Contents
- Preface
- San Francisco
- Amsterdam
- Amsterdam, Helmond
- Amsterdam, Zandvoort, Haarlem
- Amsterdam, Bruges
- Bruges, Brussels, Cologne, Berlin
- Berlin
- Berlin, Potsdam
- Berlin, Wansee
- Berlin, Prague
- Prague
- Prague, Karlstejn, Vienna
- Vienna
- Vienna, Salzburg, Füssen
- Füssen, Neuschwanstein, Munich
- Munich, Innsbruck
- Innsbruck
- Innsbruck, Zürich, Lauterbrunnen
- Lauterbrunnen, Jungfraujoch
- Lauterbrunnen, Schilthorn
- Lauterbrunnen, Spiez, Zermatt
- Zermatt
- Zermatt, Martigny, Chamonix
- Chamonix, Mont Blanc
- Chamonix, Mont Blanc, Courmayeur, Aosta, Turin
- Barcelona
- Barcelona, Sitges
- Barcelona
- Milan, Venice
- Venice
- Venice
- Venice, Milan, Cinque Terre
- Cinque Terre, La Spezia
- Cinque Terre, Pisa, Lucca, Florence
- Florence
- Florence
- Florence, Siena
- Siena, San Gimignano, Rome
- Rome
- Rome
- Rome, Sorrento
- Sorrento, Vesuvius, Pompeii
- Sorrento, Positano, Amalfi, Ravello
- Sorrento, Capri, Naples
- Naples, Bari
- Patras, Athens, Mykonos
- Mykonos
- Mykonos
- Mykonos, Paros, Santorini
- Santorini
- Santorini, Athens
- Athens
- Athens, Amsterdam, San Francisco
Prev :: Saturday, 3 September 2005 :: Next
2. Amsterdam
Photo Gallery
The flight arrived in Amsterdam a few minutes ahead of its scheduled 11:35. The train ride into the center is easy and quick, and it's covered by the Eurail pass. The first observation of course is that it's very flat. The second is that it's remarkably hot and sunny, this being somewhat unusual in northern Europe. So I was very lucky with the weather (heat is a nice change, coming from San Francisco where it's usually 15° in mid-summer), especially since everyone said they had had a mostly miserable summer — cool, grey, and rainy — until then. The third observation is that everyone in Holland speaks better English than most Americans do, making it almost too easy to travel here!
The cities are in a way backwards, to an American. On the outskirts you find big roads, the occasional large modern office building or airport, and relative sterility. The centers are crowded, residential with small shops at street level, with wonderful old architecture everywhere. So I'd much rather be an American traveling in Europe than a European traveling in America, where the city centers are mostly boring high-rise fortresses and you can hardly even get anywhere on public transport. Must be a shock for them!
The train station is at the north end of the old city along the river, and the trams are quite convenient for radial trips away from it (less so when you want to go orthogonally along the rings of the canals). Having not slept well on the plane, I took some considerable time to work it all out, but it seems easy in hindsight. The stops are well signed and announced so it's not easy to get lost. I took the #4 out to Prinsengracht 1051, maybe 2 km or so to the south, for three nights at the ITC. As far as hotels go, Amsterdam is certainly one of the priciest places in Europe. This one is €70 for a very small room with shared bath, but on the plus side it was on the top floor with a nice outlook onto the leafy canal below, and a good location. First thing to do is to get out of the long pants, as it's around 30° and sticky.
Despite being zonked, I headed immediately for the culture a short walk to the west. Well, first a stroll through the long, narrow Vondelpark to enjoy the sunshine. Then the Rijksmuseum, which fortunately was mostly closed! That doesn't sound fortunate, but in fact they took all the good stuff and put it into a small number of rooms, and closed the rest. It's a gigantic building, so I certainly wouldn't have coped well otherwise in my sleepy state. The most popular thing here is Rembrandt's Night Watch. Interesting that the Dutch empire was so rich and produced so much great art in a sharp peak in the seventeenth century, with not so much before or after. But there was Van Gogh a bit later, and his museum is very close by in a modern building. When I visited it held a large number of sketches, which I think I didn't enjoy quite as much as the much smaller number of his paintings, but still it's a worthwhile visit. The canals are lovely, with lots of trees and beautiful narrow houses with twisty roof lines along their facades. Each has a hook hanging out from the highest point; because the houses are so narrow, this is the only means of hoisting furniture and other unwieldy objects up to the higher levels. Another thing I noticed while strolling is a hip clothing chain with an interesting name, the "Sissy Boy"! I doubt it would do so well in the US, outside of San Francisco...
At nighttime of course one has to see the Red Light district, where the first impression is that it isn't seedy at all. Nice clean streets, pretty houses along lovely canals, not a whiff of danger, good storefronts for window shopping... except for what's in the windows: women in very skimpy outfits! Ok, well a quick walk through is more than enough to give you the idea... No one seems to have thought to produce a male version of this Red Light district. Getting into a somewhat salacious mood, I visited the nearby Torture Museum, which contains rooms of medieval implements and is helpfully open late. However, it was quite spooky; I was the only one inside, and as the man selling tickets looked as if he could have come off the set of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, I wondered if I might end up as part of some impromptu demonstration. There is also a Sex Museum, but some other travelers warned me that it was actually rather dull so I gave it a miss. As far as nightlife goes, it's probably best to ask the locals, as everyone seems to visit specific places at very specific times. I didn't quite work out the schedule, and hit a number of empty ones. Didn't want to stay out too late, anyway, because I had places to go in the morning.