Jeff and I started our day on running 4 km through town and a park. We found a beautiful park along our run called Bearixpark. It is a local park that is nice, clean and very quiet. They say the older part of the park is the nicest, as it is kept its original "romantic character". This park was created in 1936 and was redesigned during WWII, under German occupation, the park was restyled for a modern style of functionalism. Now it is a local park that I found very quiet, although it is very much surrounded by a large city. The picture to left is a sculpture we found along the way. I have found that it is called Fists, but I can't find anything else out about it. It was surrounded by rose gardens and I would love to know more about it.
Below this sculpture is an area where you can work out. There was an iron elliptical, a place to do pull ups and set ups, and a balancing exercise equipment. Such a cool thing for a city have available to promote healthy lifestyles.
We left there and went to have breakfast with the girls. After checking for a gluten free breakfast restaurant near our hotel we settled for Beans and Bagels. It was simply amazing!!! So fresh, offered gluten free, and had amazing coffee and tea. Ellie and Alex both had a sweet bagel, which is butter and chocolate sprinkles. They also had hot chocolate. For the hot chocolate they brought out hot cream and pieces of real chocolate that you stir the chocolate pieces into the cream. Ellie had dark chocolate and Alex had milk chocolate- both were really yummy and something we may need to try at home again! There was yummy cappuccino and fresh squeezed orange juice. Prices were not high and we all enjoyed everything thoroughly.
After we finished breakfast we headed to town, which was quite the adventure. By the way if you ever find yourself in Amsterdam buy the GVB pass. Don't bother doing the Hop on Hop off. The public transportation here is amazing!! Our first trip into central Amsterdam was a mess, but a great learning experience. After much walking, two trams and a bit more walking, we finally made it to town. Little did we know all we needed to do was take the Metro from our hotel. The Metro is a light rail system in Amsterdam, it has four routes and is the fastest way to make it into the city from where we were staying.
Once in town we went to the Van Gough Museum. This was so amazing. We had headsets to listen to a tour as we walked along for each painting. The paintings were amazing and the story of Van Gough's short life was so sad. So many of his paintings I had never seen. The museum also includes paintings from other artists as well, which were just as amazing as some of Van Gough's. You weren't allowed to take pictures once you entered the museum, but we were able to capture this shot before going inside.
Another challenge we had today was negotiating traffic and not normal traffic, but traffic that involved, trams, buses, cars, and more bikes than any other type of transportation!! On our Hop on Hop Canal tour we passed a parking garage not for cars, but for bikes.
If I can offer any advice from today's visit for anyone wishing to visit Amsterdam it would be the following:
1. Plan a visit that lasts longer than two days.
2. Buy GVB Pass and not a Hop on Hop off Bus tour.
3. Ride through the canals.
4. Book your tickets for the Anne Frank Museum when it goes on sale 2 months before your visit or be prepared to wait hours -- I mean hours!!!
5. See Van Gough's museum - but definitely get the audio tour. It is worth the extra 5 Euros.
6. Pizza is delicious here.
7. If you are ever near a Beans and Bagels - eat there!!
We ended our day a bit early, as mentioned before, we had Jet Lag!! It sucks!
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