The trip was very enjoyable apart from the rain,it rained every day but that didn't stop me checking the place out.
Rickshaw anyone
This statue is of Rembrandt and is found in Rembrandtplein.
Rembrandtplein is where my hotel was to be found.
Some of the local getting in on the photos,the Dutch are very friendly people.
Coffee Shop,I did visit a couple.
The Bell pub in Rembrandtplein.
They serve Bavarian beer and food here.
The hotel veteran is were I stayed,not the best of hotels.
Lots of canals in Amsterdam and I would recommend a canal boat tour.
Unlike the UK the Police actually smile and are helpful and friendly.
Rembrandt in the daylight
A canal tour boat,I went on three tours.
The national monument,which celebrates the liberation from Germany in WWII.
A boat house
Clock Tower.
St George slaying the dragon,notice that they are standing on an elephant's head ?
On one of the river tours I took.
I don't know what this building is but its nice.
In old times the houses in Amsterdam where taxed on how wide they where, a bit like the window tax that they had in Britain.
So because of this the houses where built narrow and had very narrow stairs which you could not carry furniture up so they took it through the window as this was the only way.
Note the beam on the gables with the hook,this is how the hauled there furniture up into the houses through the windows.
Floating hotels.
the floating chinese restaurant
A river house,because Amsterdam got so crowded folks took to living in houseboats.
The Nimo center.
The seven bridges.
The smallest canal in Amsterdam.
Well we have multi storey car parks in the UK but ive never seen a multi storey cycle park or so many cycles
he floating flower market.
Dutch cheese,all i can say is yumm
You may have noticed that some of the house are leaning,this is because they where built on wooden stilts.
Trams are a great way to get around and cheap.
Madam tussauds
Dutch celebraties going to a show.
I'm sure I'll never see it; I'm glad YOU could. It looks like a fascinating place.
ReplyDeleteGorges it is a very intresting place and ill add some text to the pictures but just not had time so far.
ReplyDeleteHet was en heel makelijk post, reminded me of my time in Maastricht! Have to go there someday soon again... oi there, coffee shops!!!:-) I have never visited one... was the coffee good?
ReplyDeleteAnd you are absolutely right on the people, friendly to boot, and they just know how to live.
Just make sure you don´t talk German to elderly people:-), that can be a bit embarrassing at times:-)...
Hi Markus and thanks.
ReplyDeleteYes the coffee was great hee heee.
Funny enough I meet a really nice elderly German couple on a canal tour and they where real fun,I speak very little German and they spoke very little English but we were able to communicate very easily and no one around us had a problem with them speaking German,there was also French,Dutch and Italians on that trip and we all got on very well so maybe folks are moving on which is great
It certainly is, and I was half kidding. When I was in Maastricht and we were out to get a drink (or two, or three, or four), one friend of Anna´s jumped on a cistern wall, rose his right arm and began to sing the "Horst-Wessel-song", just to shock us (he was a Marxist, hippie artist and psychologist).Then he laughed at us and nearly pissed his breeches for us being so shocked and said that we always apologized. In the end, we all laughed at that, and that was one of the best times I had in my life.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, once, in Italy we were getting in some extreme mountainbike riding at the lake Garda festival and rode a section of singletrail that led down the side of a WW I bunker, Italians, Austrians, Dutch, two Brits and an American, had plain fun on the ruins of warfare. Time is certainly moving on, and that is a great thing, for sure!
And a great thing, for sure, to know you folks, and not only to promote global understanding (the world´s round anyway:-)), but for comments like this! Thanks!
funny enough Markus i was involved in a conversation today about the EU and an ignorant individual made a derogatory comment about Germans and the war so I asked how did the war effect him and his family,he said it didn't so I asked why the hatred?
ReplyDeleteI went on to explain that one of my Grandads died in 1944 and that if I don't carry hatred why on earth should he,he didn't have an answer but I could see his mind ticking over so hopefully i gave him food for thought.
I think hatred only leads to more hatred... and that´s silly, for the earth is a ball of dirt in some... some big kind of void:-). Any time, any moment some galactic lump of molten rock might smash us all to pulp. We could savour the moment, and we should, and we are allowed to, but what do we do? Global conflicts are somewhat less than helpful towards the future. Maybe they serve the purpose of reducing the population, but I find them silly nonetheless. Especially if they are led by fat, old farts with women´s clothes on both sides who would collapse under the weight of an automatic gun. Old men (and women) talking, young men (and women) dying, just as it was for aeons. And they lead from the rear.
ReplyDeleteMy grandfather died, too, in Russia, quite an ugly death. Should I whack Viktor for that? Or Mielenko? No, you would say, and you´re right. We must learn that our leaders might still be the ones we elected:-) and remind them a bit of their duties. Bit ambitious, maybe, and if it does not work, we should try a smaller scale:-).
And it´s good to see, that some are still stubborn enough to have ideals, saving the world and all that stuff:-).
Markus I couldn't have put it better,your a man cut from the same cloth as I.
ReplyDeleteHi Sticks, Fimbulmyrk's comment brought this poem to mind written in the 1920's
ReplyDeleteE=MC2 by Rosser Reeves
Some day, perhaps, some alien eye or eyes,
Blood red in cold and polished horny lids,
Set in a chitinous face
Will sweep the arch of some dark, distant sky
And see a nova flare,
A flick of light, no more.
A pinpoint on a photographic plate,
A foot-note in an alien chart of stars
Forgotten soon on miles of dusty shelves
Where alien beetles feed.
A meal for worms,
Sole epitaph
To mark the curious end of restless man,
Who for a second of galactic time
Floated upon a speck of cosmic dust
Around a minor sun.
cheers Danny
Cheers Dan I enjoyed reading that.
ReplyDeleteNice post Sticks. I couldn't agree more with the comments. I had members of my family killed in the war. I don't hate anyone for this. As Markus said the culprits are the one who start these wars, and, most time do indeed stirs things up, stand at the back and watch the mayhem, and reap the profits to fil the overflowing pockets. Sadly nothing changes on that front, does it? That's what I like about those blogs. I can talk directly to real people in various countries, and know the ordinary folks are just like me, we are bypassing the filters of TVs & newspapers, droning on about how evil our neighbours are. Not sure I put that very well..but you get the gist!
ReplyDeleteI totally get what you are saying Joel,thanks.
ReplyDelete