UK and Europe '24 - Days 7 and 8 Arriving in and exploring Amsterdam

Yesterday was an early rise in London. The Uber was due at 6:15 but we had packed the night before, so could take it easy when the alarm sounded at 5:15.The trip across to St Pancras International station was pretty much traffic-free - we beat the morning peak, which our Uber driver said is generally pretty solid between seven and nine. The Brits still love sticking to their nine to five, it seems. He also pointed out all the surveillance camera along the way. Cameras to book people if they speed or if they're driving in an unregistered vehicle. Lots of plain clothes police, he tells us, and every inch of London being watched, explaining the courteous driving and low number of prangs. St Pancras station is chokkas with people going elsewhere. The train before ours was going to Paris, ours was going to Amsterdam, but you already knew that. It was a comfortable trip. We'd booked the premium seats for a bit of extra space. It felt a little surreal watching the flags they were flying change from the Union Jack to the French and Belgian flags along the way to the Netherlands flag as we edged closer to our destination. In the space of three hours, we traveled about 360 kilometres. If you were travelling from Sydney, that would get you, roughly to Wagga Wagga. From Adelaide, Wilpena Pound or Mildura. In either case, we wouldn't have even nearly left the state. 

We hopped off the train, and immediately went into lost tourist mode. How do you exit the commuter gates?! By swiping the Eurostar ticket, that's how. Not really that confusing, but maybe we expected to be confused in a country where English isn't the primary language (every speaks English here, so far). I'm sure the Germans have a word for that. I digress. 

We had a little bit of time up our sleeves before heading to our accommodation, so checked our luggage into the lockers at the station and had a little wander through the old town. This is where you'll find all of the iconic sights and experiences of Amsterdam, from the centuries-old architecture along the canals, to the red light district with sex workers winking at you from the other side of their street window, with the occasional waft of pot in the air. We found a bite to eat, narrowly avoided death several times as we got used to traffic and commuter bikes moving on the opposite side of the road to home/London, then caught an Uber to Noorderpark B&B.

Our hosts are really lovely and the place is very comfortable. The king-size bed is like sleeping on a cloud and our room looks out onto the cute backyard, complete with chickens. The location is quiet and I wondered as the Uber driver wound around into the suburbs just how far I had booked, but we're right on a canal, and a ten minute bike ride gets us back to Amsterdam Central. There are so many people on bikes here, and everyone is very friendly. Ingrid, our host, sent us a huge list of local cafes and restaurants to the recommend in the local area, so we hopped on our bikes for the six-minute ride to Klaproos pizza restaurant.

The restaurant is a great space, set up in an old garage, with a large ground floor space and a mezzanine, which we accessed by the steepest, shallow stairs in the world (not verified with Guiness). I don't know how the wait staf manage the drinks and food up those stairs, but manage they do, and the food is delicious. We had arancini for starters and ordered separate pizzas. Mine came with some chilli-infused olive oil, which I only used for half of it because no Mylanta. Those who know us will be shocked to know we had a glass of wine each. Still, we managed to avoid death on the paths and roads as cyclists and enjoyed a nice ride home after dinner. The sky still held a little bit of light just after 10pm, which around about when I fell asleep.

Today was our day for getting our bearings in Amsterdam, so we hopped on our bikes and headed toward the free ferry across to Amsterdam Centraal. We spotted and cafe near the jetty called Sixty Forty so parked at the front gate and wandered in. Like an apparition, our host, Ingrid, appeared at our table. She works there and after a quick chat, took our coffee order. Next thing, her husband appears and sat with us for a quick chat while we sipped our coffees and waited on our food. Not to be ignored is the fact the cafe is in a building dating back to the 1670's, and has an original mural on the wall inside.

With fuel in the engine, we hopped on our bikes and caught the ferry. Good lord those locals travel swiftly on their bikes. Local legend has it there are more bikes than people in Amsterdam. They have their "good bike" for going to special occasions, and the everyday bike for just getting about, like to the pub. Parking is easy: just leave it sitting where you see all of the other bikes, you don't even have to chain it to anything. The wheel lock is enough. We cycled over to Jordaan, which our guide later in the day said is Dutch for garden, and the locality so named because people have lovely back gardens over there. None of which are visible to the public. This is either inaccurate on the guide's behalf  or in my retelling of it, since the Dutch word for garden is tuin. It makes for a good story though! 

We parked our bikes outside a small cafe and had another coffee, something a little bit stronger than the first one and watched the traffic idle by in the street. We decided to leave the bikes put and go for a walk, taking a route that ran along a canal, following the trail to Anne Frank's House. We didn't go inside today. Like with anywhere in Europe, it seems, booking ahead is your best bet. We did, however jump onto a canal cruise so we could view the city from a different angle.

Our Skipper, Flo, was very informative and humorous. There was a bridge with a reading of the speed of passing vessels that had a green smiley face as the craft in front of us passed. Flo took on the challenge to change the green smiley face into a red frown face. Hopefully nobody reads this and decides to book him. So for the purpose of this blog, his name was Jessica. 

There is so much beautiful architecture lining the canals. The city is world heritage listed, which means that only a few modern buildings made it into the mix before the world heritage order was declared. Sailing through the canals was a nice relaxing way to circle the city. Some points of interest along the way included Amsterdam's widest canal, which when the weather drops low enough, freezes over, is used for ice skating. This used to happen roughly every two to three years, but due to the changing climate, hasn't happened since 2012. According to Flo, it's something the people of Amsterdam love and miss very much.

If you look closely at the photo above, you will notice a crown above one of the doorways. It's not royalty, but is the home of a woman in Amsterdam who made it her mission to have the decorative lamp posts recommissioned along the canals. When electricity was introduced, the old lamp pasts were replaced with something more modern. Dissatisfied, the resident wrote relentlessly to the local government until they relented and brought the old style back. The lamps have little crowns a the top and in recognition, they placed a crown above her door. Further along we saw the seven bridges

And the dancing houses. 

As you look at some of buildings along the canals, some of them have a noticeable lean forward. Over time, some of the original wooden structures began to lean, and have been bricked in, lean intact. Others, like the dancing houses, are sinking. The muddy ground underneath is about eleven metres deep before it hits bedrock, and the houses sit on 10-20 wooden pilings, depending on size of their floor space. As the pilings decay, the houses sink and lean. Another reason is the weight of modern day traffic, which is also causing the walls along the canals to weaken. It will be a one-hundred year project to strengthen them all, and will need to start over again when it is finished. As a result there are some interesting and precarious angles on some of the windows and doors. 

There's the Mayor's house

The East India Spice Trading Headquarters

The narrowest house in the world (from an era when land tax was calculated on the width of your house). It's that small sliver in between the two bigger ones.

There are lots of houseboats lining the canals, but there are no more approvals being granted for them, so they go for a premium now. The entry price, for a run down houseboat is half a million euros. Anyone want in?

There's the Lover's Bridge, which is said to be an omen for a life-long relationship if you kiss your partner while going under it. There was a bride and groom posing for their wedding photos on it as we passed (not pictured)

And the divorce bridge, where you can throw your partner into the water and end it.

There's even a cute game of cat and mouse across two buildings en route.

Rain is expected today. A yellow raincoat day, which is only light rain, so we headed back to the B & B. Then we felt like a snack, so headed off on foot to the local supermarket, which in hindsight would have been better as a bike ride and just over a kilometre each way, but slowing down is where all the interesting things are, even when you're working through suburban areas. We got rained on, but that's OK. It wasn't an orange or red rain coat day, so we're fine. We're in Amsterdam!