"" Writer's Wanderings: Amsterdam--City of canals

Monday, July 06, 2009

Amsterdam--City of canals


Arriving in Amsterdam at 8 in the morning after six hours of trying to sleep sitting up and assured that our room will not be ready anytime before noon, we struck out to find something to do for our first day in the Netherlands. Just outside our hotel, the Moevenpick, we discovered a canal boat stop. When the boat arrived, to our delight, we discovered that you could purchase tickets from the captain and we were on our way.

There are three lines for the Canal Bus--red, green, and blue. Each complete circuit takes about an hour with stops at several places close to attractions. With a 20 Euro ticket, you can hop on and hop off whereever you wish on any of the lines. We opted to start by doing almost a complete circuit of the blue line. When we got hungry, we hopped off and found a little Bagel and Beans place near a flea market and ate while we people watched.

It didn't take long to realize that a whole lot of the fun of Amsterdam is people watching. Clothing is varied from the very eloquent to the variety best purchased in a costume store. Like any big city, Amsterdam has its collection of characters and you only need sit a spell to see some.

We enjoyed the canals and views so much that we opted to get on the red line and take it most of the way around and back to the blue line where we completed our circuit at Central Station near our hotel and walked back to find our room ready. A shower, a nap, and we were ready to take on a short jaunt to a restaurant on the canal we found not far from our hotel.

A little walk around down Damrak, the main street leading away from the Central Station and it was time to put our jet lag to bed. To our wonder and enjoyment, we had a view of a glorious sunset from our hotel window. The sun sets late here in July--10 p.m. It rises early as well and was up before us lighting the way for our next full day walking tour.

Other posts on the Netherlands:
Anne Frank House
Windmills-Zaanse Schans
Historic Triangle
Corrie Ten Boom House

No comments:

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...