Cycling Around Amsterdam

As promised, here are the photos I took while cycling around Amsterdam over the weekend. We cycled for 4.5 hours!!

Of course, this was interspersed with about... oh say, 3 tea breaks in between with coffee and cake. :)

Amsterdam is BEAUTIFUL. I mean, my little world around the canals is just that - my LITTLE world. On the bike, you get to see so much more... A good friend of mine that I work with too decided that I haven't seen Amsterdam yet if I haven't seen it on a bike.

He dusted off a spare one he had, we went to the cycle store around the corner that had a bicycle pump to get some air in the tires, and away we went.


I can't remember the last time I was on a bike. Was a tad wobbly at first but I still managed to reach my hand in my pocket, switch it on and snap pix. HA!


Here's a fumbling-around shot which looks quite cool.


We rode through one of the parks that went through a lake and was surrounded by the Amsterdam Forest on the other side (5 minute ride out of the city and you're near the FOREST?!) ...We also saw some modern house-boats. These are the ones that are actually not really boats like the ones you see on the canals in the city - they're concrete barges cemented to the river bed. And they look like proper houses.




We passed by these really funny "concept houses". They're called "garden houses". Y'know... us city folk who live in the city who have no room to grow a garden? You can join one of these clubs where you get to rent a patch - complete with a little cottage on the premises and a garden out the back. So like how some people have a "beach house"... people in Amsterdam have a "garden house". It's hilarious.

I tried to take a shot of this stretch of garden houses. It didn't come out well as it's a side shot. The row of garden houses is behind the canal.


We then moved out of the lake/ country area and rode into the city. I actually rode a bike through the city. We went through major intersections, through the red light district, through all those people and cars... And I survived and didn't fall off my bike once!



In the red light district, I had visions of snapping photos of the ladies in the store windows while riding by on my bike (so they couldn't run after me with a bottle of pee coz I could out-pedal them)... But that was wishful thinking. It was too crowded to manouvre through the cars and crowds AND take photos with one hand too!

We rode through Vondelpark, Amsterdam's version of Central Park. It's huge, and there are many lakes running through it. Because it was a lovely day, people were having picnics all throughout the park. We had to stop for tea here, of course.





On the other end of the park is the Film Museum. So we stopped here too for another cup of tea on the terrace. Here's the bar inside. I really like its oldskool ceilings and photos of famous stars.


This is me by my bike and the Amstel River. The first thing I thought was "why does my face look so fat?!" (which explains why I've kept the picture small. Hehe.)


The End.
PS. I might have to jump on a train this afternoon to get to Barcelona 16hrs later for tomorrow morning. Damn Volcano!