Day 2 – Friday
After we’d finished our not-so-full English and not-so-PG tips cuppa (I actually had a rather splendid cup of Darjeeling, but Craig is an uncultured swine who’s too uncouth to enjoy such delicacies), we headed to our next destination, Amsterdam. We decided to go via a little coastal village called Westkapelle in the Netherlands.
We chose this purely based on its position on the map and thought it’d be a cool drive on the Dutch coast on the way to the ‘Dam. And we were right. The drive was amazing, with many bridges and, more importantly, tunnels! Loads of them! Which gave us plenty of opportunities to make obnoxious, chavvy noises with our knackered 4 banger engines
(I’ll be uploading some videos and will edit to add the links at some point).
We arrived at Westkapelle and was surprised at how pretty it was. And windy. Oh so windy. Standing at an acute angle on the beach leaning into the wind was fun!
We had a good bit of well-deserved grub after having only had about an hour or so kip and explored the local beach. The war memorials were harrowing. We had intended on seeing some war related places but didn’t expect it to be this tiny little town:
The number of memorial stones was genuinely shocking. The ages of these guys, even more so. I know 18/19 year olds who don’t even know how to make their own bed, or cook themselves food and yet here we have the same aged men dying in war. Incredibly sad!
After we’d had our moment of respect for the lost soldiers, we soldiered on ourselves towards Amsterdam, via Rotterdam. One thing there is to say about driving through the Netherlands, particularly on the motorways is, well, there isn’t anything to say. Or see. It’s just flat. With farms.
Finally, we arrived in Amsterdam! We’d pondered about parking in Amsterdam. It’s extremely expensive the further towards the centre of the city you go. A bit like London. With less t
ts, I guess. Instead of paying the 60 Euros for 24 hour parking, we decided on a “park and ride” type scenarios. With the option of hiring bikes; “when in Rome” style. So we parked in the underground parking in the Olympic Stadium. After going through the wrong barrier and getting a “normal” parking ticket. We paid 1 Euro to leave after 20 mins and went through the correct “park and ride” barrier. The theory being, you buy a P&R ticket, then buy some tram tickets and the parking for 24 hours is cheaper. A lot cheaper. Down from 35 Euros to… wait for it… 1 Euro! So we parked up, paid 5.70 euros for the three of us to have 24 hour tram tickets, 50 cents to use their (remarkably clean!) toilets, and off we went!
As we were arriving into Amsterdam in the cars, there was an almighty storm brewing complete with some nifty looking fork lightning. Well, the most almighty of downpours followed which scuppered our biking plans. So we were glad we got the Tram tickets! We got off the tram at a stop which was about a 7 minute walk away from our Hostel. But be fucked if we were going to get soaking wet! Especially as Craig and Mick only took enough clothed out of the car for the next day!
So we did what needed to be done. Went to the pub, got ourselves a pint and waited for it to blow over!
We eventually got to the Hostel, showered, changed and headed off for the night doing all the touristy things:
We had some food, a few pints (being considerate of the big drive following the next day) and headed off to bed!
Day 3 to follow
Comentários