Tourist For A Day
I’m not really that keen on going to see a lot of tourist sites, but Steph had kindly done the hard work for me and picked to locations she thought I would enjoy, so I set off nice and early to walk into Amsterdam for the day. I’d decided to walk after seeing how interesting the route looked and it turned out to be easy to navigate and quite quick. I arrived at M&S after about 80 minutes and stocked up with lunch and then headed for the central tram station and from there it was a short walk to the Nemo Science Centre. I wasn’t actually going into the building itself (which is a kids activity centre) I was going to the roof terrace. I was enchanted by the place, the views were superb and while it was popular enough to have a nice friendly feeling, it wasn’t busy. I sat there reading, and mostly soaking up the view for well over an hour. The photo below shows the Nemo building and it’s roof terrace.
The photo below shows the view from my seat on the terrace itself
I then headed for location number two, the central library (Steph knows me well) and after walking around the whole 7 floors of the space, which was just amazing, I settled into a comfy chair to read magazines. My local library in Blackpool has a selection of perhaps 50 magazines, this library had thousands and probably more than fifty in English! I settled for Time and The Economist and enjoyed a couple of hours there and absolutely loved the feel of the place, being surrounded by so much knowledge and entertainment, stunning architecture and happy people. The views over central Amsterdam from the huge picture windows were worth a visit in their own right.
I then decided to head back to Steph’s island and was tempted to walk again rather than get the tram as I’d figured out an even better route, which was about 20 minutes shorter and took more through a mix of residential areas and specialist light industry, shops and artist workshops. I was particularly impressed by a south facing apartment block that I walked past that had this very functional shutter system to control the sun, which seemed to be very well used, people who were home had their door wide open and were enjoying the sun, but people who were out had the shades drawn.
Steph arrived back early and we then went out for one of my favourite walks, I showed her a great little shop that was closer than her other alternatives and then I finished packing and watched the last couple of episodes of Fringe Season 1.
I caught the bus at 9pm, Steph came to see me off and I was very sad to leave her, a little sad to leave Amsterdam but also pleased to be going home.
