A Day In Amsterdam – Visiting the Olde Center District

When I last talked about my trip to Europe I had just showed you the views from our ship, the Viking Ingvi, which was going to take us on our Rhine River Getaway.  After we saw the views from the sundeck we headed into the city on our own, armed with a map that the staff onboard provided and directions to highlights we might want to visit while we explored.

The first thing we noticed was the abundance of bikes.  They were parked everywhere.  And it seemed more people were riding them than walking.  Well, we soon found out that walkers were the minority behind bikes and then cars.  They are very serious about riding bikes and they even have nicer bike lanes than sidewalks in most parts of the city.  It didn’t take us long to get used to the dinging bike bells to figure out where we could walk and where we could not walk.  They would run you over if you didn’t get out of their way.

Another thing we noticed was a lot of graffiti.  As we took the bus from the airport we saw tons of it along the roads and buildings.  And it was different from the “tagging” we normally see here at home.  It was all a lot more “artistic” and colorful.  We were surprised to see so much in the historic part of the city, but it was mainly confined to the Red Light District and the areas surrounding that part of town.

This doorway beside a restaurant was covered in graffiti.  Look how narrow the doorway is.

And here, on the rooftop to the left of De Schreierstoren there is graffiti.  The tower is known as the Weeper’s Tower, where women would weep as they said their good byes to those sailing off.  It was part of the city’s defensive system, one of many towers originally, but the only preserved one surviving today.

And this was another thing we saw all over the Old Town, these Nuff Said stickers.  We didn’t know that they were for a band, we thought it must be some kind of political thing.  They were everywhere and I really liked how this one had crackled.  Pretty effective marketing.

As we entered the city we came upon the Chinatown section of Amsterdam, where the street names are written in Dutch and Chinese.  This proprietor’s shop took several city blocks.

There were interesting items displayed in the windows.

You could see more oriental themed buildings down this street, including several with fancy gold roofs.

There were lots of hotels in this area lining the narrow streets leading to De Wallen, or the Red Light District.

I got a kick out of this neon sign for clean and simple hotel rooms that sleep 2-5.  Wonder what you get in a clean and simple room like this?

And here is the Hotel The Globe.  This little hotel is supposedly famous for it’s Sports Bar and has a reputation of being a place for traveling sports teams or students.

And it wasn’t long before we found the famous canals.  Amsterdam is often called the Venice of the North for the 100 or so kilometers of canals that have been used for centuries.  The seventeenth century canal ring area is a Unesco World Heritage site.

The canals were relatively clean.  There were ducks and swans everywhere.

And the old bridges were beautiful. Here is a view looking towards the Basilica of St. Nicholas.

You can see the narrow streets in these sections don’t leave much room for cars.  Sometimes it got really tight walking between the buildings and the traffic.  The majority of the traffic was still bicycles, though.

Next  I want to show you some of the beautiful architecture in the Olde Center District.

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This is not a sponsored post.  
This is my experience from my trip with Viking River Cruises. 

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