June 30 2019 ~ Arrival in Amsterdam Netherlands A City of Cyclists

We have been here before.  What a busy city.  Weather is perfect...

 
There are 165 canals spanned by 1,281 bridges in Amsterdam, the city is built on 11,000,000 15-20 meter long wooden pilings (an average of 10 per house, but the Central Station is supported by nearly 9,000 houten palen), the Airport is 4 meters below sea level and there are 1,515 bars and cafes. There are about 881,000 bicycles (in the city with a population of 799,400) of which about 100,000 are stolen each year and another 25,000 are thrown into the canals each year and about 8,000 pulled out to be refurbished and resold. This explains the number of bikes which look like they are worth 10 euros secured with locks and chains which cost 100 Euros. The city attracts about 20,000,000 tourists per year, or about 20 times as many tourists as residents.  So today we are a tourist and this is our 1st day out of 64 to explore some interesting European towns.  Meanwhile we got settled into our hotel and then out and about into the madhouse of Bikes. We quickly learned that bicycles rule the road in Amsterdam. Pedestrians do well to keep out of the bike lanes at all times and to carefully check for bicycles when crossing the street.  Your like an owl looking all around you.  We did our best to respect the rules of the road, however, the sidewalks were often clogged with parked scooters and bicycles, especially bicycles, some of which looked suspiciously derelict, like they hadn’t been moved in months or even years. None the less, bicycles have the right of way and we soon learned to yield in those instances when we had to momentarily step off the sidewalk into the bike lane. Unlike in Canada, where bicycle safety courses in school taught us to ride single file, bicyclists in Amsterdam reserve the right to ride two abreast. As pedestrians, Bob & I found ourselves frequently walking single file as groups of cyclists whizzed past.

Guess that's telling us.  Tomorrow we board the ms Rotterdam for the first leg of our journey-- 34 days. We will join a wonderful traveling friend we met on the Prinsendam ship 2 winters ago.  Wendy she comes from LA born and raised.  Looking forward to seeing her again.  Anyway thanks for joining us and remember...

I travel not to go anywhere, but to go.  I travel for travel's sake.  The great affair is to move.~ Robert Louis Stevenson

Leslee & Bob