A Little Bit More of Amsterdam

The morning went by fast, we woke up and got ready to head out of Amsterdam to catch the train to Berlin. We had spent the whole night packing again, and took it easy with a great Indian meal by the hotel. The morning was a bit of a rush. By the time we got to the front desk, we were ready for our seven hour train ride. I went up to the front desk and informed the gentleman there that we were ready to check out. He smiled and asked for the room number. Then he looked right back at me with a curious look, then said "You know you have another night here right?". So it turns out, we had lost track of the days!! Well, back up the stairs and into the Iron Horse Hotel room again.

So because we have an extra day, we decided the best way to end the visit to the City of Diamond was to get out of the city itself and do a bike tour of the country side!

The tour was with a company called Yellow Bikes, and yes, the bikes are in fact yellow in colour.

Amsterdam has a great network of bike lanes which makes biking so popular here. The tour starts in the city, a short ride to the ferry (free crossing) towards to north. Once we got off the ferry, we biked by a canal that was said to be one of the oldest canals in Amsterdam. Dates back to when trade first started. It was a scenic ride, with a few locals fishing (though not sure what kind of fish you'd get out of a canal... something like the one in the Simpson's Movie I'd imagine?).

Museum sitting across the water from Central Amsterdam
Station where we caught the ferry ride to start the bike tour. 

Our first stop was at a windmill. Now I suppose a trip to Amsterdam would not be complete if you didn't see a windmill in person! Apparently this windmill was quite old. I learned that windmills in Amsterdam are actually to assist in pumping water. Helping guide water the "right" way, so people can "reclaim" the land from water. This was something new to me. Reclaiming land from water means just that. The people of Netherlands in the past did not want to move south. Knowing just how valuable this trade port is in Europe, people started to build more and more canals, pumping water out of its natural flow to assist in having more land mass to build on.

Windmills are also used in the past to signal life and death of people in the village. If the arm of the mill is positioned a bit past the 12 o'clock position, it meant that someone has passed away. If however, the arm is positioned just before the 12 o'clock position, it signifies birth in the village.

Today, the windmills have been replaced to a much smaller, less grand electric water pump. Of the many that used to stand in Amsterdam, there are only a handful left. The one you see above was saved by the people in the area, putting together some money to preserve the iconic sight.

Yup! That's right, the more efficient but not
too pretty electric water pump... LAME!!!!!!

Our next stop brought us to a town just outside of Amsterdam. Once a competitor of Amsterdam, fighting to become the most powerful port in Europe, it is now today, a very poor, small village. It is said that the famous Dutch artist Rembrandt had a mistress that lived here. The picture below shows a short tower. This was suppose to be a full sized watch tower, but the village ran out of money, so could not finish the tower. Obviously the village did not win the fight against Amsterdam to become the centre of trade. Because of this very reason, the village became very poor. Ships just got too big to enter the canals in the region, so they stayed out by the large port in Amsterdam.

Our bike tour took us next to a small fishing town. We had a great lunch there on the pier, and then it was time to get back to the city.

The bike tour was amazing. The views and sights you get to see, the smells, the only thing I would warn is while you ride, close your mouth unless you want to swallow the amount of insects in the air!