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This is the life
A castle we cylcled upon and decided to have a picnic I don't think anyone has travelled or worked in the UK without ever having visited Amsterdam. It's one of those 'must see' places, and with good reason. Apart from the infamous 'activities' you can legally participate in, we discovered the city has a lot more to offer.....
Saturday 6th May 2006 As usual we had an early start to make use of our long weekend. We arrived in Amsterdam mid morning and found our way to the Bulldog Backpackers where we had booked our dorm beds. To our surprise the Bulldog was right on the edge of the red light district! It was also grass friendly, as we discovered when we walked into reception to find people smoking giant joints in front of us. This set the tone of the next 4 days in this easy going and carefree city.
After dumping our bags we headed straight for the Heineken Brewery (see photos) in which you can do an interactive tour that includes a few free drinks. Before we new it we were half pissed before lunch! After some food to settle alcohol effects down we headed to the house of Anne Frank for a gander. We had not
read the book but it was still interesting to see the original house and the secret room Anne and her family lived in during the war. Dinner consisted of bread, cheese, ham and wine (how unusual for us!) on the Bulldog's roof terrace. We topped the day off with a stroll through the red light district - an eye opening experience!!
Sunday 7th May 2006 For those of you that know Amsterdam and Holland, you know that bicycles rule when it comes to transport. So we thought the best way to see the city was on a bike tour (similar to the tour we did in Paris). The tour went for around 4 hours and went through the city and out to some of the rural areas where we got to see a famous windmill, along with a small clog and cheese factory. We learnt some very interesting facts about the history of Amsterdam, including how the 'XXX' symbol became known to symbolise hard porn (long story!), that there are around 400 coffee shops in Amsterdam (they can legally sell marijuana), and that most of the houses are so narrow because they used to pay tax on the width
of the land.
Speaking of narrow houses, the architecture in the city was quite interesting, however some buildings looked quite odd having developed a lean over the years due to the poor foundations in the reclaimed land (the area used to be mainly under water). Many people also live in houseboats that line the canals throughout the city, many of which are converted cargo boats that we used as a temporary shelter during the housing shortage following WWII. Nowdays these boats are hot property and are very expensive to buy in the prime locations. After dinner we decided to jump on a boat for an evening canal cruise with our bottle of red wine to get a different perspective of the city.
Monday 8th May 2006 For day 3 we decided to get out of the city and do some exploring through the tulip fields which happened to be in bloom (they only bloom for 4 weeks each year). We hired 2 bikes, bought map, packed a picnic, and off we went! After seeing way too many tulip fields we ended up at a random little castle for our picnic lunch. All in all we rode around 25km
for the day which was pretty good considering we had no gears on our bikes. Luckily Holland is a flat country!!
Tuesday 9th May 2006 What trip to any country would be complete without visiting the markets!! Yes - Rach was again able to locate markets for us to visit, however they actually turned out to be ok. Justin bought a leather motorcycle jacket (why you ask? you'll find out soon!) and Rach picked up some new clothes. After the dose of retail therapy and a coffee break we headed to the Van Gogh Art Gallery for and hour or two (surprisingly interesting) before heading back to the Bulldog for the least liked activity of any trip - packing to go home.
We left Amsterdam with very fond memories of a city famous for the wrong reasons. It's easy to understand why so many people love to visit this place time and time again.
We hope this blog finds you all well and you are enjoying life whatever you may be up to!
Love
Justin and Rach
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Kate & Fiko
non-member comment
Whoa!
Hi Guys Thanks for update! At least we know what to expect when we go there later this year! Looks like a very pretty place, just gotta watch out for the coffee shops! Looking forward to your next adventure!