Amsterdam, The Netherlands - Day 1 to day 3 - July 7-9, 2019
We arrived mid-morning in Amsterdam after flying all night, traveling to Europe from the United States is a truly grueling process – especially with all the airport fun that you must endure. We were taken to our hotel – the Radisson Blu in the heart of the old section of Amsterdam. We knew our room would not be ready and we would need to attempt to stay up if possible, to start the process of combating the dreaded jet lag. We wondered around Amsterdam looking for a place to sit down and enjoy breakfast – we were very lost and learned that we had set out the wrong direction from the hotel, after walking around for too long, we decided to go back to the hotel and see if our room might be ready and regroup. After getting our room, we discovered that Apple Maps are truly bad and we started using Google to get around – we were able to find a cool spot – the “Metropolitan” to have brunch, a beer, and people watch.
Local Amsterdam Brew
Amsterdam is a truly interesting city, the mode of transportation is the bicycle, there are over a million bikes in Amsterdam. I was amazed at the number of bikes we saw – everyone rides a bike. The land is very flat (mostly below sea level), the streets are very narrow, and parking is very expensive; so, the bike is the perfect means to get around. The bike riders are truly scary, they drive like maniacs and nobody wears a helmet (even the children riding around in containers on the front of the parent’s bikes). The city is made up of canals that start at the old town and go out from the harbor area in a sort of semi-circle. It is easy to see how the town grew over the years because of the placement of these canals.
Not sure how you know which bike is yours?
Amsterdam Dam Square
We stayed a couple of extra days in Amsterdam before our cruise to make sure we got there and to fight off as much jet lag as we could. The first morning in Amsterdam we went on a walking tour of the oldest portion of the city with our Viking guide, it was a couple of hours long and provided us with a good taste of the oldest portion of the city. That afternoon we went on an optional excursion to Haarlem, a town about 30 miles west of Amsterdam. The afternoon tour was excellent, we were the only ones on the tour. We drove out to Haarlem for lunch at the Jopen Brewery, which was in an old church and, had excellent craft beer. After lunch, we walked around the old portion of Haarlem, which was a truly nice experience after the craziness that was Amsterdam, Haarlem is a lovely, quiet town that would be great to live in. We visited several Almshouses, which are Haarlem’s way of taking care of those who are less fortunate than us. We then went to Frans Hals Museum, which was closed for the day, but because we had a tour guide we were able to tour this museum at our own pace by ourselves, it was very nice. We returned to Amsterdam during the evening rush hour. The bikes were leaving town, three and, four across for miles – I am shocked that they are not hurt. We were super tired from our day and went to have an excellent meal at Café Stevens. On our way back to the hotel we took a brief side trip into the Red-Light District, which was a rowdy mess of an area with half-naked girls in red-lighted windows, it seemed that most of the girls were having dinner. Amsterdam is an interesting city.
Jopen Brewery - inside an old Kerk (church)
On our last day in Amsterdam, we slept in and had an excellent breakfast (that was included) at our hotel. We ate two mornings here and the breakfast buffet was outstanding. We went on a canal tour this morning and this is a great way to see Amsterdam. The city is composed of many canals and it is much easier to see the sites from the water. We returned to our hotel and rested and talked to several couples that were going on the same cruise as us. Our van arrived and whisked us off to the ship.
Amsterdam canal
Our first dinner on the Viking Gefjon was excellent. We sat with Pat & Mike from Florida and Lynn & Weldon from Washington, D.C. our table servers were Glen and Theodora. We would have almost all our dinners with this group for the rest of the cruise – our choice. We left Amsterdam at a little before midnight to make our way to Kinderdijk the next morning. We left our drapes open and watched the countryside guide by during the night.