The next step of my adventures involved a lot of living below sea level. Taking a train from London to the European continent plainly involves doing that -- but it happens more than once. That's because the Eurostar trains leave from St. Pancras station on the northeast side of central London and have to dive through a tunnel under the tidal estuary of the Thames River on the way down to Folkestone where the main event -- the tunnel to France -- begins. And then, of course, I wound up in Amsterdam which is all about living below sea level!
On one of my early trips to Europe in the 1970s, the journey from London to Amsterdam took about 12-13 hours, via the special "boat train" from London to Harwich Parkeston Quay, then the large Sealink ferry sailing through the night to the Hook of Holland (with seasickness a definite possibility in the boisterous waters of the North Sea), and finally another boat train from there to Amsterdam.
On one of my early trips to Europe in the 1970s, the journey from London to Amsterdam took about 12-13 hours, via the special "boat train" from London to Harwich Parkeston Quay, then the large Sealink ferry sailing through the night to the Hook of Holland (with seasickness a definite possibility in the boisterous waters of the North Sea), and finally another boat train from there to Amsterdam.
But now we have the Channel Tunnel, and the Eurostar high-speed trains.
This time around, the Eurostar flew from London down to Folkestone, through the Channel Tunnel, and on to Brussels Midi station in just 2 hours and 10 minutes. At that speed, you don't see much scenery other than varying degrees of blur. In Brussels, I transferred to a Thalys fast train which took another 1 hour 50 minutes to reach Amsterdam.
These trains have 3 classes of service, but at different names depending on the operator. I chose a second-class Standard Premier for the Eurostar, which included a single seat in the 1+2 layout, and a "light bite" served at the seat. This proved to be a continental breakfast of bread basket, yogurt, fruit, and choice of coffee or tea with juice. On the Thalys, I had a first-class Premier ticket (at a much more reasonable price than the Eurostar) and a cold lunch with beer or wine, fresh rolls, and coffee or tea included.
Why not a cheaper Standard (3rd-class) ticket? In Standard class you either lug your own food in, or else stagger through anything up to seven cars to reach the buffet car, wait in line for who-knows-how-long, find out they are out of whatever you want, and stagger all the way back. And if you do get something, whether from the buffet or a café on the station, you'll end up paying far more than it's worth -- and not saving much by comparison with the higher-priced ticket.
Both the Eurostar and the Thalys move. And believe me, when they say these are high-speed trains, they mean high speed -- they are not joking.
Why not a cheaper Standard (3rd-class) ticket? In Standard class you either lug your own food in, or else stagger through anything up to seven cars to reach the buffet car, wait in line for who-knows-how-long, find out they are out of whatever you want, and stagger all the way back. And if you do get something, whether from the buffet or a café on the station, you'll end up paying far more than it's worth -- and not saving much by comparison with the higher-priced ticket.
Both the Eurostar and the Thalys move. And believe me, when they say these are high-speed trains, they mean high speed -- they are not joking.
(the posted speed limit on that highway was 100 km/h = 62 mph)
Total end-to-end time including the 50-minute stopover: 4 hours 50 minutes. It would take far longer even to fly from London to Amsterdam (with travel to/from airports plus check-in, security, passport control and baggage claim time all included), hence the success of the Eurostar. Even with the requirement to arrive a minimum of 30 minutes in advance for check-in and security, you still come out well ahead of the game. The brand-new direct Eurostar train to Amsterdam gets there even faster, in just 3 hours 40 minutes from London. The Channel Tunnel has dramatically rewritten the rules about travel in Europe for many people.
Total end-to-end time including the 50-minute stopover: 4 hours 50 minutes. It would take far longer even to fly from London to Amsterdam (with travel to/from airports plus check-in, security, passport control and baggage claim time all included), hence the success of the Eurostar. Even with the requirement to arrive a minimum of 30 minutes in advance for check-in and security, you still come out well ahead of the game. The brand-new direct Eurostar train to Amsterdam gets there even faster, in just 3 hours 40 minutes from London. The Channel Tunnel has dramatically rewritten the rules about travel in Europe for many people.
In Amsterdam, my Holiday Inn points led me to a large Holiday Inn Express right next door to the suburban Sloterdijk railway station. The room was blessedly bigger, but the bed was Euro-typically harder than in London. Holiday Inn Express always includes a free breakfast, and this one was typically Dutch: assorted cereals, cold boiled eggs, cold cuts and cheeses, breads and rolls, pastries, fruit, juice, coffee and tea. There's also a bar which opens in the afternoon/evening hours where you can get light snacks, baked-to-order pizza, and drinks of all sorts.
At a glance, you might wonder why a history buff like me would choose to stay in a modern high-rise out in the middle of the modern-high-rise suburbs. It's the location of this hotel, right by a rail station, that makes it a winner -- a quick 5-minute train ride from Amsterdam Centraal. From Centraal, you can get anywhere in the city easily on the Metro and the famous Amsterdam trams, or just by using your feet -- downtown Amsterdam is surprisingly compact. The transit agency GVB has a ticket office right outside the Centraal Station which sells one-day and multi-day transit passes. Speaking of the trams, the # 19 route leaves from Sloterdijk, right behind the hotel, and takes you in 20 minutes to the outdoor entertainment and dining area of the Leidseplein and to the Museumplein where you find the Rijksmuseum, the Stedelijk, and the Van Gogh Museum all together. There's also a Metro station right under the rail station, although that line is less convenient to get into town.
Where else but in the Low Countries with their level landscapes would you see a multi-level parking garage for bicycles? It's right beside the Centraal Station. Many commuters use two bikes -- one at the suburban home end of the journey, and the other downtown for the final leg to work, with the train providing the connecting link!
Or try this eye-popping cycle park by the downtown Metro station on Rokin. How does anyone ever find the right bicycle again?
Also right outside the Centraal station are the docks of half-a-dozen canal boat cruise companies. All of them offer broadly similar 1-hour sightseeing tours, on a circuit through the city's horseshoe-shaped canal network. Now, there's also a daylong hop-on-hop-off canal boat "bus" tour service. For a first-time visitor, there's no better way to introduce yourself to the city -- and I always take a boat tour every time I come here, just because I love the experience so much.
At a glance, you might wonder why a history buff like me would choose to stay in a modern high-rise out in the middle of the modern-high-rise suburbs. It's the location of this hotel, right by a rail station, that makes it a winner -- a quick 5-minute train ride from Amsterdam Centraal. From Centraal, you can get anywhere in the city easily on the Metro and the famous Amsterdam trams, or just by using your feet -- downtown Amsterdam is surprisingly compact. The transit agency GVB has a ticket office right outside the Centraal Station which sells one-day and multi-day transit passes. Speaking of the trams, the # 19 route leaves from Sloterdijk, right behind the hotel, and takes you in 20 minutes to the outdoor entertainment and dining area of the Leidseplein and to the Museumplein where you find the Rijksmuseum, the Stedelijk, and the Van Gogh Museum all together. There's also a Metro station right under the rail station, although that line is less convenient to get into town.
Where else but in the Low Countries with their level landscapes would you see a multi-level parking garage for bicycles? It's right beside the Centraal Station. Many commuters use two bikes -- one at the suburban home end of the journey, and the other downtown for the final leg to work, with the train providing the connecting link!
Or try this eye-popping cycle park by the downtown Metro station on Rokin. How does anyone ever find the right bicycle again?
Also right outside the Centraal station are the docks of half-a-dozen canal boat cruise companies. All of them offer broadly similar 1-hour sightseeing tours, on a circuit through the city's horseshoe-shaped canal network. Now, there's also a daylong hop-on-hop-off canal boat "bus" tour service. For a first-time visitor, there's no better way to introduce yourself to the city -- and I always take a boat tour every time I come here, just because I love the experience so much.
Along the way, you see classic architecture from the city's "golden age" in the 17th and 18th centuries, along with a selection of the over 2000 houseboats permanently moored in the city,...
...as well as some more modern buildings,...
...and the classic Amsterdam pattern of cars and bicycles parked along the canal side.
Once you leave the canal boat, you can proceed on foot to such famous places as the Dam, the open square in the middle of the city flanked by the Royal Palace and the New Church (that's 1700s new, by the way). The appearance of the Dam ranges from crowded all the way up to shoehorn-packed. It's not often that you will see much open pavement here at any one moment.
And what's that new arrival in the last picture? Let's just zoom in a bit.
Amsterdam is famous -- notorious, even -- for such things as the "brown cafes" where marijuana can be openly smoked, with the Bulldog Palace on the busy Leidseplein one of the first and most famous -- not least because of its location in a former police station. Oh, the irony...
Then, there's the extensive "red light district", and the numerous lively and even raucous nightclubs and gay bars. If those aren't your thing, there are multiple shopping districts, most famously the Nieuwendijk pedestrian shopping street.
None of these particularly appeal to me. What draws me back to Amsterdam time and again is the historic ambience of the city, the extensive walking possibilities, and above all the opportunities for buying a brew or two...
...along with a good rib-sticking meal of chicken satay...
...and then just relaxing at an outdoor café table to watch the world go by. Okay, fine. I admit it -- I'm an eccentric. Not that this is "news" to anyone who knows me personally! (PS -- those cigarette butts in the ashtray are not mine!).
One thing that's shifted in a big way in Amsterdam is this whole area of food. When I first came here in the 1970s, Indonesian restaurants were everywhere. One short street in particular, Binnen Bantammerstraat, had 8 or 9 of them in a single block -- and all of them have now (sadly) switched to other kinds of cuisine. These were, of course, a cultural remnant of the days before the 1950s when the Netherlands ruled over the area now known as Indonesia, formerly called the Dutch East Indies.
The signature meal experience was the rijsttafel ("rice table"). I had it twice. You got a bowl of steamed rice, surrounded by a series of small dishes containing different recipes of meat, poultry, fish, or vegetables, cooked in different sauces or seasonings, with alternating sweet or savoury, spicy or mild, creamy or juicy, etc., and with coconut and peanuts as two of the more common ingredients in the various preparations. The dishes sat on a warming tray. The idea was to transfer some rice to your plate, add a small quantity of the contents of a dish, and enjoy -- while making sure to go through the dishes in the proper numerical order to keep the different tastes alternating. This internet photo gives a pretty good idea of what it looked like, except that I had smaller and fewer dishes because I was having a rijsttafel "sampler" for one person.
Then, there's the extensive "red light district", and the numerous lively and even raucous nightclubs and gay bars. If those aren't your thing, there are multiple shopping districts, most famously the Nieuwendijk pedestrian shopping street.
None of these particularly appeal to me. What draws me back to Amsterdam time and again is the historic ambience of the city, the extensive walking possibilities, and above all the opportunities for buying a brew or two...
...along with a good rib-sticking meal of chicken satay...
...and then just relaxing at an outdoor café table to watch the world go by. Okay, fine. I admit it -- I'm an eccentric. Not that this is "news" to anyone who knows me personally! (PS -- those cigarette butts in the ashtray are not mine!).
One thing that's shifted in a big way in Amsterdam is this whole area of food. When I first came here in the 1970s, Indonesian restaurants were everywhere. One short street in particular, Binnen Bantammerstraat, had 8 or 9 of them in a single block -- and all of them have now (sadly) switched to other kinds of cuisine. These were, of course, a cultural remnant of the days before the 1950s when the Netherlands ruled over the area now known as Indonesia, formerly called the Dutch East Indies.
The signature meal experience was the rijsttafel ("rice table"). I had it twice. You got a bowl of steamed rice, surrounded by a series of small dishes containing different recipes of meat, poultry, fish, or vegetables, cooked in different sauces or seasonings, with alternating sweet or savoury, spicy or mild, creamy or juicy, etc., and with coconut and peanuts as two of the more common ingredients in the various preparations. The dishes sat on a warming tray. The idea was to transfer some rice to your plate, add a small quantity of the contents of a dish, and enjoy -- while making sure to go through the dishes in the proper numerical order to keep the different tastes alternating. This internet photo gives a pretty good idea of what it looked like, except that I had smaller and fewer dishes because I was having a rijsttafel "sampler" for one person.
When it was time to leave Amsterdam, I just had to hop on a train going the opposite direction through Sloterdijk Station, and in 10 more minutes arrived at Amsterdam Schiphol International Airport. Ever since I first travelled here in 1971 as a teenager, Schiphol has intrigued me -- and not just because the whole airport (like so much of the Netherlands) sits below sea level. Honestly, what other place in the world could you find an airport in a location whose name translates into English as "ship hell." Google it sometime; there are multiple theories and intriguing explanations for this peculiar name.
Amsterdam Schiphol is the third-busiest airport in Europe, and must be one of the biggest airports in the world contained entirely in one terminal building. Depending on which airline you are using, and where you are travelling, you may be faced with a fairly lengthy walk. Once again, I got the treatment, with 30 minutes of brisk walking from train to gate -- not counting stops for check-in and security. If nothing else, Schiphol definitely gives your legs a good workout.
My flight this time was on Swiss International, and involved a connection through Zurich. I opted for Swiss partly because it helps me to earn more Aeroplan miles, and partly because -- well, who wouldn't want one of these to tide you over until the next meal time?
That's right -- delicious, smooth, creamy, rich, gooey (because of the heat) Swiss milk chocolate. The airline says it has given out over a quarter of a million of these in its fifteen years of operation -- and they just gave me 3 more. The predecessor national airline, Swissair, did it too. Yummy.
Oh, where was my flight headed, you ask? To be continued....
Oh, where was my flight headed, you ask? To be continued....
In this instalment, photos and a video clip to cover the train trip from London to Amsterdam, and a few days of visiting in the historic Dutch commercial centre.
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