We rolled into the Netherlands on July 23, and into its beautiful capital a couple of days later. We had two lovely days in Amsterdam, where we got to hang out with some other cyclists we met in South America (more on that in a later post).
One of our favorite things about Amsterdam is the cycling culture there. There are loads of bicycles everywhere in the city, so we were always in good company.
Just one section of many huge bike racks (all full) outside the train station.
Of course, one of our priorities in cities is to sample the local food… and since we do so much exercise, we like to get a lot of it! A traditional Amsterdam treat is a cone of french fries, loaded with ketchup and mayo.
Delicious! We bought these at the street market and actually saw the guy chopping the potatoes to make them fresh. (And yes, that is a HUGE cone of french fries. We shared.)
We wanted to hit some of the highlights in Amsterdam… and if you know much about it, one of the top items on many tourists’ lists is visit a coffeeshop. In Amsterdam, cafes serve coffee, and you go to a coffeeshop to buy a joint (or two). Marajuana is legal in the Netherlands… definitely a change for us coming from the US! But since that’s not one of our hobbies anyway, we just snapped a photo from the outside (and smelled it from the outside as well!).
In the central area of Amsterdam, coffeeshops are the norm. That’s one of the highlights for many travelers to this city. For us, it was more entertaining!
What we did make a point to do was visit the Anne Frank House and Museum. This was the house where Anne Frank and her family lived when they fled from Germany around the time of World War II. In the back of the house is the Secret Annex where they lived for two years in hiding. The museum that went through the house gave us lots of good history… we very much enjoyed it!
This is the actual house… right on one of Amsterdam’s many canals.
We also enjoyed just roaming the streets along Amsterdam’s waterways… we had a picnic in front of a canal with fresh fruit we bought from the street market. We visited the Rijksmuseum as well, which features many of Rembrandt’s masterpieces. Altogether, a fabulous city, which makes sense, as The Netherlands has been one of our favorite countries in our journey thus far!
