The Dynamic Duo Chronicles – London to Amsterdam

Woo hoo! What a ride so far… present location, just off Venice in our lil’ motel. Thought I’d share an update about what’s been going on… but there’s too much to talk about! So shall start with our first trip from London to Amsterdam… en route with our Contiki 9D European Magic tour. Started off in London, bright and early in the morning (Daytime is from 6am to 9pm by the way). Literally starting our trip about 6hrs after we landed… reporting for our tour at 645am at Royal National London Hotel.



Hopped on the contiki bus, where we met our helpful tour manager Anna, and our driver, Thierry. Anna’s been with Contiki for a good 11 years already… and Thierry is a pleasant Belgian chap who introduced me to Duvel beer (YUM!)



So from there, us and the bus headed out to hop a ferry headin’ to Amsterdam, from a port right next to the white cliffs of Dover.





A short bus ride from the port of Calais, and we finally reached our first destination… Amsterdam (or ‘The ‘Damage’ as it is nicknamed, for obvious reasons). Amsterdam is such a quirky town, so full of life and loads of fun! Got a newfound respect for the Dutch, cos they take ‘liberal’ to a whole new level. Art, coffeeshops, food, street markets… Amsterdam has a vibrance that is exciting yet still retains its history and charm.



They still have hooks on the roof of the buildings there… ‘cos the houses and apartments are so narrow, that they need to use a pulley system to hoist furniture into apartments on the 2nd floor and above.



Deciding to culturally engage ourselves, we visited places like the Van Gogh museum and the Floating Flower Market. Made a quick stop at H&M as well. SALE! =P





While some members in our group went for an optional liquid buffet canal cruise in the evening, we opted to take the time to walk around on our own and sample what Amsterdam had to offer… a vibrant nightlife, friendly people and a really unique red-light district =p It was amazing the number of people you can see on a Monday in this town, just tourists, Dutch people… a town that is pretty much alive after dark. If it weren’t for the fact that we were pretty jetlagged, being our first day there, we would have gone out to party up a bit more on Monday night! Cos it sure seemed like a lot of people were doing just that!

That’s one of the elements we enjoyed on our Contiki trip, that there are optional things on offer that you can do that you can pay for, but if you choose not to join, it gives you your own free time to run around wherever you wish to! So it becomes a guided, yet flexible tour.

Of course, another exciting element of this trip was making friends with lots of people from Australia, US, Puerto Rico, Canada. Haven’t met them all yet, but slowly getting to know our tour-mates.

The cool part about Amsterdam is that we stayed on the outskirts of the main city centre, but it was so easy to hop a tram into the main part of town and once you’re there… it’s literally a casual stroll to any of the many sights you’d like to see… if not, there is still an effective and inexpensive tram system.

So after a night there, we got ready in the morning to leave pretty little Amsterdam, and head off to our next destination in the Rhine Valley in Germany. Doei Amsterdam… I shall return… *wipes tears*