Amsterdam and Hamburg

We’re catching up on 2 countries in this edition. Our arrival in Amsterdam via Rotterdam led us to our quite remarkable hotel.

 

Our location was in the Red Light and Chinatown district of the city which was quite interesting. After checking in we walked around part of the city over canal bridges and some of the older areas. One of the first things you notice is the number of bicycles, far more than cars. Every railing, drainpipe or power pole has multiples of bicycles chained to them.

 

The narrow streets have footpaths no more than 2 feet wide and most of the time you are walking on the roadway as you bypass other walkers or parked bicycles. There are people everywhere which make walking around awkward.

Our only full day was spent over a late English breakfast as it was pouring with rain but at lunch time it cleared so we chanced a boat trip on the canals for about 90 minutes and then a bus trip around the city.

 

We visited a windmill that was one of many used to maintain the water levels pumping out excess water as the city is about 2 metres below sea level.We also visited a diamond museum where I had great problems extracting Janice without making what could have been very expensive purchase.

In spite of the very interesting hotel, this is probably the most disappointing city of our tour so far.

I agree with Brian re Amsterdam being a little disappointing, but going back to where he was talking about our bus & canal cruise.  What he didn’t mention is that I discovered I could still run, albeit not voluntarily.  We had a small window of time between the boat tour and our bus tour, and the boat was late leaving, so we were panicking (it wasn’t a hop on/hop off, it was a proper tour).  Anyway, we docked in the nick of time and it was all go from there.  I told Brian to run and I would try to keep him in my line of sight.  When I finally got there I got a hug from Brian saying he was impressed I made it in good time!!!  Thought of Glenis & Adele at the diamond place – their prices were really good, and I did hesitate for a moment. 

The hotel that Brian mentioned was really amazing with its 15’ ceilings and remote control for the curtains.  I found out that it was a shipping office originally.

 

We had a long day getting to Hamburg having to take 3 trains, but after settling in we went downstairs for a drink and found four other Australians who we got talking to and ended up swapping details & having a great time. 

Hamburg is a much more interesting city and the Hamburgers are very friendly. It doesn’t have a large number of very old buildings as 30% of the city was burnt in a fire in the 1800’s and then allied bombing in WW2 devastated it even more, but even so we liked the city, an interesting mixture of old and new.

 
We went on a harbour cruise which was very interesting.

 

We visited an amazing “Miniature Wonderland” in a huge warehouse which spans 4 levels, each with magnificent scenery from around the world with mountains, building, railway tracks with many train movements, vehicles and even people. The airport I could have spent hours watching as it was just like a real life airport with planes taking off and landing, taxiing, other activity around the airport such as vehicle movements etc. The lighting was also controlled giving night-time scenes. Xavier, Eamon & Fergus would have been in their element.

 

We again joined our newfound Aussie friends for dinner that evening and all of us went to bed that night slightly under the weather. Off to Copenhagen tomorrow and the longest of our rail journeys.