Amsterdam

As I am writing this, we are en route to Paris by Thalys. We left Amsterdam about 5 minutes ago. Well, I should say we managed to leave… We got to the train 3 minutes before it departed after a 10-min rushingly dragging our luggage all the way from Dam to the Centraal Station. There was an accident that caused the tram we were in should cease its operation.

Thalys is not as good as the train we had from Frankfurt to Amsterdam – ICE, a new train that travels 220km/h. Thalys is older, less neat, and less comfy. It might also be a reflection of the fact that the Netherlands is a little less developed than Germany. (But we are enjoying the service in Thalys: mozzarella and pineapple sandwiches – ICE offered nothing).

Of course is not that Amsterdam is less attractive than Frankfurt. In fact, we kind of like Amsterdam more. It’s an old city with friendly neighborhood. It is kind of small compared to Jakarta, you can walk or ride a bicycle to see around; or if you want to explore the canal, you can take canal bus. We stayed in small but cozy hotel, La Boheme, in the Leidseplein area, the center of city activities.

We walked around, from Rijkmuseum to Van Gogh Museum, from Leidseplein to Dam to Centraal Station, passed over Red Light District, Magna Plaza, National Monument and Madam Tussaud Museum. We learned that Amsterdam is a city of bikes and museums. However we only visited one museum: Van Gogh due to time limitation.

We also went to Rotterdam, the second largest city in the Netherlands, however we found nothing much to see.

So that’s for 3 days of Goethe and Van Gogh experience. Now, we are looking forward to ‘meet’ da Vinci in Paris and Picasso in Rome.

If you like to see some pictures that we took, click here