All I can say about Amsterdam is wow. it's a really interesting place, i suppose thanks to the trade heritage of the city (famously, Dutch East Indian trading co) and the social structure that tries to avoid elitism. The justice system runs on a "harm rule" basically, if it's not harming anyone or thing, it's legal. Just to give you an idea of how it works, there is a park (Vondelpark) which is like the city botanic gardens where you can smoke pot, drink and even have sex in public, everyone just chilling out having a great time together - all very cool.
The way the city is constructed is unique as it effectively sits below sea level, meaning the ground has a very high water content. In the 1600's I understand they used leather and wood as foundations for the house to absorb and control the water content (rather than stone which would get dislodged) and stop things sliding away. You can see in some of the photo's the houses all lean against each other - they don't straighten them when renovating, rather just underpin and bolster the foundation to stop them sliding any more. Further out of town you can see where they are still reclaiming marsh land to build.
What else is cool, nothing opens here until 10am, so the streets were dead when I arrived at 8.30a on Friday. I got back out just after 10 and people were pouring into town like a flood. By 4pm the place was packed - at sundown at 10pm everything was shut again and the pubs were door to door.
I went and did a mikes bike tour through the country to the south. About 30k all up but took us 4hr's with stops. Got some great hot tips from that tour, worth doing early if you come to visit. Settled for Dutch chips for dinner last night (pis), had a few Heinekens and stopped by a coffee shop before turning in. What a day! Check out the web album here
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