Netherlands Summary

We spent just two day in Amsterdam.  It was a lovely city and reminded us a bit of Venice, but with cars, lots of trees and bikes everywhere.  We arrived via overnight train from Munich.  The first thing we did at the station was to buy a map and guidebook.  Usually we bought guidebooks well ahead, but we were winging it by this point.  It did not really matter as we found Europe to be such an easy place to travel that detailed planning was hardly necessary.  Cheryl did make a hotel reservation ahead, so we went looking for the Hotel Amstelzicht.  We determined where it was after a few minutes, then hopped on local tram heading in that general direction.  Since it was morning, our room was not ready, so we stored our luggage at the hotel and found a cafe for some breakfast and coffee.  After a few hours we made our way back.  Our room was a first floor unit separate from the main hotel.  It was an okay place for the price, but had some problems.  We decided it had the worst beds of the entire trip.  The walls were thin and the noise of other guests stomping up and down the nearby stairs was very loud.  On the good side, there was a small kitchenette which we used.  And down the street there was a laundry facility.  Also, the location was great, in a quiet area away from the red light district.  After resting for a couple hours, we walked about two miles to the Anne Frank house.  There was no line; the museum was well done and very touching for all of us.   The next day we went on Mike’s Amsterdam bike tour, which was more challenging than Mike's Munich bike tour mostly because our guide, Jeff, kept a fast pace.  The tour included a boat trip through Amsterdam’s canals and all the beer we could drink, keeping in mind that we had to get back on the bikes afterward.  We enjoyed the tour, but were very tired by the time we got back.  That evening we had a great dinner at an Argentine steak house.  The next day we took the tram to the Heineken Brewery.  The tour was interesting and fun, but very commercialized.  We tried not to think too much about how they glorified alcohol for young people.  This is something we often see in the US, but is not common in Europe.  We then headed back to the hotel to get our luggage for our afternoon train trip to Brussels.  We found the people of Amsterdam to be friendly.  Everyone spoke excellent English (even better than many Americans), the city architecture was stunning, the tree-lined canals were beautiful and, as I mentioned before, many many bikes.  We know we'll get back to Amsterdam some day.