Sat, 12 Jul 2003

author Tim	location Bremen, Germany
posted 09:11 15/07/03 CEST	section Europe2002/Europe/Netherlands/Netherlands 2 ( all photos )

Amsterdam ( 16 photos )
Getting ourselves organised, we were on the road again for the reasonably short drive to Amsterdam. Of course, we had been here before, but that was mostly a social visit, where we had decided not to see any of the touristy sites. That's why we were back this time.
As always, we needed a place to stay, so we drove to Camping Vliegenbos, the only camp site in Amsterdam. As you might expect, this meant that the prices were high and conditions not ideal. Infact, we were camped in no better than a parking lot, surrounded by other people in tents and a few in motorhomes. That's what you can get away with if you are the only camp site in a big city, I guess.
Still, it was a convenient ten minute bus ride from Centraal Station, which we took to start our wandering around. Without going into "we walked left, then turned right" detail, our day was a lot of wandering, sitting in cafes, enjoying the amazing hot weather in a beautiful city.
We took in some of Amsterdams more interesting museums, the Schuttersgalerij (Civic Guard Gallery withh huge paintings), ate some hot chips (they seem to love them over here), tried to get into Anne Frankhaus (the house of Anne Frank of "The Diary of Anne Frank" fame) but thought the hour-long queue was a bit excessive, especially since the place looked more like a modern art museum from the outside than a well-preserved historical building.
Lunch was at a nice back-street cafe-bar on Spuistraat.
There was a strange guy in a little boat on one of the canals who played the organ and trumpet at the same time, serenading a wedding party in a most unusual way. Great entertainment.
We found a modern bar which also doubled as an Internet cafe where I did some uploading and email sending while Liz wandered the streets taking it all in. She located a part of the city where there was some good foot to be had, so we headed there and found great Tapas for dinner overlooking the busy Nieuwendikj and sipping sangria at Joselito Tapas cafe.
For our return home, we tried the free method - a ferry across the picturesque harbour with the locals, then a GPS-aided walk back to the campsite. Worked a treat, gave us some exercise and proved a good way to see the city.

(customised)