Europe Trip - Day 7 (17-Sept-2012)

Day 7 : Amsterdam, The Netherlands

 

We were off to Amsterdam today. Like Bruges, Amsterdam is also sometimes referred to as "Venice of the north". My wife who was nursing a sore ankle had already overworked her legs yesterday in Bruges. So we decided to take it easy and leave late. Our check in at the hotel in Amsterdam was anyway at 3pm. After a brief training on how to lock the house and unlock the main gates of the apartment, our friends entrusted the keys to us and left for work. Our plan was to spend just one night in Amsterdam and return by next evening. So we packed accordingly and left to take a bus to Brussels Midi railway station. A bus ride of 15 minutes took us to the Midi station. There was a special return fare were available for weekend return trips to Amsterdam. Since it was a Monday we couldn’t avail it. This could have potentially saved us 50% on the train fares. But our initial plans were to use a BeNeLux pass that we purchased online, as we hadn’t plan to drive down to Luxembourg and other places initially. Now we decided not to use the pass and return them to get a refund. The costs worked out cheaper that way.

As we entered the Midi station we saw a train for Amsterdam scheduled in about 10 mins. So we rushed to the international ticket counter (didn’t realize it was an international travel) and purchased a ticket. We also got a complimentary map of Amsterdam with trams and bus timetables along with the tickets. We rushed towards the platform and boarded the train just in time. We knew that if we missed it the next train would be an hour later so the dash was worth it. The train ride was about 3 hours as it was a normal train. If we had taken the high speed Thalys, it would have been 2 hours, but those tickets had expensive last minute fares. We reached the Amsterdam Centraal station and proceeded directly to the transport office across the station. Our first buy was a one day ( 24 hrs ) tram pass. Trams are the best form of transport within the city. 

Tram in Amsterdam

The queue system was pretty organized with a token being issued once you enter and we had to wait until the token number is called for. Much like what we encounter in State Bank of India branches in many cities in India. We then proceeded towards the adjoining tourist office. This was one of the good things which we would encounter in most places. Every place we went had a tourist office right next to the railway station. We wanted to do a cruise on the river Amstel. We were again given a token to wait for our turn. We had quite a bit of numbers to go before we got our turn. Meanwhile there was another lady who filtered out people who had simple queries. When our turn came up we went and enquired about the river cruise. We got two options by different tour operators. One was for 14 euros and another for 8 euros. We opted for the inexpensive one . We wanted to do the cruise at night, similar to the one experienced in Paris. This ticket was valid upto 11 pm. So we made the booking for the cruise. The next thing we enquired was the entry to the Anne Frank Museum. We found that tickets could be purchased there and the last entry is at 5.30pm. So we picked the 4.15pm slot so that it gave us enough time to reach the place and then have enough time to spend in the museum. Once all the ticketing was done we proceeded to take the tram to reach our hotel. The tram station was adjacent the tourist office and a 15 min tram ride took us right in front of the hotel (the tram directions matched precisely like what was mentioned in the website of the hotel). The hotel itself was in the first floor and it was an old house. The first floor was shared between another resident and the hotel reception. The hotel rooms were in the second floor and above. And to worsen things further there was no lift. A steep flight of stairs took us to our room in the third floor. The climb to the room was almost like a rock climbing expedition. A strange set of locks greeted us and I spend atleast 5 mins before I could open it. Once we entered the room we decided that we would not want to climb up and down the stairs too many times. It was very small and neat room with basic needs. We quickly freshened up and we were ready to go. We stopped over for a bite at McDonalds and were pleasantly surprised to find a veggie burger on the menu.   

Our friends had cautioned us about thefts in Amsterdam so we didn’t carry our laptop. I had jotted down all the required notes of the places we wanted to see in our notepad before our travel. The tourist information maps were indeed very helpful. In fact until that point I never realized how handicapped we have become if we don’t have access to a computer or a mobile phone. All the days till now we had the comfort feeling that we can get back to the hotel and check for more information if needed using our laptop. One good thing that this can do to you is to make you more prepared.

Our first place of interest was the Anne Frank Museum. I was not aware of the history behind Anne Frank and her dairies until my wife told me about it. It is quite an amazing story set in the midst of the World War II. Anne Frank and her family hid in her father’s office in Amsterdam for two years totally cut off from the outside world. Anne Frank’s family was captured and sent to concentration camps. Anne Frank’s father, the lone survivor from the camp returned to his Amsterdam hideout where he found the dairies of Anne. He was so moved by crisp portrayal of thoughts of his twelve year old daughter that he got them published as “Dairy of a Young Girl”. It has since been translated into to several languages and their hideout in Amsterdam is now a museum. 

Outside Anne Frank's house

We landed at the entrance of the museum and entered it through a separate entrance for prior reservations. It was not all that crowded and we could have very well purchased tickets on the spot. When we entered the museum the first thing we noticed were signs mentioning that photography was prohibited. Also all the artifacts and the pages from the diary were maintained in low light to preserve them.

The first few rooms of the museum were normal with the history of the Frank family, few photographs of the members of the family etc were displayed. One of the rooms had a small television with a brief video about the history of Anne Frank and her dairies. The real places to visit came after about 20 mins into the tour of the house. A steep climb (almost like climbing a ladder) led us to book case which used to cover the secret passage to the hideout. Once we entered it was dimly lit to ensure we get the similar feel that would have been experience back then. There were two rooms which were lit dimly by bulbs. The windows were always covered with thick curtains to prevent external visibility to the house. And it is said that Otto Frank insisted that the family keep still through the day and not make any sound to prevent suspicion. The first room was Otto Frank’s room which also served as the family sitting room. The fascinating thing that has been preserved till now is the marking on the walls which Otto Frank made for the growth of his children in height during the hiding. The next room was Anne Frank’s room. Anne Frank decorated her room with pictures of film stars and personalities from art and history. Some of the pictures originally stuck in the room have been retained. Also attached to these rooms was a small bathroom. After we were done with the two rooms, another steep climb using a ladder was awaiting us. It was a bit of tough climb especially for my wife who was already nursing a sore ankle. The room just below the attic was a one of Peter, the son of another family who also staying along with the Franks.

The overall experience of the Ann Frank was pretty unnerving. To imagine what the family would have gone through is a bit unsettling. In fact when we made our way out for the secret annex into the book store there was a room with pages from the original diary displayed. A short video of Otto Frank, Ann Frank’s father was also playing in the same room. When we finally saw daylight we felt a bit heavy in our hearts for the family. I am sure there were several such families with such horror stories and for some reason my mind just went back to the movie “Life is Beautiful” and its storyline. I only hoped that the world never witnesses any wars leave alone World Wars.

Since we could not take any pictures inside the museum we stopped by outside the museum to take a few pictures. 

The "hideout"

We then decided to walk around that place for a while. It was a cool evening and sunset was coming up. The museum was overlooking the canal and there were several bridges at regular intervals to cross over to the other side. We took one of those bridges and started walking aimlessly for a while near the museum and we finally decided to take a tram and head out towards Dam square. We reached the Dam square tram station and started walking down one straight stretch of road. On the way we saw a huge casino. We also noticed a small frites shop. And it looked very interesting. The choice of toppings was not just limited to traditional mayonnaise. It had several flavors. We read the choices and narrowed down on green pepper mayonnaise. We took a portion of fries and started walking down the road. We sat by the road to eat out the fries and then found ourselves a small memorabilia shop where we purchased some fridge magnets. Along the way also noticed a familiar eating place – Maoz, which we had tried in Paris. We would return there later for our dinner. There was also a frites shop named after our favourite boy from Brussels, Mannekin Pis. It had a huge model of him with fries!

 Prinsengracht with the Westerkerk (Western Church)- Amsterdam's tallest church -in the background

The Royal palace at Dam square

First to board the cruise boat !

We never realized how much time we spent walking around in that places until we gazed at our watches. We had purchased tickets for a night cruise that started from a place further away from the Centraal station where the cruises during the other times operate. So we needed to hunt it down and to handicap us further there was no access to Google maps (So no walking routes!!). So we used a conventional map and tried to orient us and started walking. Unfortunately after a few minutes of walking we were rudely awakened by the fact that we were walking down the wrong direction. After asking a few shopkeepers we finally got the direction correct and chose to take tram as we had walk quite a bit away from our mark. It took two stops by tram to reach a point that my wife and I hesitantly got off. We were estimating that the wharf would come one more station later. We walked across and enquired once again with a shopkeeper and he gestured vaguely to the opposite side of the canal. So we crossed the canal and across a small counter where an old lady was cleaning. We waited for a moment and tried to read the address in our tickets and tried to do a pattern matching of the name and address. After a short while I just walked up to the lady and showed the ticket to ask for the location but she instantly went into the counter and issued us the tickets for our cruise. I was a bit bemused by what happened overall. Then we noticed the name board of the cruise company for which we had got tickets. (http://www.rederijkooij.nl/en/) By this time we were a bit tired as we had walked quite a bit. We climbed down a small bridge and into the cruise boat and we waited for the cruise to start (we were the first people on board). In about 15 mins more people came by and the boat was about one fourth full when the cruise started. As seen in Paris, we saw several cruise boats on the canal. Some cruises had a candlelight cruise as well, with wine and dinner.

Can I drive?

Like Paris the cruise had a pre-recorded tape playing out history of each place. First thing we saw was the hotel run by Heineken, the beer company. 

Cozy seat to enjoy the cruise views

View of 7 bridges

The most fascinating thing we saw was the seven bridges, a spot from where seven different bridges over various canals are visible at the same time. And since it was a night cruise the lighting under the bridge made them look even more beautiful. 

View from the cruise

One of other interesting piece of information I got to know was that there were several boat houses docked around various canals and they are legal houses with electricity, water and gas connections. The cruise took us out of the city into the sea and we saw a view of the city. An interesting point to note was that some of the houseboats were illegal as well! We also saw a bridge built totally under the water and one of the restaurants had an underwater kitchen.

It was around 9.30 pm when the cruise was over and we were hungry. We took a tram back to Dam square and headed to the Maoz falafel place we had noted down earlier in the evening and had a filling falafel before heading back to our hotel. As it was late in the evening, the Tram announced the Dam square stop as “red light district”. We were amused with this. What we saw of Dam square was pretty deserted (in the night) with a few cafes open. We didn’t go looking for the red light district specifically as we weren’t interested but we couldn’t spot it instantly either. It would have perhaps been an interesting and unique sight. We also noticed that most of the souvenir shops had quite a lot of souvenirs which were in a pretty bad taste. This left us wondering if we could visit Amsterdam with kids!

We got off at the tram station near our hotel and we thought we should buy water. It was close to 11 pm and most of the shops were closed. We noticed there was one night shop opened selling liquors, cigarettes etc. We walked in and picked up water bottle and walked up to the billing desk. The person manning the counter told me “iet has gaezz”. I was wondering what he was asking me. I gave him a quizzical look and he repeated the same. I politely told him “Please tell me in English”. What he answered in returned got by a bit shaken. “I tell English” and then he repeated the line again. Both my wife and I were shocked with the revelation that the years of learning English in what used to be called as “Senior Cambridge” and later on ICSE here all went down the drain with that one line which in English we could not make head or tail of. He finally got a bit frustrated and went and picked up another bottle and showed it to me and I compared the one that I had picked. I finally found out that the one I picked was sparkling water and then it dawned that he was trying to say “It has gas”. I breathed a sigh of relief and felt that my English was after all not all that bad. We took the normal water instead of the sparkling water. I gave a sheepish look as I paid him and walked out of that place towards our hotel. After the tall climb in the hotel stairs we finally reached our room, pretty tired and ready to close proceeding for the days. My wife whose sore ankle by now had swollen needed some rest badly to recover. Our plan for tomorrow is to visit the huge Vondelpark which was a stone’s throw from our hotel before returning to Brussels.

-- Yes & Why