After an 11.5 hour train journey from Munich we finally arrived in Amsterdam. It went pretty fast - our first experience of an overnight train was pretty good. We ended up sharing a bunk room with an Aussie and a German, but it was a good trip. Very well set up and we both had a pretty good sleep. You have toilets at the end of each carriage and a cafe down one end of the train. Definietly a good way to travel the long ones as you don't loose any city time.
Amsterdam is quite different to Germany - they all speak superb english which has made this leg fairly easy. Our hotel is cute - in an old canal house with the steepest staircase (and spiral) you have ever seen. All of the stairs around the city are the same, they are almost like climbing a ladder and you can't actually get your entire foot on the step.
The city really is designed for biking, although there are plenty of smart cars, buses and trams as well. By Central Station there is a bike parking building that can have 3000 bikes in it at any one time.
We spent our first day here having a bit of a look around, and then decided to head straight to the Heineken Experience. This was really well done, and they actually do a beer tasting at the end. We did get lost a few times the first day as all of the streets look the same, and the road each side of the canal have the same name, not to mention the streets curve around, so it took a bit of getting used to.
The people here are so laid back, a much slower pace of life which has been really enjoyable. Of course our next stop was a 'Coffee Shop', which you can't miss out of a trip to Amsterdam! Again very cool the way this works, and we have seen no trouble or agro since we have been here!
There are plenty of bakeries and chocolataries around - beautiful stuff in them, and there are even snack shops that have burger and hot dog vending machines!
We went for the compulsory walk through the red light district on Tuesday night - it is pretty much exactly as is is always described. The girls in the windows marked with a red fluro tube above the door, mixed with the 'closed curtains'. So many people around it is almost more of a tourist attraction than reality, heaps of tour groups walking around as they offer this area as a tour also.
Logan is happy we are finally in a place he can get an English breakfast every morning....and the coffee is the nicest we have had so far, although it is much more expensive here than in Germany.
We have noticed that all of the canal houses are 3 windows across, and above the middle set of windows on every house is a big hook - we are assuming this is to pulley furniture into the house as you would never be able to use the stairs, but every single house has one.
Yesterday we started the day with Anne Franks House - another really well done museum, the house or secret annex is much bigger than either of us expected for a hide out. We then moved on to a bit of a lighter activity and did the House of Bols Cocktail tour. They take you thought the history of Bols liquer and do some taste and smell tests with you before finishing with a cocktail made all with bols and some liquer tasting...yum. We may have accidentally had some Bols fall into our bags to make some yummy cocktails when we get home.
We finished the evening with a lovely candlelit wine and cheese cruise through the canals which gave a completely different perspective on the city. From the canal you get to see into the house boats - from the street they look fairly grotty but the inside of them is stunning. They are worth millions of dollars each and are done up as really upmarket apaertment with all of the modern european fittings! Good value too, we thought we were going to get a cheese platter and one glass of wine, but they just keep topping your wine up for the entire 2 hours!
This morning we went for a bit more of a wander around the city and decided to go in and have a look at Madame Tussauds - amazingly lifelike!
Just killing a few hours now before catching the traing to Paris but Amsterdam has been a blast!!
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