…the Netherlands, and Amsterdam!
Day 10 (part 2): Berlin to Amsterdam
No private cabin this time, but that was fine; we still had booked first class seats, so were in the first class car. One of the things I discovered on the Frankfurt to Berlin ride was that no matter how pretty the view is, it’s extremely difficult to take decent pictures while traveling at 150 MPH, so I left the camera packed and just alternated between watching Germany go by out the windows and watching Max Headroom episodes on my iPad.
The train to Amsterdam was about six hours, and then we figured out the local tram system to get to our hotel. Turned out to be nice and easy: one tram line for about 30 minutes, then a short walk along a pretty little canal before heading about a block into a residential/commercial neighborhood to get to the hotel.
Got ourselves settled in, walked a couple blocks away for a really good dinner at a neighborhood Middle Eastern place (Turkish pizza, which though called pizza, is closer to a burrito in form, is really good), stopped by a grocery for breakfast supplies, and now are getting ready for bed, as we have an early morning planned for tomorrow.
Day 11: Amsterdam
A day of museums and wandering around the central part of the city.
We started the day with the Rijksmuseum (Dutch masters, Rembrandt, etc.), had a great lunch at a nearby café, and then went to the Van Gogh Museum (all about the VW microbus and where it’s been…wait, no, that’s not right). After that we took a tram a few stops towards the city center until the main canals started, when we got off and walked the rest of the way in so we could walk over each of the canals. Then we spent the next couple of hours just randomly wandering our way through central Amsterdam, seeing what we could find.
Amsterdam is a gorgeous city, and for all I’d read and understood on a theoretical level that bikes are a big thing here, I didn’t really get it until today. It’s incredible to walk around a city like this, where bikes, walking, and the transit system (trams and buses) are by far the preferred ways to get around, and cars are drastically deprioritized. You’ll see streets as wide as a three- or four-lane road in the U.S., but there’s just one car lane each direction, and all the rest is pedestrian, bike, or tram lanes. Bikes are everywhere at all times; the morning and afternoon commute look like you’re on the sidelines of the Tour de France, only instead of athletes on speed bikes, it’s everyday folks on regular bikes, from modern e-bikes to old style Schwinns (or the European equivalent) to various forms of cargo bikes. It’s really incredible, and I wish the U.S. would get on board with this kind of thinking and city planning (or re-planning) – this article on how Amsterdam became a bike city is worth a read.
What with not having seen a single SUV or pickup in almost two weeks, convenient and low-stress country hopping on Interrail (formerly Eurail), and experiencing Amsterdam, this summer vacation has been an amusing experience in just how far behind Europe America is when it comes to seriously thinking about transportation as anything other than cars, more cars, bigger cars, and more bigger cars.
Eventually we were running out of steam, so we found a restaurant for dinner and ate while sitting outside and watching people stroll and roll by. Then we hopped on the tram back to the hotel, and called it an end to our day.
Day 12 (part 1): Amsterdam to…?
And it’s our next travel day!
You know the routine: Get up, have breakfast, pack out, and get to the train station. All of which went as expected, so we’re ion the train, nicely settled in to our first class seats, and off to our next stop!
