Amsterdam arrival

Day 1

Garmin Ride details 

Distance for the day - 17.8kms

Arrived at 7am - the bikes came out of the baggage in one piece and undamaged. Yay - the clear plastic bags from Wiggle.com did their job!

The mobile mechanic got to the job of reassembling the bikes, and within 30 minutes they were ride worthy. It took a little while longer to get the panniers mounted to any safety standard. 

After food, we set about getting ourselves road worthy, find some bathrooms & a place to park & we were ready. With a map of Amsterdam in hand, we were off.

We are actually here & moving! The bike path left from the airport - on the right side of the car park.

Excitement at seeing our first Dutch windmill. The route from the airport took us through some fields, small villages & along a canal. Very pretty.

Photo stop and op.

The route also took us through Vondelpark - a park to rival Central Park NY, just beautiful with many people running, cycling, exercising & just enjoying the beautiful weather.

Vondelpark lake

Cyclists have their own crossings & lights. Very easy to ride here.

Passed over many canals on our way to hotel...

Arrived! Yeah, doing it tough. Crashed for a few hours to recover from the not business class flight.

Then we figured out the trams, and went back into town bike less.

Amsterdam is full of flowers.

Dinky little cars everywhere. We spotted this one walking along the canal to start our canal cruise.

In light of the beautiful day, many locals were out in their boats enjoying the canals - of all shapes and sizes. It was quite congested in parts.

The historic Amsterdam ship at the Amsterdam Maritime museum

"The replica of the three masted “Amsterdam”, a large vessel of the Dutch East India Company, which in its maiden journey to Batavia sank in a storm in the English Channel in winter of 1749, stands high above the waters of Ij Bay, directly at the museum quay. The wreck of the ship has been discovered off the English coast in 1969, and the museum replica has been completed in 1990. Visiting the ship, you may see how small and primitive spaces were to house 350 people during the ship’s journey, with more comfortable but equally minute quarters for the ship’s captain and officers."

The historic Amsterdam ship at the Amsterdam Maritime museum

An old draw bridge. One of 65 Moving bridges in Amsterdam.

Churches & historic buildings everywhere .... Love love love (over 7,000 recognised historic buildings)

This building is the Westerkerk (“western church”) is a Dutch Protestant Church built in 1620-1631. The spire, called the Westertoren (“western tower”), is the highest church tower in Amsterdam, at 85 meters (279 feet). The crown topping the spire is the Imperial Crown of Austria of Maximilian I.

The Spire of the Magna Paza shopping centre which used to be the Central Postal Office. Built in 1885.

Boat houses along the canals.  These floating slots are not being sold anymore. Houseboat living was a solution to housing shortage after WW2. Apparently, to buy one of these boats is pretty much the same as buying a land fixed home in Amsterdam. I just found out there are plenty of houseboats turned into B&B's

Birds wanting to be fed.

Inside the entrance to the famous museum Rijksmuseum which we didn't get to see as we were too late. Everything shuts at 5pm - even in summer when the sun never sets.

Cheese heaven  ... Cheese and More -- YUM!

Loads of cheese we couldn't carry.

In the park behind the  Rijksmuseum which was just a fabulous park.

The  actual building of the Rijksmuseum, with cycling through the centre of it ;-)

 Cheese being made ....

A newer dinky car.

Tree lined streets.

Many types of wheels.

Sunset after a fabulous Italian dinner at Bellini's. Amazing food with amazing staff tucked away in a little suburban shopping mall. Found on google maps.  Sunset / twilight at about 10:30 pm.

Sunset into twilight