Buses, Trains, Bikes and Canals
September 13th-14th
After 24 hours of traveling, sprinting through the Phoenix airport as they gave the last call for our connecting flight to Heathrow and my backpack being pulled out for a second check at every security checkpoint because our apples looked strange on the scanner, we finally landed at Schiphol Airport in The Netherlands. Our Air BnB was in Noordwijk which is a small coastal town about an hour outside of Amsterdam by train and then a connecting bus. We bought tickets for a train to Sassenheim but somehow ended up on an express train that didn’t stop there and dropped us in Leiden instead. A guy our age on the train named George noticed that we looked confused and asked where we were headed. We told him we were trying to get to Noordwijk and he told us that busses went there from Leiden as well so we were still in the right place. Leiden was his stop also so he offered to show us where the busses were and pointed out that a bus was leaving for Noorwijk just as we exited. We thanked him and hopped on the bus for the 30-minute ride to the coast.
The problem with heading to the house from Leiden was that all of our walking directions were wrong and the stops listed were for a different bus line. We knew that our house was a few minutes walk from the water so when we started hearing the ocean we decided to get off and look at the map at the bus stop to try to figure out where we were. I had also downloaded maps to my phone ahead of time so between knowing where we were supposed to get off on the other line and the street that our Air BnB was on we managed to get there. The listing was truthful, we were less than 5 minutes from the sandy beach of Noordwijk that made us feel like we had traveled all day only to end up back in Santa Cruz. We checked in to the house and were greeted by a grey, short-haired neighborhood cat who was very friendly. We dropped our things and sat down before deciding what to do for dinner.
There was a grocery store just down the road so we walked out to the beach and walked in that direction as the sun set over the water. We picked up sandwich supplies and cereal to avoid eating out our very first night and then headed back to the room to relax. We had agreed that we would see how we were feeling once we got to the room before deciding if we would go into Amsterdam our first night and the consensus was that after being awake for over 24 hours we should probably just get some sleep. The following morning would be a very busy day as we had plenty planned to do in Amsterdam that we didn’t want to be tired for.
One Day in Amsterdam
We woke up early to catch the train to Amsterdam so we would have plenty of time to make it to the Anne Frank House by our entry time. I was up around 4 in the morning because I couldn’t sleep and I spent some time making sure that the bus that we needed to take to Sassenheim was actually running that day so we wouldn’t have any hiccups getting there. We got to the bus station right as a bus to Leiden pulled up, but the board said that the other bus line we needed would be right behind it so we didn’t get on. As soon as the bus pulled away both busses disappeared from the board. Great. We walked back to the room as the next bus to Leiden wouldn’t be for another hour. We checked the routes again and realized that we could catch a different bus to Leiden if we walked 15 minutes and the bus was scheduled to arrive in 17 minutes. We jogged through the neighborhood to make it there in time and made it with a little time to spare. Luckily we had only lost about 15 minutes and we were still on track to make it to the Anne Frank house in time.
Of course, nothing about traveling this morning would be easy and when we arrived at Leiden Station none of the ticket machines would read our cards and there was no ticket window where we could talk to someone. Luckily, they had the option to purchase the tickets online but we had to muddle our way through a payment page that was completely in Dutch. I took German in high school which helped some, but it was still a struggle for sure. We finally made it on the train, but we were cutting it close on time.
We arrived at the station, bought a map from the I Amsterdam store inside the station and started walking. We passed the National Monument on the way and followed the winding streets over the canals until we were in the right area. We still couldn’t find the house though and had to ask a tour guide for the hop on hop off bus how to get there. The house was tucked away behind a church and I doubt we would have found it in time if we hadn’t asked.
Walking through the house was a very sobering experience. You walk through the lower floors first before going through the doorway behind a bookcase that was the entrance to where Anne Frank’s family and the others lived. The pictures and postcards that Anne pasted to the walls are still up in her room and an excerpt from her diary is painted on the wall reading: “Thanks to Father, who had brought my whole collection of picture postcards and movie stars here beforehand, I have been able to treat the walls with a pot of glue and a brush and so turn the entire room into one big picture.” This, to me at least, was the most heart-wrenching part of the entire tour. You can feel how this young girl was trying to make the best of a terrible situation by dressing up the place they had to hide in to survive.
After our tour finished we walked back toward the National Monument and stumbled on a group of automated music machines set up in the plaza. There were about 15 of them set up in a circle and each would take a turn playing. The machine would play pipes, drums, wood blocks and probably more hidden inside the box.
We took the obligatory photo inside the giant wooden shoe before grabbing breakfast at a restaurant called the Metropolitan that turned into a club after dark.
From there it was a short walk to Bloemenmarkt which are the floating flower markets along one of the canals. The markets had just about any flower I could think of as well as seeds and bulbs to grow your own. Kaitlin and I picked out some tulip bulbs to bring back as gifts for our moms and wandered into a Dutch cheese shop as we were leaving. They were offering samples and we tried anything they would let us. Our favorite was a lavender goat cheese.
We headed over to the museum quarter which is home to the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh museum and more. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to visit the museums, but we did have time to walk through the sculpture garden. We tried to find the I Amsterdam letter but they had actually been moved to Schiphol airport and we must have walked right past them when we landed. Oh well.
We wanted to wait until close to sunset before we took a cruise on the canals which meant that we had a little time to do something else. Looking at our map we realized that one of the city tram lines would take us very close to Brouwerij ‘t IJ (gold star to whoever can pronounce that correctly, I sure can’t) which claims to be the oldest brewery in Amsterdam and is housed in a functioning windmill. The brewery was packed of course but we got to try a few beers, including the first beer they ever produced before heading back toward the canals.
Our boat captain was named Paul with a thick Dutch accent. He was full of interesting facts about the city and told us as we went under one of the bridges that it is known as “Lovers Bridge” that if you kiss your girl under you’ll be in love forever. I gave Kaitlin a kiss, I’m sure it will work. We also went past many of the permanent houseboats that are anchored in the canals. Paul told us that you can’t apply to put a new houseboat in the canals anymore and if you want to live on one you have to buy an existing one. Some of the boats were asking over one million Euros so I don’t think we’ll become canal dwellers anytime soon.
Earlier in the day, we had noticed that some of the houses along the canals looked crooked in our pictures. We figured that it was either our eyes playing tricks on us or that we had framed the picture wrong but Paul told us that many of the homes in Amsterdam have poor foundations that cause the homes to lean over time. We spotted at least six homes on the cruise that looked like they were gradually leaning forward to take a dip in the canal. Look closely at the black house in the picture below for an example. We spent the rest of the cruise watching the sunset over the water and enjoying the old picturesque homes.
After the cruise, we took the train back to Noordwijk and did some planning for the Brussels the following day. Although we only had one day in Amsterdam we packed a lot in. We will definitely be back.
