Day 3: Amsterdam

There was some serious thunder during the night on Sunday, and when we woke up on Monday it was extremely humid, though not quite as sunny as the previous two days. After a leisurely start to the morning at the hotel, we set off to the centre of Amsterdam, from where we were hoping to catch a boat across the IJ lake to Amsterdam-Noord. This isn't a part of Amsterdam which is top of the must-see list for most tourists, but Tim had read online that the area was home to the largest elm forest in Western Europe. A forest sounded like a good place to visit on such a hot day, so off we went.

Our first challenge was to find a way to get across to the other side of the water. We could see that there were two ferries which left from just outside the main train station to cross to the other side of the lake but we couldn't work out how or where to buy a ticket. While we were standing outside the train station, looking at the info boards and trying to figure out what to do next, something caught our eye on this map of ferry connections.

Yep, you've got it: Zamenhofstraat! We decided we would have to walk to the place on the map labelled Azartplein in order to catch the Oostveer ferry.

It took us about an hour to walk along the waterside to the correct location. On the way we passed a number of Amsterdam's other sights, such as the Science Museum.

Although in places the landscape was a bit industrial, some of the old warehouse buildings were quite pretty.

Eventually we made it to the ferry stop. Here is the timetable - it really does go to Zamenhofstraat!

We still couldn't figure out how the ticketing system worked, so we decided to just hope for the best and get on when the ferry arrived. Having crossed the water there and back on the ferry now, I can honestly say I still have no idea how the ticketing system works; there didn't seem to be anyone on the boat to check tickets at all.

The trip across the water was only a short one and soon we had arrived at Zamenhofstraat itself.

We found a couple of different signs...

....and a cafe called "Zamen" too!

We walked down Zamenhof street in the direction of the forest.

The forest is called Vliegenbos and is Amsterdam's oldest urban nature area, created by the politican WH Vliegen in 1912.

It's not really a big enough forest to get lost in, but there are helpful maps along the key paths to show you where you are.

It was definitely a nice shady place to have a stroll

In the centre of the forest we found a pond with lots of ducklings...

...and a heron as well!

At one point when we were walking, we saw some trees which looked a rather funny colour.

Tim went over to investigate...

...and found that they were covered in some sort of nasty cobwebs. Eek!

Eventually we came to the edge of the forest and so it was time to turn around and head back to Zamenhofstraat again.

We had a refreshing drink at the Zamen cafe before catching the boat back across the water.

We seemed to find a slightly quicker route this time, so it wasn't too long before we were back in the centre of Amsterdam.

Lunch was long overdue by this point, so we found a restaurant not far from the station where I had lasagne, Tim had an enormous chicken schnitzel, and we finished up with cake

Then we were off for a final walk around central Amsterdam.

We managed to avoid being mown down by bicycles and Tim even found a comic shop where he was able to buy the Dutch version of the Asterix book he collects.

We found a few sights which we had missed on Sunday...

...and some more pretty little side streets.

Eventually it was time to head back to the station and catch a train to Schipol airport.

After our experiences with how long it took to get through Charles de Gaulle airport earlier in the year, we didn't want to take any chances with Schipol, so we probably ended up spending three times as much time there as we actually did on the plane.

It was worth it though, because both we and the flight were perfectly on time, making this our most successful flight home so far this year It was a really good end to a really good weekend in Amsterdam