Weekend in Amsterdam

We spent another long weekend in what might just be our favorite city in Europe. Amsterdam is one incredible city.
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Ok, here's a video for the super-cheeseball in everyone out there. FREE HUGS from Amsterdam (just watch through the first 1:10 and it's so worth it!). Brings a tear to my eye to watch... no surprise there, huh!

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The houses along the canals in the Jordaan are all in nearly original condition and are just gorgeous! A lot of the canals were lined with house boats. We looked into staying in one but they were a little expensive and pretty fully booked.

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Here is Karen in front of one of the more high-end shopping malls. We were in and out of there pretty quickly.--- : )
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The canals at night were made to be photographed. We took a ton of nighttime pictures of the canals and churches. We need to see how to turn these pictures into postcards.
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Here's Karen as we're heading south toward the Leidseplein area. If we weren't on the blatantly tourist bikes, we'd blend right in. --- ; )
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There are actually more bikes than cars in Amsterdam. What a great stat!

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Here's a statue of Rembrandt. We went and visited his house and saw some great artwork there.

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We've been able to see a lot of famous artists home towns in Europe. It was pretty cool to be in his actual house!
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Here we are in front of a bridge in the Jordaan. This is the oldest and richest parts of town. Construction on this part of Amsterdam began back in 1612.

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While we were in the Jordaan, we visited the Anne Frank House. It was really striking to walk through the rooms of the house where the family hid during WWII.

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Shocking to think about what that must have been like for a young girl like Anne Frank to live through that experience.
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There are videos in the museum of the people who helped hide the family. Amsterdam lost more Jews in WWII than any other city in the world. Absolutely horrific to think about what really happened.
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You can go back and watch the free hugs video if you need an emotional pick-me-up.

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Here's another picture from the Jordaan just after sunset. As well as being our favorite city in Europe, it's probably the most beautiful we've seen so far.
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Here is a picture of the quintessential Amsterdam city bike. They don't seem to care at all about having the newest carbon fiber frame or aerodynamic geometry. They care more about the bike lock than the actual bike!

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The way bicycles are incorporate into the city's transportation infrastructure is really impressive. We rented bikes for our entire stay and probably enjoyed riding the canals more than anything else.
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Ok, one last nighttime shot of the canals.

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On our last day we took a train 20km NW of Cantraal Station to Zaanse Schans. It's a 17th century village of windmills in Holland. It's like Old Sturbridge Village in western MA for those familiar.

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This is one of our favorite pictures from Holland.
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It was funny, there was a torturous smell of chocolate in the air. We were hunting for something chocolate as we walked through the village but couldn't find anything. Karen was ready to kill for something chocolate. As we walked back to the return train to Amsterdam we passed the ADM Cocoa factory and realised where the smell came from!
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When we got back in to Amsterdam, we rode our bikes down to the flower market to pick up some souvenirs for co-workers.

Good bye to my favorite city in Europe... until next time!