Trip Report -- Day 8.1

After doing paper work at the USA office, we drove the X3 into a parking area inside the fence. I removed the front plate, the first aid kit and the warning triangle. Those items are for Europe only. If they go missing during shipment they are gone for good. BMW North America will replace anything else stolen from the car during shipment. We said good bye to the car, and took a taxi back to our Hotel. From there we took a bus into the city center.

Photo of me taking a picture.

Picture I took.
Debbie's photo of Canals.
More canals.
We went to the Van Gogh Museum. We cruised the canals. We ate Greek food for dinner. We walked. Miles.

Amsterdam was my favorite city of the trip. Really it was the only city. We didn't spend much time in Munich.

Historic Amsterdam doesn't have much room for cars. The streets are narrow and parking is difficult. The way the city is built, I'm not sure if it would be possible to build an underground parking garage. An above ground garage would be ugly and require removing historic buildings. In any case there aren't any. Most of the locals walk, use public transportation and ride bicycles. It seemed to us that there are more bicycles than residents. Near the central train station there is a multi-story parking deck crammed full of bicycles. There are bicycles locked to just about everything and parked just about everywhere. Going back through our photos of Amsterdam I was only able to find one or two that didn't have a bicycle in them.

In a wealthy city where bicycles are the main transportation, you'd expect to find the newest, coolest high tech bikes in existence. Well you won't. A typical Dutch bike is a heavy, low tech, rusty thing kinda like a 1950's English lightweight. Rock solid, dependable and kinda boring really. A few uniquely Dutch bikes caught my eye.

A bakfiets is just what the Dutch name implies, a box bike. I didn't get any decent photos, but there are plenty on the web. Have a look: here or here or here. I saw several in use transporting children, groceries, pets, whatever. A bakfiets is Amsterdam's SUV. I'm sure they weigh a ton with that wooden box. Bakfiets are expensive at just over €1,500. I've looked and there are a few Americans selling them here in the US. Prices are close to $3000. Still if we ever live in a bike friendly city I'm getting one.