More Amsterdam Pics

Walking Amsterdam

Yup, that's what you think it is

This building looks like it could collapse in on itself. 

They sink because most of the city is built on mush.

Grass roof

We took a day trip to Holland's largest National Park.

These "White Bikes" are free, just pick one out and go.

The park had amazing terrain. From forest to dunes to near desert and swampland.

Teeny got her hair done by a gay Taiwanese guy here in Amsterdam and it looks awesome!

Teeny being goofy! 

The canals run pretty much on every city block, it's so cool!

Nice boathouse. There are tons of them.

Neat lizard statues

Canals are all over the Netherlands, not just Amsterdam.

In this neighborhood each house is on it's own little island.

We drove on roads like this for miles and miles. They follow along the sides of the canals.

Back to Amsterdam Pics

Canals are everywhere

This is a pay toilet

Vondel Park

You see some interesting cars over here

The view from our room

This is one of ten thousand pictures of a bird that Teeny has taken! 

Not to mention the twenty thousand pictures of plants!

This hippy dude was making amazing bubbles in the park.

I should have hung around to play the winner!!

Red Light district

Cute kid! Water shoots up randomly and this little guy was having a ball!

Who knew, there's a zoo! Right in Amsterdam too!!

Saw a lot of these on the train ride to Rotterdam

This was the information booth at the train station in Rotterdam. 

We've learned to go there first for free city maps.

Neat architecture in Rotterdam. The entire city was flattened by bombs during the war.

This statue is labeled as "controversial" and is known as "Butt Plug Santa"!!

This one was just weird

This is a floating hot tub with a wood stove to heat the water 

and an outboard motor to tool around with.

These are the famous "Cube Houses" in Rotterdam. Some architect dude was commissioned to build a bridge over a canal and this is what he came up with. The houses are cubes that are turned up on one corner like a diamond. We toured one of them. Very odd and a huge waste of space. They sell now for two hundred thousand euro.

Back to Amsterdam

Wow, I can’t believe how long it has been since my last update!

We did make it to the Van Ludwig Castle the next day. It was pretty awesome! It turns out that there is another castle there too. Ludwig’s Fathers place. The Disney one was built by the son to outdo his Father. After building it, he was told that his family was going to commit him to the insane asylum and the next day he was found dead in the pond!! His death is mystery to this day. It is also one the most visited places in Germany and we happened to go on a Saturday. There were a lot of busses and a ton of people. You are forced to take 30 minute guided tours and only a few were in English.

The castles were amazing, especially the Disney one. Some of the furnishings were as impressive as the castle itself. One room had the largest pool table I have ever seen.

We planned to go to Switzerland next to ride some of the scenic railroads that are covered by our rail passes. However, the weather was not cooperating and the forecast called for rain for the next several days. We figure that it doesn’t make sense to hang out in the rain when we have rail passes. So, based on the satellite image, we decided to go back to Amsterdam. We were planning to go back anyway because It was so cold and rainy the first time we were there.

We stopped in Frankfurt Germany for an overnight along the way and had time to walk around the city a bit. Not much I can say about Frankfurt, it is a city known for banking, not tourism. We did find a decent laundromat though and that was awesome. We ate dinner at a little hole in the wall bar next to the laundromat. A real “locals only” type place, great Brats!

The next day we took the train to Amsterdam and stayed at a really nice hotel next to Vondel Park. It is a really nice park that is a lot like Central Park in New York. Our hotel was right on the edge of the park and was one of the nicest places we have stayed in. The room had a great view of the park and Amsterdam. Somehow we were able to book it on Expedia for only $40/night!!

We only planned to stay for a few days, but when I got in touch with our buddy Dave he told me that his apartment here in Amsterdam would be vacant for the next few weeks and we could use it if we wanted to!  We were very grateful and weren't about to turn down a free place to stay! We have been here for a week now and will probably hang around for another week or so. His apartment is really nice and is located right in the heart of Amsterdam. It is close to everything, and only a 20 minute walk to the train station. We took the train for a couple of day trips and then we rented a car for this weekend. We have been using the car to go to places off the rail and have been having a great time. Next week we are planning day trips on the train to Belgium and several other places here in the Netherlands.

I am going to try putting the pics in a separate post - See ya!

No Kangaroos in Austria!!

Wow, we are loving Austria!! They sell t-shirts here that say "No Kangaroos in Austria"! Ha! Reminds me of the begining of Dumb and Dumber!!

We got here on Wednesday after a full day on the trains. The train from Venice to Verano Italy was a friggin cattle car! It was so hot and of course the AC was not working. We knew we were in trouble when we boarded the train and all of the windows were open. It was what they call a "regional train", so there was no first class (the rail passes we bought only come in first class and we have been loving that), no restaurant car, straight back vinyl seats, and a very bumpy ride. Fortunately that part of the trip was only 1 1/2 hours. Then we got on a really nice train for the next 4 1/2 hours to Innsbruk Austria. We met a young girl from Italy and a guy from China on the train. They shared our little compartment and we talked the whole way. It was very interesting talking about the governments and daily life in each of our different countries. Especially the contrast of China! The 4 1/2 hours flew by and we hated to say goodbye to them.

We got off the train with no idea of where we were going, but we found a room right away and were able to walk all around Innsbruk. It is another adorable town that looks like a little Disney Land village. It is surrounded by the Alps, snow-capped mountains all around. One thing we noticed right away was how clean it is! We couldn't find a single piece of trash on the streets or sidewalks. Definitely the cleanest place we have seen so far.

We took a bus to the airport the next day and rented a car. Another Mercedes just like the one we rented in Germany. Then we programmed the GPS for "No Highways" and took off for Salzburg. It was a beautiful ride through the Alps all day. We stopped at a town called Zell Am See, where we were hoping to spend the night. We were shocked right away because there were muslims everywhere! Maybe I shouldn't call them muslims, I don't know... Arabs, Indians?? I'm talking about women completely covered in black with just a tiny slit for their eyes while their husbands where shorts and tank-tops and ray ban sunglasses! It was 100 degrees and I can't imagine how uncomfortable it must be under all that material! We thought we had taken a wrong turn and drove to India somehow. They were everywhere! Anyway, we checked out 2 hotels and were about to check in at one when I off-handedly asked about air conditioning. The lady said there is no A/C in the whole town! It is never this hot here and today's temperature was extremely out of the ordinary. We checked another hotel that was over 350 euro a night and had no A/C. Needless to say, we got back in the car and drove the rest of the way to Salzburg, where we did find AC in the hotel rooms.

Yesterday we drove over a $35 toll road that winds through the alps. It was absolutely amazing. The road itself is impressive in how difficult it must have been to build and the views were outstanding. We drove it from end to end and it took all day. Then we found a room in an adorable place at the end of the toll road that had great views of the Alps. There was a full moon last night too, so that was a bonus.

Today we took a similar ride that brought us back into Italy. We had a bit of a scare at the border too! Italy is the only country that we have seen any kind of border control. There was a soldier there when we got to the border and he didn't speak English at all. He came up to my window and barked out some Italian, I said "I'm sorry, I only speak English", then he barked out a whole bunch more Italian and eventually held his hand up and told us to wait. So, we waited, and waited, and waited a little more, we started to get a little anxious and then suddenly he flagged us on and directed us down a narrow side road. The road eventually became almost too narrow for our car and seemed to be going nowhere. Then, it curved around and we were back on the main road and on the Italy side. Another soldier waved us on and we were on our way! Not sure what all the hoop-la was about.

This mountain road was not a toll road and at times was pretty darn scary! It often became a single lane with sheer drops on the side. The temp dropped to almost freezing and it poured rain and hailed on us a bit too!! That didn't last very long though and the views were just as impressive as yesterday. Funny, it's way up in the mountains and there are free range cattle. We came around a sharp bend and there were a bunch of cows in the road!!

Tonight we are back in Innsbruk. Tomorrow we are going to drive into Germany to see the Van Ludwig castle. It is only about an hour and a half from here. It is the castle that the Disney Land castle is based on and is supposed to be pretty cool.

Well, enough babbling. Here are some pics...

The view from the train station

In Innsbruk, I assume it is important

Innsbruk

Cool detail, just one example

That's in Euros, and it's in liters. 1.32 dollars to the Euro, 3.8 liters to a gallon, you do the math (it eqauls too much!)

This is the walking around view in Innsbruk

Alps!

This is a sporty Smart car.

Free range sheep too!

That's a glacier!!

We hiked up to this waterfall

This was awesome!! We happened upon it today and we had such a blast! It's like an alpine slide / roller coaster. I stopped and waited for Teeny. When you go full speed it really flies and it was a pretty long trip down the mountain. We took a gondola to the top and rode this back down.

This is part of the road in Italy.

Moo!

There was a music festival going on here in Innsbruk tonight.

I don't know what this has to do with traditional Austrian music, but she was drawing the biggest crowd!