May 18, 2025

Weather partly cloudy 60’s

We had a really nice sleep last night!  (Just as we had hoped.) The included breakfast at the Jansz café was very good (salmon Bennie and yogurt; guess who had what?).  Shirley and I sat and chatted with Bob and Anna and then went for a couple of short walks around the area.  The Church of Our Lady was open so we went in and lit candles for those who asked for our prayers and toured the side aisles.

Morning on the canal

At 9:30 the group met with 9 others on a Viking sponsored walking tour of Amsterdam.  Our guide Steen was a trip.  He was very Dutch, very knowledgeable, and very entertaining. We learned three things that had been a mystery: Why are there no new bicycles? What are the “box” bikes called and how do they steer? And why were the houses along the canals called warehouses?

1.    Why were there no new bicycles?  Because they are Dutch and realize that a bicycle only lasts 6 months because of being stolen, being thrown in the river (the municipality fishes 15,000 bikes a month out of the water), breaking, or forgetting where it is parked.  Therefore, they ride the dregs because it’s cheaper and still is serviceable.

2.    The “box” bikes are called cargo bikes because they need to haul various things from the store or from school. There is linkage that connects the handlebars to the front wheel so steering is not an issue.

3.    Merchants would typically live in a 4 or 5 story house and use the top floors for their warehouse to hold the booty from the colonies back in the day.  Since this was their means of support, they kept the goods on the tops floors away from floods and thieves.  The family lived on the first two floors and the servants in the basement.  All the buildings have hooks protruding from the roof line to haul the booty up using a pulley system.

Steen told us many more interesting things about Amsterdam:

·       Like many European cities they place brass plaques commemorating the Holocaust victims.

·       The houses are built on wooden pilings, and they sink irregularly and so many of the houses are crooked either to the left or right or forward or backward.  Some of this leaning is very noticeable. When it gets really bad, the municipality sends a notice to the property owner who has to fix it.  This can be very expensive to replace the wood with concrete and steel.

·       When filming Oceans 12, the crew used a “coffeeshop” called the Dumpking. They touted it on interviews and it became the most popular “coffeeshop” in the city.  Of course as you may have guessed, coffeeshops spelled as one word mean that is where one can buy marijuana and hashish.

The Dumpking

·       The Dutch are very good at skirting laws.  Like Stephan the book seller.  He can’t sell beer and wine, but if you buy a book, he’ll set you up with whatever you prefer.

Stephan the book seller with Stan our guide

The walking tour ended at the Royal palace (the king lives in the Hague where it is much quieter).  We moseyed back to the Hotel for lunch on the courtyard.

After lunch and a rest, we decided to go to the Van Gogh Museum shop.

Our Route on foray #2

We walked to the Riksmuseum.

The girls in front of the Riksmuseum

Shirley found some cool bits and bobs at the store and had her picture made in front of the Van Gogh Museum

Shirley in front of the Van Gogh Museum

We then wound our way back to the Hotel through different neighborhoods. We came across a large park and ventured in.  Remided us of Central Park in NYC.  Big, beautiful and full of people.  We took a few pictures

In the park

And happened upon a Gelato place 

Miuz Gelato

And a dance academy where they class was dancing to K-Pop!

K-Pop dancing

After almost 4 miles we made it back to the Hotel. We had a little rest and then ate a really fine dinner at Jansz’s, the Hotel restaurant.  Good company, good food and a great atmosphere.  

Tomorrow we have to have our luggage staged by 8:30 in the morning so there was organization to be made (not to mention a bit of blogging).