Before you wonder, no, there won’t be any photos of that sort of thing you’re expecting to see from an evening in Amsterdam. While we did venture into the red light district on our first night in the city we were there purely for a cultural and historical visit.
Our full day in Amsterdam had included visits to the maritime museum, the botanical gardens, the Gassan diamond manufacturing tour, the Hermitage museum, and a 2-hour canal cruise excursion, all thanks to the wonderful and highly recommended I Amsterdam city card. We’d also had some lunch but had to pay for that; you can’t get everything for free. We concluded our day by hopping on the tram (also free thanks to the card) and heading back into the main area to locate a pub we’d been in the day before for a few local drinks.
The pub was called In de Wildeman and did a large range of ales. As you might be able to work out from the poster pictured above on the two nights we visited we happened upon a “Meat & Great” when a local butcher treated us to free meat dishes while we drank (and they were wonderful) and, on this night, a “tap takeover” where beers were being tapped and added practically every 20 or 30 minutes. Our success at ordering a different range of drinks was hampered a little by unfamiliar staff being drafted in to assist with pouring for the crowd and drinks not being quite ready to consume but dry hopped ciders and dark, local beers were imbibed and greatly enjoyed, even if they were a smidge pricey.
From the pub it was a short walk to the waterfront area of Amsterdam and the train station that served as a good destination point for anyone looking to tour the city.
We headed right from there along the water’s edge back towards our floating home, Azura. The clear evening sky and darkening dusk of the evening came together to produce some great light for photos of the buildings along Amsterdam’s waterfront. I know that a lot of people will see the historic buildings and think they’re worth photographing but will ignore modern office complexes and apartments but I’m a big fan of repetition and colour transition in structures and the patterns that these sorts of pictures produce can often induce a sense of serenity in me. I know, I’m getting all arty and will stop.
A running joke when walking past the building above, as we did several times in our few days in Amsterdam, was “Oh look! Bimhuis! It’s a huis full of bim!” I guess you had to be there to appreciate this.
We arrived back at the port and I snapped a quick photo of Azura and a short bit of video before we got back on board to shower, change, snap a shot from our balcony, and go grab something to drink in the Planet Bar to finish up the night. It was our expectation that this would be the last we would see of Amsterdam but those strong winds we’d encountered on our trip and which you can hear in the video had other ideas as the next post in this portfolio will show.
