A Garbage Truck in the Red Light District

Cyclists in Amsterdam are wild: through a bizarre mixture of traffic planning, legislation and momentum bikes often take the right of way on the city's streets. Against my host's recommendations I decided to try a bicycle tour with Mike's Bike Tours of Amsterdam  (http://www.mikesbiketoursamsterdam.com/) my reasoning being that having completed a couple triathlons I had the aggressiveness to navigate the traffic.

Our tour leader was Mike 2 who knows the city well and is quite personable. Our first stop was Leidseplein which is an entertainment center criss-crossed with tram tracks. Everyone navigated the square successfully and proceeded to Vondelpark and then to the Museumplein (an area surrounded my art museums). We were equipped with seven speed bikes which worked for the terrain we cycled: while the city is flat some of the bridges offer the challenge of an incline. Eventually we arrived at  the Little Bridge where a barge was dredging bicycles up from the canal and illustrated the fact that bikes are frequently stolen then dumped.

De Waag - One of Amsterdam's Medeaval Gates

Proceeding past the Hermitage and Zoo we ended up at the Scheepvaartmuseum (it is a naval institution not zoological) which is close to Centraal Station. At this point traffic became very congested and we took a side street through the red light district with it's mass of pedestrians. Rather than invite hostility of prostitutes in the area we were advised to glance not stare (or take photos). The streets narrowed and unfortunately we got snagged behind a garbage truck that was breaking down drywall. This was where the trip ground to a halt: while Mike was able to get some of the participants through the bottleneck eventually the workers would not allow the rest of the group to pass. Our guide eventually found a detour but for fifteen minutes our tourist site was the sanitation truck.



Dam Square



 

Our tour continued through the packed streets of Dam Square, past the Anne Frank House and ended at the Noorderkerk (North Church) in the Jordaan District. I found that I ended the tour with a better understanding of Amsterdam and a the knowledge about where in the city cycling works best.

Delft Tower close to the Flower Market