Amsterdam

We spent 3 days in Amsterdam.

We stayed at mediocre hotel near the Amsterdam Zoo. It was extremely faded and worn hotel. When new, it was nothing special either, but it was clean and inexpensive by Amsterdam standards.

It was conveniently located on a tram line (the #9 and #14) which allowed us to get to the Centraal station quickly and from there hop a tram to anywhere in the city.

RIGHT downstairs from the hotel was nice little pub/restaurant. They had La Chouffe on tap and a few other bottled Belgian beers. I was afraid that I was going to be stuck drinking Amstel or Heineken for the 3 days we were in Amsterdam, but it seems that every bar or restaurant we went to had Duvel, so that was a pleasant surprise.

We were beat when we arrived [We slept till 2pm the second day we were in Amsterdam]. We managed to hump our luggage to our hotel and leave it there and then we started to explore the city.

We walked a great deal. We ate many mayonnaise drenched french fries, we drank much beer, we had “coffee”.

We visited the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh house. We never made it onto a canal boat cause it was cold and rainy the entire time were in Amsterdam.

We spent many hours sitting in cafe’s and watching people live their daily lives. It looks like a very livable city. I think I would choke on a pickled herring if I knew how much rents were though.

Everyone, it seems, has a bicycle. Lots of different styles, but most of them single speed, with coaster brakes. Lots of elaborate (and some no-so-elaborate and obviously homemade) methods of keeping the ever present rain from being splashed up on the rider from the tires.

There were lots of contraptions attached to bicycles to haul groceries, children and dogs. The oddest one was a long bicycle with a big bucket, about 1meter x .75 meter (kind of like a wheelbarrow) in front of the rider. The front wheel was in front of the bucket.

Here is what they look like:

The handlebars were in the normal place and connected to the front wheel with a linkage.

Oh and it had 2 sidestands that deployed on each side to hold it upright so nothing fell out of the bucket. Many of them had tonneau covers that snapped on to keep the cargo dry.

I wonder how that baby handled. (heh)

I cringed many a time watching someone ride a bicycle on those wet cobblestone streets, with the tram tracks embedded in the cobblestones. My teeth are on edge just thinking about it!

Not a lot of motorcycles, though there are many scooters.

One interesting thing about scooters:
Some of the streets have dedicated bicycle lanes or there is a lane painted on the sidewalk for them. It seems that scooters below a certain size (50cc?) can ride in the bicycle lanes. The riders of these scooters do not apparently have to wear helmets [or obey the traffic signals.].

I did not see any lane splitting per se, presumably because any place that was congested enough for that to be useful had its own bicycle lane. A great way to beat the traffic in the city.

All in all Amsterdam passes the “would you live there” test.