Yep, that was the motto of the free walking tour that we took on Tuesday! There were a couple brilliant ideas here, first not to die, meaning not to get hit by a bike, tram, taxi, repeat…. then pedestrians! And secondly, this tour was free and our guide worked on tips! What a brilliant idea!
Amsterdam is know for bikes, and there are a lot of them! 1.3 million according to something that Nick read, and there are only 800k people living in Amsterdam. So I think it’s safe to say that this is the most popular means of transportation.
We thoroughly enjoyed our three hour walking tour which took us through The Red Light District (which is not nearly as sleezy as I thought it would be – but once we go back at night I might think differently), past some of the most beautiful canals, through intermittent clouds of pot smoke, by the narrowest house in Amsterdam and taught us about the peculiar histories of this lovely city!
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| Amsterdam canals |
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| Our guide for the morning – Mark |
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| Skinniest flat in Amsterdam |
Once our tour with Mark, the Irishman, had concluded we made our way to The Nemo, a children’s science museum designed by Renzo Piano, and from there we made our way to Brouwerij ‘t Ij, a local Dutch microbrewery in a windmill!
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| The Nemo |
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| Brewery in a windmill – brilliant |
We finished our evening by returning to a traditional Dutch restaurant that was recommended by our tour guide, little did we know until about 20 mins into our stay that they were having trivia night. Even though he knows no Dutch, Nick was still guessing some of the questions correctly! We really enjoyed our dinners, both having a mashed potatoe and carrot base top with gravy, and mine with a meatball and Nick’s with a sausage.
Wednesday was suppose to be rainy so we decided to The Van Gogh museum, but go figure it was beautiful and sunny, but that was okay because I loved this museum, maybe my favorite of all we have ever visited! Afterwards we headed to get some of Amsterdsm’s famous pancakes, and they did not disappoint, they were delicious!
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| Spinach, pine nut and goat cheese pancake |
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| More pancakes…. |
With our bellies full we ventured back to the city center and boarded a canal cruise. This was one thing that I had not planned but sure glad that we did it. Cruising through the canals under the low bridges with an opportunity to see many house boats, as well as a better view of the tall, slender houses that lined the streets was perfect!
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| Amsterdam Canal Houses |
In order to complete this trip we had two more things to accomplish, locate the windmill located in Amsterdam in which people still live and visit the RLD one more time, this time at night!
First up was the windmill, which according to my TripAdvisor app was fairly close to a tram stop. Needless to say this wasn’t true, however our walk did take us through the most beautiful park, which for some reason at one point had wallabies hopping around – hmmm? The walk out to the windmill was very peaceful, as we were two of a handful of people occupying the park, listening to the birds chirping and singing was a nice break from the hustle and bustle that is Amsterdam! The windmill did not disappoint at all, it was well maintained and beautiful.
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| Amsterdam Windmill |
Then to top our trip of Amsterdam off, a nighttime walk through the Red Light District, still nothing like the picture I had in my head but interesting nonetheless!
Amsterdam you have been wonderful, now onto Berlin to finish off this excursion!
