop lights to be optional. Then it's crossing the auto lane, then the Eastern tram line, then reverse the order by first crossing the Western tram, auto and bike/scooter lanes before taking a huge sigh of relief by making it back to the sanctuary of the pedestrian walkway.

Bicycle rush hour

Taking their lives in their hands

Many of the buildings are better than 500 years old. They were built on reclaimed land from swamp and sea where 5 story buildings lean into each other for mutual support. Color, architecture, bridges, shops, restaurants, delicious aromas, dogs, toddlers, beautiful parks and green spaces and hearing dozens of languages add to the ambiance of this international city. Along with all that, add fine museums, (Rembrandt, Van Gogh to name just two), varied cuisine from all four corners of the world, coffee houses that sell more than coffee, a red light district and a distinct attitude of live and let live makes this a fun city to visit.

Our first evening took us to our first coffee shop, a walk around the canals at sunset/moonrise and an amazing German Schnitzel while dining on the canal.

A dog cavorting in the fountain

The best known coffee house in Amsterdam. It is housed in a former police station.

Sunset/moonrise on a canal

Beer and Schnitzel

Our days in Amsterdam were low impact and relaxed, starting by getting up faithfully at 9:00 sharp. The weather was variable--sunny, cold and windy one day and cloudy or rainy the next. We were glad we invested in both warm down jackets and rain jackets and we used both.

Building on the street near our hotel

My favorite two-spired church

Tilting buildings

One of the bigger canals

Main square

Birds enjoying a rest

Street performers--they talked more than they performed

Ringed by canals and bridges

Street scene

One day we took the tram all the way to the central station and back to the main street by our hotel. Tram #2 is supposed to be one of the most scenic tram rides in the world, and we wouldn't disagree.

Central Station

But mostly we walked. We walked all over the downtown. Up and down bridges and over canals and treading on cobblestones and bricks and over curbs and stairs and avoiding bicycles, cars, trams and buses. We really put in the mileage, but the scenery was so great, we just couldn't stop.

No segeway for us.....we hoofed it

Advertising our political leanings. We did not find any disagreement

At the bulb market

Following the GPS--thank you google maps!

Taking a nap

Little car, tall building

Miles of streets along the canals

The day we planned to go to the museum it was pouring. We walked over to the Museumplein (a huge square with several museums including the Van Gogh Museum and the Rijks Museum) to find it sold out and we got soaked for our trouble. It rained so hard that we were discouraged from going anywhere else but to a coffee shop to play pool. But when we emerged, the rain had slacked off finally and we walked to a church we could see from our hotel. Beautiful!! Pargabunking strikes again!