Amsterdam – August 23rd 2017
The night on the boat was super relaxing and perfect. We had set up a movie for the kids and they all got cozy! (They kind of had to with the lack of space 🙂 )
We woke up feeling ready to tackle another city. Amsterdam was going to be great!!
Taking the bus into the city made sense as parking was pricey. The bus was a quick walk away from the marina and the transit was easy to navigate. As we approached the city it got very very busy! Busy with bikes that is!! The amount of bike parking spots was crazy to me. I mean, I knew there was a huge population of bike riders, but seriously!! There was a triple level parking garage, just for bikes!! It was the neatest thing.
Getting off the bus we were greeted with loud noise and tons of people. It was very crowded. We tried to walk a bit away from the main road where the bus dropped us but it stayed pretty busy wherever we went. Having the kids with us was slightly stressful (it was stressful to begin with) but with the amount of bikes, scooters and motorbikes (and cars), we were dodging street traffic like mad.
We found some quieter moments by ducking into souvenir shops and admiring the many pairs of wooden clogs!! Clogs everywhere!! Even a big huge clog for tourists (like us) to take cheesy photos!
Obviously the city had an aroma to it! But it was not overwhelming and made no difference on how we explored. Even when I (yes, I admit to it) took the family down the Red Light District. Fail. I wanted to walk where it was less busy and so we turned down that street and then I started noticing the shops….oh gosh, so did the girls. We crossed back over to the other side of the street!
Amsterdam did indeed have some beautiful streets that were in all honestly the cutest places ever. The canals and bikes that lined them were what I was picturing before we arrived. We had to go well into the city to see these places, but that’s ok, we were getting use to walking lots! If we explored the city more than a day we may have found more quiet places and I may have fallen for the city but alas, we only had the one day to explore and we left Amsterdam with a feeling of not totally loving the city but so glad we went to visit.
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