Today was a gorgeous day! It was sunny and in the upper 40s – a perfect day to stroll the streets of the Jordaan.
We headed into the city today around 10am by bus, picked up a tram in the city and headed to the DAM area. Here, we started our first Rick Steves’ walking tour that we downloaded before the trip on the Rick Steves’ Europe Audio APP. These are fabulous resources at your fingertips for free – Rick Steves’ has been touring Europe (and the world) for 30+ years and has provided many fabulous tour books, audio interviews, TV shows and free “guided” tours for listeners. We have done his audio walking tours in Florence, Rome and now Amsterdam and love using his tour books as as our go-to before any during all our European trips. You should check it out!
We strolled along the smaller canals of the Jordaan – a quaint neighborhood west of the larger 3 canal ring. It was gorgeous! We had a wonderful lunch near the Westerkerk (Western Church), toured the Anne Frank House, checked out the Cheese Museum, had a drink on a random dock in a random canal, ate some street fries with “Belgium Mayonnaise” (mayo with salt and vinegar), strolled the Red Light District then headed home. In total, we had over 16,000 steps today and every one of them was awesome!
During our walking tour, we came across not only beautiful bridges, amazing architecture and small streets, we also met some interesting people!
At the “Homomonument”.
A “semi-private” urinal. Interesting!
These canals are large enough for houseboats – not all are.
This quaint canal in the Jordaan was absolutely stunning.
Flowers in January. And people say it’s too cold to travel to Europe in winter!
A secret garden.
My favorite neighborhood so far.
The residents of Amsterdam have a fabulous sense of humor. I am guessing people have been in his boat before without his permission!
Afternoon pick me up!
Canal in the Jordaan.
The Westerkerk at night.
Who could say no to the cheese museum? And it was free!
By the way, the gouda here is to die for!!!!
From our small dock in the small canal. Perfection with a full moon!
There’s our dockside table outside a Brown Bar – these are OLD neighborhood bars that have been around so long that the walls and ceiling have aged to a warm shade of brown from all the decades of smoking.
Full moon over Amsterdam.
Fries with sauce seem to be a popular savory snack here. Right up my alley!
A little blurry but WOW! It was such a beautiful evening.
Mrs. Smith Travels 