FIRTS TOUR BY EUROPE III PART: AMSTERDAM

ASMTERDAM

 

Amsterdam is also a great city. You can find all there: party, romanticism, culture, youngness, ... But not peace and calmness. The city seems created for young people, specially at weekends but I’m afraid it’s the same the whole year. There are many people who comes to here looking for drugs that here are legalized and which they are not legalized in the rest of the countries. The coffee shops are very important for them, but we were looking for something different. We don’t smoke and we don’t take drugs, so we weren’t interested in this kind of activities. In addition the coffee shops smell very bad.

As in Brugge, and in fact as the same in all the cities, the best thing to know Amsterdam is to walk through its streets and to make a trip with a ship through its channels. There a lot of things to do and to see, and depending of what you like, you can take more or less time to visit the city. Anyway I’m sure that when you arrive, you will not want to go. Is a very beautiful place, impressive.

The prices in general are a little expensive. A hotel in the centre will be expensive surely, so it’s better to book the hotel a little fat of the begining of the channels. Like is a weekend city, the prices are more expensive that days than from Monday to Thursday. The Ibis was this way, and we paid 85 € per night specially for this reason. As in Paris, we parked the car in a parking for two days and we paid 25 € per day. Is forbidden to drive by Amsterdam and also is impossible. So, the best way to move is walking, by cycle (that you can rent in a lot of places and it seems is not very expensive) and by tram.

Surely, you will feel stressed, like me, because of the many people and the cycle’s bells, but you will fall in love with the city, because is beautiful.

If you need to go to he Tourist Office, you will see that is a chaos because it’s fulled of people. If you want some information, you’ll have to wait for an hour and if you want a map, there is a machine that gives you for 2 €!!! (yes, expensive, but very necessary)

What you can not miss when you travel to Amsterdam: to make a trip with a ship through the channels and to walk throug all the streets, but also these:

-         The Anna Franks’s House

-         The Van Gogh’s Museum (we didn’t go)

-         The Red Town

-         The Rijksmuseum (the Amsterdam’s National  Museum) (we didn’t go)

-         The Heineken Experience (as we don’t like the beer we didn’t go but the people says is very interesting although you don’t like the beer)

-         The Dam Square, te centre of the city.

 I’m sure you will love it

9TH AUGUST 2007

It rains again during all the trip from Brugges to Amsterdam. We leave Belgium to go to Netherlands. The landscape we see through the window is very nice: green and big meadows with some typical mill ocassionally. In three hours we arrive to the Dutch capital, We ask in the Ibis and we have good luch again: we can book a room. We install ourselves and we start to know the city. The first we do is to look for the Tourist Office to get a map of the city and to don’t get lost, although is a little hard.  The streets have a never ending names very hard to understand. It’s difficult to be faced and is stressing because there is a lot of people, bicycles everywhere whistling so that you separate or passing over you if its necessary and let’s no speak already about the Dam square where the people, the tram, the cars and the cycles are congregated. We have the impression that we destorb in everywhere, so we separate in a house entrance and we take a look at the map and the guide, firs to know where are we and then for decide where to go.

     Suddenly I listen to a voice: "Olga?" I turn myself and it is Ricard, a partner of the university, which it did not see from the first year and I am already going to begin the sixth one. Sight that there are places where being and has to be precisely, here, in Amsterdam. But it does a lot of illusion to me and we speak during a little bit. They also are doing a tour by Europe but they do it the other way round that we. They are already returning and Paris is their last city. They were in Berlin and Munich and the recommend some things, for example Dachau’ Concentration Camp, which is very near from Munich. We take not and we say goodby wishing them the best. They have helped us to face us. Afther this pleasant surprise, we are ready to allow us to go for its streets and channels fulled of people of all kinds and all of the countries with also the smell that sometimes it escapes from the coffee shops.

Suddenly, I hear a voice “Olga? are you? I turn my self and I see to Ricard, a partner from de University, who I didn’t see from the first year, and in september will be my sixth and last. There is a lot of places to meet, but it’s precisely here, in Amsterdam. It does a lot of illusion to me and we speak for a while. They also are doing a tour by Europe by car, but they



 

We buy some things (of course it’s not missing the scarf and the postcards) and we decide to do a trip in a typical ship. There the explanations aren’t also in Spanish but we can hear it much better than in Brugges. Thanks to their we know how they constructed the dikes gaining area to the sea, and how they achieve that the city sink little by little. Also there are some curiosities like for example, for a time, the inhabitants of Amsterdam were competing to see who was doing the narrowest house. They show us some of them that almost was as narrow as the entry door, After the trip, it becomes night slowly. After a bit, we decide to have dinner. There is a pizzeria with a good price.



 

Now is time to cover the famous Red Town, where the prostitutes are exposed in the windows. Certainly it turns out to be curious. The spectacular girls are in the glass doors, like they were manikins in a shop window. The interested men knock the door and after to discuse the price and the service, they get into and close the courtine, opening it after they have satisfied their needs. I though it was something more vile, that they would call the men, but no. In all the glasses are an sticker of forbiden doing photos and videos. If someone do it the girls became very hungry, so it’s better not do it. Here in the Netherlands this profession is completelly regular and legalized and the girls, that I think that they are autonomous, pay their taxes religiously.

Also there are several groups of English people drunk and trying it up, to change.

We are tired and come back to the hotel. Tomorrow we keep discovering this beautiful city.

10TH AUGUST 2007

The first thing that attracts all my atention is that the street is desert. There is not even a soul. Where is everybody? It must be that Amsterdam is a city more night than day and the people must be sleeping the surf. Today we are going to visit the Anna Frank’s house. As you will know, Anna was a was a German Jewish girl who lived in Amsterdam two years in the absolute secrecy to escape of the Nazi. In the end they discovered it to her and to her family and ordered them to the field of extermination of Auswitch. She died there of typhus, as same that his sister and his mother. The only one that it survived was his father. While it was in secrecy, Anna wrote a diary. When his father went to gather the things that they had in the house after the war, it found it and decided to publish it. If you have not read it, I recommend to you to do it. Some years later the Anna’s father decided to make a fundation and to convert the house in a museum. The house opens at 9:00 but we are there at 8:45 to visit it pacely and without not many people. At 9, the house opens its doors, we pay the 7 € that cost the ticket and we take a leaflet this time in Spanish and we start the visit. I read the book 4 years ago but Javi not because he hates to read, so I have to explain him all. I was impresse so much that was matching me of practically the whole book. It musted to be horrible to live that way. Without to do any noise ans being scare all the time. The Anna’s room attracted my atention, which it’s as she left it, with heaps of cut away photos of her favourites actors, singers and actress given in the wall. Just like I did when I was a teenager… At the end of the itinerary there is the original diary written by Anna.

After a half hour we go out from the house. We are happy to go early because now the queue is very long.

Now we go towards Vondel Park, a nice park that is a little far of the area. We have to take a tram. We buy the tickets in a kiosk and in a few minutes comes one. We arrive to the park. Is not a sunny day. Like yesterday it’s cloudy and the temperature is of 12º (for us this is cold, bearing in mind that in Barcelona we are in 33º in this time) but we almost prefer this than the stifling heat in Paris. The park is enormous and very beautiful, with several paths to go by cycle and to walk. There are some ancient buildings that where small palace of rich people. They are closed to the public. We see a pond with little ducks and we do photos and videos. They are such nice...They approach to us because they think that we have food but when they see that we don’t have, they come back to the water. They are so clever!!

We decide to go to the hotel and to rest. In the evening we will walk again.

Our our thoughts are confirmed: the street is full again. Since we have said earlier, it was sure that they were sleeping this morning. We pass the rest of the evening walking through the city and we see once again the Red Town. We have dinner in an Argentine restaurant and we go to the hotel. Today, thanks to our Accor Hotels card, we have an invitation for a drink in the hotel’s bar. We drink something. Tomorrow we go to Brussels. It will be our fourth city. We put the hotel in Brussels address in our GPS and another night goes by... We are so happy to have known the maravellous city of Amsterdam.