Bikes, Vondelpark, and Blauw

Posted by Chelsie on Aug 16, 2012 | 10 comments

Today we had quite a full day. In case you hadn’t noticed from our pictures, bicycles (fietsen in Dutch) are the most popular way to get around Amsterdam. Up until now we have been walking everywhere, but today we rented bikes and took to the streets. While it is a little crazy trying to avoid the cars, canals, pedestrians, and other cyclists, biking really is the best way to get around and see the city. After a quick Dutch pancake breakfast at a local cafe, we rented our bikes and headed straight to Vondelpark (think the Central Park of Amsterdam). What an amazing park! Once you got inside, you didn’t feel like you were in the city at all. There were lots of lakes, huge trees, grassy areas for having picnics, bike paths, and cafes dotting the park. After exploring every major trail to take it all in, we decided to stop a few different places and enjoy the views. Also, it was great to see so many people with their dogs enjoying the park on a beautiful day. We even saw a pug!

After of few hours of enjoying ourselves, we started to get hungry so we parked the bikes and found a table at one of the many cafes in the park. The simple, yet delicious sandwiches were perfect. Since we couldn’t seem to get enough of the natural surroundings, we rode around for about an hour more and then headed to the flower market to buy some flowers for our apartment. We also did a little Dutch cheese sampling as well before heading back. In the afternoon we shopped and wandered around until it was time for our dinner reservation at an Indonesian restaurant we have eaten at before called Blauw. Lucky for us, Blauw was located on the other side of the park so we got to ride through it once again. This time, instead of lots of children and dogs in the park, there were a lot of young people meeting up after work to grill and eat with friends. Some even brought their own hammocks to string up between trees. Again, it was so great to see the park being used like this. Everyone seemed like they were having such a great time. Once we got to Blauw, there was a little mix-up with the reservation. I thought we were booked for 8:00 p.m., but actually it was 6:00 p.m. Even though they were packed, they were able to find us a small table upstairs where we enjoyed a delicious rijsttafel (rice table) which is basically a set menu of lots of small Indonesian dishes. Everything was delicious. I didn’t even mind that the waiter topped up my wine glass with two different kinds of wine (hey, at least they were both white). On the way home, we took one final bike ride through the park as it was about to close. Even though we had a really busy day, we couldn’t resist a quick stroll around the canals to take some night shots to finish it off.

By now you’re probably thinking…wow, you guys did a lot of biking around today. When we got back to the apartment I used Google Maps to estimate how far we traveled and it was about 15 miles total. All without a single injury or accident. Hopefully the trend will continue tomorrow as we bike to Waterland in North-Amsterdam.

Cheers,

Chelsie & Andrew