The next section of our European odyssey began at London's St Pancreas Station where we boarded the Eurostar bound for the Brussels. The trip was quick as was our stay in Brussels the capital of Belgium as we boarded another train for Brugge.
Brugge was quite the detour in our itinerary. But given everyone recommended we visit the town we had to see what it was all about. Arriving in Brugge reality finally hit us as this was the first place where we felt like fish out of water. Nothing was in English and every person we heard speak was not speaking English. So we had to make a choice walk to the famed town square with our packs or catch a bus.
We soon worked out that English was readily spoken and got tickets for the bus. However still in a daze of confusion and not actually knowing which stop we needed we jumped straight off at the next stop which was not the town square, so walking it was. The pathways were narrow and made of cobblestones and the square itself was a bustle of locals and tourists admiring the quaint surroundings. Given the medieval architecture you can see that come winter it could be the perfect European snow dome village.
Brugge was quite the detour in our itinerary. But given everyone recommended we visit the town we had to see what it was all about. Arriving in Brugge reality finally hit us as this was the first place where we felt like fish out of water. Nothing was in English and every person we heard speak was not speaking English. So we had to make a choice walk to the famed town square with our packs or catch a bus.
We soon worked out that English was readily spoken and got tickets for the bus. However still in a daze of confusion and not actually knowing which stop we needed we jumped straight off at the next stop which was not the town square, so walking it was. The pathways were narrow and made of cobblestones and the square itself was a bustle of locals and tourists admiring the quaint surroundings. Given the medieval architecture you can see that come winter it could be the perfect European snow dome village.
The chocolate shops are also a little bit X-rated.
We now needed to head back to the station to catch a train to Amsterdam. We started to walk back but then thought that if the bus was just doing a loop then we should just get back on... Big mistake. Before we knew it we were heading in the wrong direction, eventually we spoke to the driver and were told to get off at the next stop and catch the return bus on the other side of the road. We had missed our train and the next one too.
We got back to the station and missed another train. By now we were not happy campers, it was late in the afternoon and the now train journey to Amsterdam was 4 hours. So it was a train to Antwerp and then another to Amsterdam arriving at 10:30pm 4 hours later than scheduled.
To further complicate things the directions that we had printed for our hotel were incorrect, our hotel was in fact 10 minutes by train outside of the city. So we trekked back to the station and made our way to Zaandam and the Inntel Hotel, a rather odd shaped hotel.
Given we only had one nights stay in Amsterdam and we would be leaving the following day at 6pm we decided to head back into Amsterdam to see the notorious Red Light District.
There were queues waiting to get into the clubs with the live shows and hordes of men crawling the main canals and alleyways window shopping. When one was game enough to take a girl up on her services the crowd would cheer. Upon exiting a while later the crowds would cheer once more.
The next day we got up with a plan of attack to just walk the canals and also see the house of Anne Frank. We headed straight for the Anne Frank house and were met with a massive queue. Given time was limited we decided that we would give the the museum a miss and that the outside of the house would suffice. We continued to walk the canals and soon found a cheese museum (which was more like a cheese shop), a tulip museum (tulips originated from the Himalayas) and a house boat museum (the family of 4 sleeping quarters were puny, hence the Dutch were small back in the day.
Next we headed for the De Witte Tandenwinkel store, a shop solely devoted to toothbrushes followed by the Condomerie, a shop solely devoted to condoms.
We hit the Red Light District again and entered the Erotic Art museum which displayed exotic artifacts from across the ages and different cultures. Showing in the museum was an erotic cartoon, think classic Disney XXX style!
Lunch was had at the Waag gate house, Amsterdam's only surviving medieval gatehouse.
Then we walked down to the the Flea street market which was similar to the trash and treasure style of the Camberwell street market.
Apart from the canals and the in your face attitude towards sex, the other thing Amsterdam is famous for is marijuana. Although the laws have now changed meaning only locals with permit cards can purchase and smoke weed, one cannot escape its pungent smell as you walk the canals and pass the multitude of coffee shops.
Then we walked down to the the Flea street market which was similar to the trash and treasure style of the Camberwell street market.
Apart from the canals and the in your face attitude towards sex, the other thing Amsterdam is famous for is marijuana. Although the laws have now changed meaning only locals with permit cards can purchase and smoke weed, one cannot escape its pungent smell as you walk the canals and pass the multitude of coffee shops.
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