Amsterdam is the Greatest City in World Right Now

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No I mean literally right now.

I’m in love with Amsterdam right now. I’m even slight enamoured with the rumbling leviathan packed with baying tourists that are the Amsterdam Beer Bikeand Amsterdam Beer Bike Bar Crawl vehicles. But let’s not get carried away.

I love a lot of things. I love Oreo ice cream cones, I love the Wynand Fockinck tasting house, I loved House of Cards before I found it exhausting. I love canoeing in the Amsterdamse Bos, except when it rains, some days especially when it rains.

I love to drink, except when I’ve drunk too much, I love to cycle except when it’s tanking it down. I’ve occasionally even been in love with my girlfriend – sue me, I’m fickle. And today the object of my affection is this beautiful city.



It might be the weather:

There’s something inimitable about the charms of a decent summer’s day in the Netherlands. They have this lazy quality, a sense that it is wholly improper to do any work. These are the days that call for leisurely journeys to Amsterdamse Bos – and I can’t stress leisurely enough.

There’s nothing I would like more right now than to be drifting in a vague kind of way down Amsterdam’s canal and through her winding streets lazily window shopping and maybe stopping for a quick coffee or a quiet smoke beside the water as I amble my way toward the last bus stop in the central canal ring where I can hop a bus toward Amstelveen.

From there it would be another leisurely stroll across the sun drenched lawns and through the shadowy forest groves to the little place I head to for canoe hire. Amsterdse Bos is the lazy canoeists dream. There’s not a hint of current, and it utterly lacks the heaving swell of the tide that I learnt to cope with as a young canoeist learning the basics off the coast of Cornwall, almost a decade ago.

The sunlight creeps through the canopy of the trees that lean over the canal that runs in a figure of 8 around the forest, and exploring this simple route is for me the best way to enjoy the sunshine. So I’m hoping I can steal out of work early and get a paddle in my hands, because the sun is shining, and today not a day for the office – it’s a day for enjoying this city, for canoeing.

So suddenly I feel even more generous toward Amsterdam Beer Bike Bar Crawl groups and Amsterdam Beer Bike riders – they’re spending they’re day enjoying Amsterdam’s unique charms, just like I’d like to.

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