Amsterdam: City of History, Pot, Prostitutes, Cat Boats, Bikes, and Tilting Houses

So much of the pleasure of visiting Amsterdam is in just walking the city, a beautiful city, with a painful history, and a present that is simply charming.

We stayed at The Bridge Hotel, located on the Amstel River, a few blocks from the edge of the busy parts of the city. It felt almost residential. A block from our hotel was a small bridge with a sign memorializing the Jews who had lived on that particular canal....before the Nazis arrived.

The sign explains that 200 Jews who lived along this canal were murdered during WWII. Along the left walkway are plaques identifying the names of the Jews who lived across the canal in each building.

 

 

We booked tickets to the Anne Frank "Hus" months earlier having heard that the lines to get in were hours long without a reservation.  Good thing:

 

 

This is the line for the Anne Frank Museum, several blocks long.



 

That nondescript building (the older part is the original office building) is the Anne Frank Museum.

 

The museum is well-worth the visit.

 

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We walked by many a pot shop, but did not have any urge to visit one. Most looked like biker bars or college student hang outs: and a smoke filled bar just isn't my thing no matter the type of smoke. I did like the name of this pot shop though:

 

 

 

We also walked through the Red Light District (in order to get to the cat boat and the public library---that's true!), and while we followed the signs that warned us against photographing the actual prostitutes sitting in their windows, I did get a picture of this one, Bella, a prostitute rights activist, who has a statue in the heart of the Red Light district. And yes, that's a church behind her: the church has been there for a long time, and it continues to be a safe haven for prostitutes.

 

 



Bella.

 

Not far from the Red Light district is the famous Poezenboot, or Cat Boat, a sort of Humane Society for cats.  They were closed the day we found them, but the women who worked there were doing some Sunday maintenance and let us visit briefly. 

 

 



 

 

Bicycles rule in Amsterdam. Truly. They get more real estate on the major roads than do cars, trams or pedestrians. Somewhere near 50% of those living in Amsterdam use a bike as their primary mode of transportation. People park their bikes ANYWHERE it seems, too, including in the pedestrian right of way. Let's just say it took us a few days to get used to this, and even by the 4th day, Mike was nearly killed by a bicyclist or refused to yield for him (bikes can ride in both directions) when we were trying to cross the road.

 

I wished I had taken more pictures of much more crowded bike parking scenes. In Haarlem, at the train station, bikes get an entire parking lot. That was cool.

 

Tilted houses and windmills? Yep, Amsterdam has those, too.

 



 





Side Trip: Damme

During each of the major stopovers during our travels, we took a side trip. From Paris we went to Versailles, from Amsterdam we went to Harlem and Zandvoort, and from Bruges we went to Damme.

Just as Bruges was the smallest city we visited, Damme was the smallest side destination.

Sternwheeler tour boat takes people from Bruges to Damme

Damme also served as our bicyle ride for the trip. It is much easier for us to pedal without heavy traffic than with; our bicycle ride in Italy was in Lucca, a town very similar to Bruges.

Damme's windmill

The day and night before were very wet and very windy, but for our ride it was merely damp and breezy. (It’s a good thing. We later found out that the widespread storm was powerful enough to kill a man taking shelter at a bus stop in Amsterdam.)

Dark and windy

Lunch in a shoebox café was lovely; we each had a local beer and sandwich made with local cheese. 

This is about as busy as the main street gets

There’s no longer much to Damme, but the past echoes. The canal we followed from Bruges is arrow-straight, created by the emperor Napoleon … or, rather, his Spanish prisoners. Now there are waterfowl and the occasional tour boat. The church was a marvel in its day, but was stripped of its icons during the religious wars. The church and the town’s artists (more on them later) continue to bear witness to the past. From a history of the Church of Our Lady, posted in four languages inside:

"The church of Damme is not only a work of art of Gothic architecture; it is also a witness to the faith of our forefathers. Nowadays it keeps watch over the flat countryside and dreams of a great past, when merchants from the whole [of] Europe sailed up the Zwin, bringing riches and prosperity to Damme."

Looking six kilometers from Damme's bridge to Bruges

 In and around the church were artworks of the present -- bringing a big-city feel to the streets of the village.

Church's entryway

Medieval church; modern art

 The ride home brought us a tailwind, thankfully.

Stacey happy to be back in Bruges

The occasional large tractor that rumbles across the town’s cobblestones reflects a countryside that looks pastoral, but is in one of the most intensively farmed regions of Europe. Much of it is reclaimed salt marsh. Beyond the fields, modern windmills harvest energy from the sky.

Windmills look over a dairy operation

Bruges seemed a little larger (though not huge by any stretch) upon our return, but after a couple of navigational challenges, we relied on instincts to get ourselves safely back to the bike shop.

Bronze brightened by national colors -- a common sight

 

The World Cup in Paris, Bruges and Amsterdam

We couldn't have timed our trip better: all three countries we were visiting were in the World Cup games in July.

Not that I'm a big fan, but I remembered from our trip to Italy in 2008, that the street scenes during games are such fun, so I was looking forward to seeing how these three cities enjoyed the games.

While we were in Paris, on the 4th of July, France played Germany---and lost. We did see crowds outside of a few pubs, trying to watch on the big screen, but surprisingly few people wearing French, or German, colors:

 

Mostly student types (from the Sorbonne nearby?) sit in the alley drinking the cheaper beer at the pub behind them, but watching the game at the more expensive pub across the way.

 

A mix of tourists and Parisians watching the game from the sidewalk and street (luckily for all, drinking alcohol on the street is not a crime in Paris).

 

 

The Hotel Navarra, in Bruges, Belgium, was so excited about the World Cup they turned one of their conference rooms into a soccer room for the World Cup, serving drinks and appetizers for those who wanted to watch the game with others. While Belgium missed the finals by losing to Argentina on July 5th, clearly, enough Germans, Dutch, British and French tourists took advantage of the space: we couldn't find an empty seat.  We went back to our room to watch in comfort as Germany slaughtered Brazil that night. The next night, the Netherlands and Argentina tied, and my guess is the room was packed that night, too: Dutch is the language spoken by most of the people who live in Bruges.

 

It was only in Amsterdam, however, that World Cup fever was everywhere. Many streets had Holland's orange flags for the Netherlands-Brazil game on July 12th (see below). And when Germany played Argentina the next night, we heard the crowds that took over Rembrandtplein singing both the German and the Argentine national anthems. [Hearing the German national anthem  is still disconcerting: it is the same tune as a hymn we sing in church, for one, and it also just reminds me of all those WWII movies.]

 

 

One of many streets in Amsterdam celebrating "The Orange".

 

We didn't go to a pub to watch the games while we were in Amsterdam. Most evenings, after a late dinner, we'd get a bottle of wine to drink in our room from our favorite store,  Albert Heijn.  We started calling it Albertsons. They are everywhere in the city. [You can see just how many people ride bikes in Amsterdam from these two photos.]