Amsterdam

After Spiegelau, it was time to meet up with Jim J. (former colleague) and Steve S. in Amsterdam. Not many pictures (no, not doing what you are all thinking) but just hanging out, walking around the city and hanging out wasn’t conducive to pulling out the camera. Amsterdam is certainly a “live and let live” city but I didn’t feel “at home.” It’s beautiful for sure but the landscape and country didn’t resonate much with me. Give me Italy for sure.

Houses along Prizengracht

We all took a tour run by the volunteer St. Nicolas (?) boat club which is dedicated to running tours to get donations to preserve wooden boats. Our boat guide was an ex-pat American guy who has adopted the Amsterdam lifestyle….a bit to the extreme. Oh, by the way, this is a bridge crossing the Amstel river.

One day, Jim and I rented bikes (there are so many bikes in Amsterdam that each year when they dredge out the canals 25,000 bikes are found) and rode in the suburbs north of Amsterdam.

A vast network of bikepaths (mostly for commuters) are easy to navigate and a good number of them are along dikes.

The symbol of the Dutch

Lunch in Edam……eating Edam cheese!

Another day was spent in the town of Delft where we got a quick tour of a small shop that hand crafts and paints Delft ware

Delft was the home of Vermeer.

Leiden was home of Rembrandt. We went to both the Van Gogh as well as the Rijksmuseum. The message we learned was that the Dutch Golden Age was the 17th century.

While in Leiden, Jim and I went kayaking in the canals during a downpour. It was awesome.

Do we have these handbasket carts in the US? They are brilliant.