5/23
It was time to say goodbye to Antwerp and hop on a 3h bus ride to Amsterdam. In hindsight now, we just should've taken the train instead but when I booked it, the 17 Euro price tag on the bus was so tempting that I thought it would make up for the lack of comfort....it didn't. Lesson learned.
We arrived at the bus terminal in Amsterdam, which was far out from the city center, close to the stadium and convention center. It took us a while to figure out how to get a 3 day public transportation pass and then we had a bit of a journey to our hotel. Unfortunately, Amsterdam was quite pricey for hotels when I booked, so I had gambled on Hotwire. While we ended up with a very modern hotel with a great big room, it was a bit far out and required a 30min tram ride into the city. But the walk to the Tram was actually really lovely so we really didn't mind.
We got settled at our hotel around 4pm and after a quick round on the free wifi to check emails we left for the next tram station to take us closer into town. We had decided to start with a station close to the Vondelpark because it was between our hotel and the broader downtown area. We quickly found an inviting little bar/restaurant that served Matt yet another new beer he hadn't tried yet as well as some Dutch delicacy snacks, Bitterballen and Borrelplank. Bitterballen are fried little croquette balks filled with cheese and bacon, and Borrelplank could be described as a board full of cheese and cold cuts with mustard.
We then proceeded to walk through the entire Vondelpark to the edge of what is considered the center of town. The park is gorgeous, well kept and it being Saturday, it was filled with people lying in the grass, grilling at the designated BBQ spots or just strolling through the park like us.
One thing we immediately noticed is that the Dutch LOVE their bicycles and essentially use then wherever they go. We had already been aware of this from Antwerp but it really took a whole new form in Amsterdam. Every, and I mean, every road has a bike lane parallel to it. Any time you cross a street, you not only have to watch out for cars but also bicycles as well as Trams. It makes navigating traffic in Amsterdam as a pedestrian a bit overwhelming at first and we saw a lot of near misses where tourists were trying to cross streets without checking for bikes. The Dutch bicyclists are obviously aware of this in a tourist filled city like Amsterdam and use their bells constantly and aggressively. Here's a picture of a giant bike parking spot at the central train station.
After exiting the park, we continued to walk further Northwest until we reached the Rijksmuseum, the national museum, which is not only an architecturally impressive building but also accompanied by another beautiful garden and park with a pond and plenty of open space.
We then decided to go back to the movie theater we had passed a while ago and try to go see Mad Max because it was being shown in English. The emphasis was on "try" because when we got there half an hour before the schedule start time, there were only two front row seats left. I had forgotten that in large parts of Europe you buy specific theater seats and it's not like first come first serve like in the US. So we ditched the movie idea and instead went back to the hotel via the Vondelpark to get some more walking in.
5/24
Since we had two more full days in Amsterdam we didn't bother to get up early and left the hotel around 10:30am. We took the Tram straight to the Rijksmuseum where we first had a delicious late breakfast/early lunch and then spent a good 2 hours at the museum. Similar to the Louvre in themes, the Rijksmuseum boasted a large collection of 16th to 19th century art with a strong emphasis on the Dutch Masters. Rembrandt's famous Nightwatch is featured there as one of the highlights.
After leaving the museum, we just walked around the Western Canals area of the city, exploring the amazing architecture, the canals and houseboats. We also passed the Dam, a large square that features the Royal Palace, the National Monument as well as a the Niewkerk. For some reason I forgot to take pictures of those.
We were technically searching for a place to eat and tried to get as far away from the touristy center as possible. We succeeded in finding a nice little bar/restaurant that fed us Dutch sandwiches and more delicious beer.
We kept walking even further North afterwards into an area that was clearly a colony of house boats in all shapes and sizes, right next to very modern residential and office buildings.
5/25
Our second day in Amsterdam began with Matt suddenly finding last minute tickets to the Ann Frank House. We had been wanting to go but the lines were so long and there were no online tickets available when we had previously checked. But Matt had read somewhere that you need to check in the day of because sometimes they become available last minute due to cancelations. We scored two tickets for 6pm and decided to tackle the Van Gogh and Rembrandt Museums during the day.
But first we made it back to the neighborhood by the park we liked so much on the first day and went to a great place called Bagels & Beans. They served us delicious bagels with great toppings and good coffee.
The Van Gogh Museum had a pretty long line wrapped around it the day before when we drove by and we had hoped that it now being Monday the line would be shorter. No such luck. We waited a solid hour to hour and a half in line to get in but were rewarded with the largest Van Gogh collection.
Afterwards we walked through the red light district to the Rembrandt House. This turned out to be a bit of disappointment for 11Euros a person, especially compared to the Rubenshuis we had visited in Antwerp. We were in an out in under 30min. It was then about time to walk back to the Western part of the city for our Ann Frank House appointment. That on the other hand was definitely worth the trouble and a worthwhile experience in Amsterdam.
One other thing that struck me about Amsterdam is that a lot of old canal houses look frighteningly crooked. The pictures really don't do it justice.
5/26
The next morning we had originally planned to rent bikes and ride through Amsterdam before our 5pm flight to Berlin but ended up procrastinating so long at the hotel that by the time we were finally packed and ready to check out, we only had about 2 hours left before needing to head to the airport. So we just did what we had done the days prior, we took the Tram to our favorite neighborhood, had a great breakfast/lunch and then walked through the Vondelpark. Around 2pm we then slowly made our way to Amsterdam's Schiphol airport before hopping on a quick one hour flight to Berlin's Tegel airport.
Luckily, my cousin's boyfriend was so nice to pick us up at Tegel so we didn't have to use public transportation all the way through town since the airport was at the Northwestern end of the city and they live in the Southeastern part of town.
He took us straight to dinner at a great beergarden style place (indoors though, because it was a bit chilly) and we indulged on seasonal asparagus, Schnitzel, Koenigsberger Klopse and plenty of beer.
5/27
On our first full day in Berlin we decided to try to follow one of the city walks that we found in the Berlin app that we had on our phones. We started off at the Alexanderplatz with the Fernsehturm, the highest building of Berlin and one of the highest in Germany.
Close by is what is called museum island, or Museumsinsel. It's a small island in the river Spree that houses several large museums. Right there we hit our first museum, the GRD Museum (DDR in German) to give Matt a taste of how people lived in the former Eastern part of Germany before the wall fell.
From the DDR Museum, we walked across the river to the Berliner Dom, a protestant cathedral where you could ascend to the top. We skipped going all the way up as it got pretty crowded up there and the air was a bit stuffy.
We then continued further on the Museumsinsel where we passed several large museum buildings.
We decided on the Neue Museum, which housed a famous Egyptian and other early collection. I didn't actually realize until we saw it that its most famous piece was the Nofretete statue that my mother had always talked about when I was a kid and that I'd seen numerous pictures of. In English she's called Nefertiti. We weren't allowed to take any pictures of her but it was definitely a great experience. The Egyptian collection at that museum is pretty extensive and really interesting.
It took about two hours to finish the museum, it's pretty large. We then just continued to walk down the street called Unter den Linden that eventually leads to the Brandenburg Gate and the Tiergarten park. From there we walked over to the Reichstag, where the German Bundestag assembles (parliament). And just across from the Reichstag is German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Kanzleramt, our equivalent of the White House. Everything in this area is large, modern and spread out with a lot of land in between, a remnant of when this area was no man's land between East and West Germany. It was only developed after the reunification and for the specific purpose of housing the German government, which moved from Bonn to Berlin after the wall fell.
From the Kanzleramt we walked over through the massive Tiergarten park which used to house the annual Loveparade that now no longer exists. But when I was in High School, it was a big deal for everyone to travel to Berlin for the spectacle.
From the Tiergarten we circled back by the Brandenburg Gate through the Holocaust memorial and then eventually to dinner with my High School friend.
The place she had picked was located right at the waterfront and we had full view of a duck's nest right outside the window by our table.
5/28
The next morning we had breakfast in the neighborhood again and then returned to the area where all the museums are but this time we didn't go for art or human civilizations. We chose the Museum of Medical History next to the big Berlin teaching hospital Charité. Spread across three floors, the museum contains a comprehensive history of immunologist Paul Ehrlich who played a pivotal role in early diphtheria, syphilis and other vaccines and treatments, work for which he received the Nobel Prize, as well as an interesting collection of human samples of all kinds of diseases. No pictures allowed so you have to use your imagination.
Afterwards we headed just a few blocks up the road to the Naturkunde Museum, the museum of natural history, which houses the tallest mounted dinosaur skeleton in the world.
The collection also contains the famous archaeopteryx, or rather the best and most complete one of the five that are currently known.
From the dinosaurs we progressed to the biodiversity collection, displaying a large variety of different specimens to showcase the concept.
The museum also contained an impressive fish collection, shown off in huge walls full of specimen jars.
This piece is a full human genome prepared so that you can actually see it. I really liked how they had prepared this one.
One we were done with the museum we proceeded over to the Potsdamer Platz for lunch. Outside of the restaurant was one of many displays of the former Wall that separated East and West Germany during the existence of the GDR.
We then decided that we had enough time for the Dali museum (no pictures unfortunately) before meeting my cousin, her boyfriend, my uncle and his girlfriend for dinner across town. The well known Checkpoint Charlie was on the way to dinner so we stopped there, and even though the museum was closed already, they do a really good job at giving you all the important info on a big wall outside.
Dinner was a traditionally Austrian place in the district Prenzlauer Berg where my uncle had previously lived. They served us massive Schnitzel (I opted for the Roulade instead) and beers we hadn't tried before so Matt happily obliged.
5/29
This morning we ate home-made breakfast at my cousin's place before heading out to the subway to then catch a regional train to Potsdam, a smaller city about 30min outside of Berlin. Potsdam is known for two things, German movies and the Sanssouci park and palace. We didn't visited the film studio but did the historic walk instead. The massive park features several palaces, most of which were built between the 17th and 19th centuries and in various different styles.
The windmill
The Dragon "house"
The Orangerie
The New Palais
We also had lunch in the park and Matt enjoyed his first Currywurst of the trip.
Once we returned to Berlin we picked up my cousin at her workplace and then tried our best at a brewpub tour we had found on my app. The first place was a bust and didn't have a tasting room but the second and third place definitely made up for that. In between we got a walking tour of her old stomping grounds Kreuzberg, the district she grew up in.
5/30
On our last morning in Berlin we had a solid German breakfast at my cousin's house. Can you tell that breakfast is a big deal for Germans?
We then picked up the rental car for the ride to Prague. Luckily, I got exactly the car I had hoped for, the Volkswagen Golf GTI, or rather the Diesel version GTD.
