Across the North

From Belgique to Nederland to Deutschland... Ach du lieber!

To get from Bruges to Amsterdam one must go back through Ghent to Antwerp, and then switch trains. We had hoped to stop over in Antwerp for a bit to look around, but the day was getting on. In Antwerp we grabbed a bite to eat at Hector Chicken (maybe Chester's brother?), a real authentic Belgian eatery (sarcasm). Afterwards we looked around the square at the train station to get a quick sense of Antwerp. The main train station is very grand with lots of heavy stone.

Back on the train we crossed effortlessly into Holland. There was no border guard or customs officer, which again meant no passport stamp. The train pulled into Amsterdam Centraal in the early evening. The ride from Antwerp was about two hours. We were a bit weary from travelling and were looking forward to our room at St. Christopher's Hostel, owned by the same company as the Bruges accommodator. This hostel was, like its Belgian counterpart, very relaxed. There was a bar on the main floor with a patio at the back, internet consoles, a full menu and English football on the TVs. Each of the private rooms in the hostel are painted by a different artist. Ours was a graffiti-type painter, as the room was a yellowish-orange with a semi-abstract painting around the centre of the room.

The rain outside was letting up, so we decided to take a walk through the bustling area. Just to the north of our hostel, the area we walked through to get there, was the famed Red Light District. As seedy as the shops in Montmartre looked, these were way beyond. The area offers its clientele anything imaginable and many more things most people couldn't even begin to imagine. Most of the people strolling up and down the streets though, were like us, simply observers of this very non-North American phenomenon. After getting a bit lost, we found our way back to the hostel. We had done so much walking and riding in cars and trains the previous days, that the quiet of the room was very appealing.

In the morning we enjoyed our free breakfast at the hostel and then set out to see Amsterdam the way everybody should, by bicycle. Amsterdam is bicycle city, and there are no shortage of cheap places to rent bikes. We chose one close to our hostel, and despite the very obvious sign on the front that might as well say 'Tourist' it was very affordable and convenient. It cost us around 25 or 30 euros for the twenty-four hours that we kept them. That includes the locks and insurance. As long as you return the key, it doesn't matter what happens to the bike.

For several hours we rode around Amsterdam. Wherever there is a road in Amsterdam, there is also a bike path. They even have handlebar level traffic lights with bicycles on them. We went about aimlessly heading generally south away from the City Centre. We eventually got to Oosterpark, and then to a street market, where we parked the bikes and walked amidst the temporary store tents. I bought a pair of sunglasses for €1 to replace the £2 ones that kept breaking on me. I also bought a small daypack for €3 to replace my big bulky one. I would later realise why it was so cheap. In the evening we walked around some more and then again relaxed. Having a private room afforded us some time to catch up on our postings.

Thursday was museum day for us. Amsterdam has many museums and there were a few I wanted to see. Unlike London, however, museum entry is rarely free. We weighed our options and decided to only hit two of the three places, as they all closed at 6:00pm and we wanted a few hours at each place. We picked up an all-day transit pass each and our tickets for the Van Gogh Museum and the Rijksmuseum. NEMO, the science centre, which we were told was worth checking out, didn't make the cut. We hopped on a tram from the Centraal station and made our way to the Museumplein to begin our visits.

The Van Gogh Museum houses many works by that most famous of Dutch artists, Vincent van Gogh. In fact it is the largest collection of van Gogh's work in existence. The building is well planned out and starts out showing the works of artists that came before Vincent and influenced his style. Works by Manet, Monet, and two handfuls of others adorn the walls on this floor. One floor up is the bulk of the van Gogh collection running chronologically from his early days in Holland to his final tragic days in France. It's amazing to see how his work unfolded. One more floor above shows the work of Vincent van Gogh's friends. We also checked out the Max Beckmann exhibit that was on display. There were several floors of his work there, including a few of his massive triptychs.

Across the Museumplein sits the national gallery, the Rijksmuseum. It is here where a large collection of the Netherlands' other key artist, Rembrandt van Rijn is housed, including the most well-known Dutch painting, The Night Watch. Other greats like Vermeer adorn the walls as well. It's great to be able to get close to a Vermeer to see how the amazing depiction of light is just paint on a canvas.

After the previous few hours of looking at paintings, we were a bit museumed-out for a while. we decided since we had an all-day transit ticket, to just ride the tram until it either got to the end of the line, or looped back to the station. It turned out the former was the case, and we once again found ourselves in a residential part of the city. It's really great to see outside of the urban core, where the tourists are no longer present. At the end of the line we got on another tram, and then rode some more until we finally arrived back at the station. Full circle.

Another tiring day in the Dam. We enjoyed a couple of quiet drinks at our hostel bar and then headed out to see Amsterdam by night once last time. Not much had changed from the previous nights. Despite the rain, people were out, especially in the Red Light District, where shops are always open, regardless of the weather.

We had been in contact with Angela in Hamburg, Germany. She had been my German teacher at the University of Manitoba about seven years ago. Hamburg was to be our next stop on the way to Berlin, and luckily Angela was free to meet us. She offered us food and lodging, so we were once again to enjoy the hospitality of Europeans. We booked our tickets to Hamburg, and with that, left the cloudy rainy skies of the Netherlands for the cloudy and rainy skies of Northern Germany.

We had hoped to get off the train in Bremen to have a look around there, but with the train from Osnabruck being delayed over forty-five minutes, we figured we best continue on to Hamburg. The rain was falling hard now, so it wasn't ideal for exploring anyway.

In Hamburg we exchanged some text messages with Angela about where to meet and we finally worked it out. She pulled up in her little black car and soon we were on our way to see the city of Hamburg, presently booming with the Hafengeburtstag, the birthday of the harbour. Hamburg is one of the most important port cities in Northern Europe and as such, has a large harbour along the River Elba.

At Angela's we put our feet up for a bit while she was kind enough to check the Internet for details on our travel to and stay in Berlin. Within about ten minutes we had a bus and hostel booked for the following day. Angela cooked us a nice spaghetti dinner, which was about right for our hunger. Angela gave us some options for the evening's entertainment, and we opted on going out to see the city via the bus and U-Bahn (the German version of the Underground, or Metro). It was nice to have a local showing us how to get around.

Our first stop was the harbour, where festivities were well underway. There were midway rides, game booths, and lots of food booths. The harbour was full of ships and boats of all sizes. There were bands playing all kinds of music on all sizes of stage. Having already eaten, we decided to leave the pleasant aromas of the festival. Just around the corner was the Reeperbahn, a street full of cafes, bars, and some more of the seedy kinds of places we had seen in Paris and Amsterdam. There were a lot of neon signs, and lot of people wandering the street. It was an interesting sight to behold. There was a real mix of people there, from the casual passersby like us, to the regular citizens of the area, and of course the leather-clad punk drifters and their dogs sitting on the sidewalk. I commented that I had seen those exact same guys in Winnipeg.

At the end of the Reeperbahn is the Große Freiheit, a small street, not unlike the rest of it, but with a very special club at the end, whose stage was once graced by a then little-known Liverpudlian band called The Beatles. Angela's parents were at that gig.

We stopped in at a pub for a quiet drink before heading back to the Altona area, where we stopped in at one of Angela's favourite spots. From there we walked just a few blocks back to her apartment where we were to enjoy a comfortable sleep followed by a nice breakfast. Angela was kind enough to drive us to the bus station, where we thanked her and bid her adieu before dropping our bags in a locker at the station. We explored Hamburg a bit more, the area around the city hall and then back to the harbour for some food. At 3:00pm we were on the bus to Berlin. I was excited about being able to experience one of the famed Autobahn under slightly safer conditions. I must say it didn't really seem any different than any other highway or motorway. There were a few speedy passers, but traffic generally flowed at about 120 km/h. Before long we were in Berlin. We were finally beginning to feel like we were gaining some ground in the trek.

Cheers.