Amsterdam, The Netherlands
August 13-14

We stayed about 20 miles outside Amsterdam at a little hotel in the woods north of Heemskerk. The train to Amsterdam was about 4€ round trip and we went into town on Saturday and Sunday. Monday, we drove around the northern end of the peninsula between the Zuider Zee and the North Sea - which might have been a good thing since there was a train wreck that day at the Amsterdam Centraal Station. All the news reports we saw were in Dutch and we never figured out exactly what happened but it sure would have been tough getting back to the hotel on Monday.

Centraal Station.

Amsterdam's busy. 700,000 people, not counting tourists. We sometimes play "spot the tourist" while eating at street cafes and downtown Amsterdam has 20 or more tourists for every local. A higher ratio than even Bratislava. Walking around is the most fun, of course, as always.

We also visited the Royal Palace and the Ship Museum - those pictures are on separate pages.

Boats, trams, cars, scooters, bikes. At least the boats won't run you down. The bikes have the right-of-way in the special bike lanes between the sidewalk and the street. The problem is where cafes, crowds, or even piles of bikes make it impossible to stay on the sidewalk. Then the bikers are merciless.

Just think of Amsterdam as being very like New Orleans with canals instead of balconies, coffee shops instead of plastic beer cups, Brits instead of Northerners, Belgian beer instead of Hurricanes, broodjies (snacks) instead of Cajun food, more trams, and even more tourists.

Of course there's more to Amsterdam than the downtown, just as there's more to New Orleans than the French Quarter. Here's some sights around the canals and elsewhere.

We stopped at the nifty Houseboat Museum. There's a lot of people living in houseboats and all the mooring spots in the city are taken. You can buy a houseboat for about 300,000€ but they point out the maintenance is quite a bit higher - you have to take it to drydock every three years. Oh, and they don't have engines so you're not able to roam the canals at will.