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| There isn't too much architecture to admire in Amsterdam. Nor food, nor museums, nor anything... |
Churning out posts now just like Holland windmills churn butter.
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| Molen De Otter, 400-year-old windmill - these make Holland for me |
I am happy to go through our stop in Amsterdam so quickly because I did not like this city. It is more touristy than any city I've ever been to, ever (will Rome or Venice change that?). Half of the shops are for booking boat/bus/building/museum tours. Sidewalks are packed through much of the day. As in Copenhagen, a big chunk of the street space is given to bikes. Unlike Copenhagen, there are a lot of motorized bikes, for men and women alike.
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| The Night Watch in 3D, constructed to celebrate Rembrandt's 400th birthday. |
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| The waterway in the center of the heavily-trafficked tourist area |
Outside of the tourist areas, the city is hip and young. The "coffee shops" are plentiful and peculiar. But if you aren't in Amsterdam for those, good luck. Not much noteworthy as far as food goes, and much of what's there is Indian or Middle Eastern - not my type. Museums are expensive and lines for admittance wrap for blocks and blocks. The house where Anne Frank hid from Nazis (I was surprised to learn it was in Amsterdam, and not somewhere in Germany.) and the Van Gogh Museum are the big ones. Better get your ticket far ahead of time!
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| Too many feet! |
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| Homomonument: not some weird Dutch word but rather a memorial for persecuted homosexuals |
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| What's a "sterdam"? |
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| The Royal Palace |
I did get my first souvenir here: a wallet. I was in the market for a better wallet anyway, and I had earlier in Belgium lamented to Phil that the wider Euro notes stick out of my wallet. As fate would have it, one of the vendors in the Amsterdam street market sold wallets and
voilà!
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| The only SFW photo I could extract from the Sexmuseum. |
The one special thing we got out of Amsterdam was a stop in the Sexmuseum, one of the most visited museums in the Netherlands. Not much to say about it here, but it was... a visual experience. Light-hearted and funny as well. Highly recommended. You won't spend more than two hours in there, if I'm being generous, but admission is cheap.
Berlin upcoming soon, and then Warsaw.
Nooo give Amsterdam another chance!! My best friend used to live there and it was the best city ever when I visited. We didn't once go to a coffee shop or touristy places, the city itself was so beautiful and charming!
ReplyDeleteIdk how this works... this is Danielle commenting - idk why it says unknown!
DeleteMoob will likely get to give it another shot, hopefully he has better things to say about the city. I get the charm. It's unique with the canal rings. But I think Europe has much more to offer.
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