Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Euro Trip Day 11: Antwerp, Belgium and Amsterdam, Holland

Day 11 found us on the second last leg of our journey. We needed to get from Amiens, France, our overnight stop, to Amsterdam, Holland, with a stop in Antwerp, Belgium. 262 kms to Antwerp and then another 159 kms to Amsterdam. Finding a hotel for this leg of the trip had been a bit of a nightmare and we didn't find one until 3:30am in the morning. So when we started out the next day at noon it was a little bit later then we had hoped. But as soon as we left France, our speed picked up considerably and we were in Antwerp by 2:00pm.
We spent the afternoon touring the old city and the diamond district. To say this was my wife's favorite city would be an understatement. The scooter traffic had changed to bike traffic and everyone seemed to understand and speak english. As soon as my wife saw the woman riding bikes in high heels, she knew this was the city for her.
We left Antwerp in the middle of rush hour and arrived in Amsterdam sometime after 8:00pm that night. Again, finding a hotel was a bit of a problem. We managed to find a room for 85 euros
a night, the smallest room of our trip by far.
And the surprising thing was that this same room was going for 179 euros the very next night.
Needless to say we found another room to stay in, for our second night in Amsterdam.
After we had settled in, we took a walk through town,
and were surprised to find out that Amsterdam was not a 24x7 kind of city. This city actually does sleep! We had to search for a place to eat as not a lot of places serve food after
11:00pm. And then it was off to explore the red light district,
and check out a coffee bar.

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