Day Sixtyfour - Jul 24, 2012
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Daily Didactic
Today was a lovely day bicycling the Holland countryside, much like you see on those travel shows minus all the poppies. We rose late, ate, and headed out to a local bookstore to pick up a cycling map. We had done a little googling and sketched out a self guided bike tour and just needed a map to find the targets. We started off heading down the outer bank of the Amstel River, the main waterway through Amsterdam (which in retrospect is obviously named after the dam built on the river). Our trail gradually took us from the city center, through the interesting "allotment garden" of Amstelglorie, and on down the Amstel as the countryside became farmland and the river narrowed. We eventually came to the village of Ouderkerk where our map showed a bridge back to the Amsterdam side of the river. The bridge was out and gave us a brief moment for reflection, but around the corner we found a small foot and bike ferry. Back on the inner bank, we followed a road west to the very quaint old town of Amstelveen and grabbed a bite. Refueled, we pushed on to the bottom of the biggest of the parks in and around Amsterdam, Amsterdamse Bos. It was pretty great, suddenly we were biking through woods and pastures and intermittently past lakes and fields full of Amsterdammers celebrating the weather. We hit the top of Amsterdamse Bos, followed the bike route through an industrial area of quonset hut workshops and such, and cut back through yesterday's destination, Voldenpark. We stopped long enough at our market to augment what was in the fridge and headed home for one last home cooked meal in our attic room. Later we took an evening canal walk and, after not too long, returned exhausted at the end of very pleasant day.
Today's Photos
