The Van Gogh museum had an excellent exhibit of his evening and nighttime scenes, reflecting his view of the dark hours as a time for reflection and creativity.  Among the many wonderful works was his famous Starry Night:

Amsterdam is an amazing place and we had a fabulous time wandering around the city.  There are an wonderful diversity of restaurants and we sampled some terrific food.  The coffee produced from the ubiquitous espresso machines was also incredible: thick and brown and a bit frothy on top.

One of the things that I noticed everywhere in the Netherlands was the architecture.  They seem to have achieved an ideal balance between preservation of historically interesting buildings and the integration of new modern architecture.  I suppose urban planning has long been an important facet of Dutch culture, especially given the nature of their relationship with the sea.  It was fascinating to see a map showing a cross-section of the Netherlands labeling the relative elevation of some landmarks.

The amalgamation of Baroque, Art Nouveau or Jugendstil, the Amsterdamse School of Art Deco, and modern buildings is particularly congenial.  I didn’t manage to take any particularly good photographs of the modern architectural gems, but I did find these photos on flickr which will give you a sense of some of the area.

The other aspect of Amsterdam which particularly fascinated me was transportation.  A network of canals forms a lattice running throughout the city.  There were a number of boats plying the waterways, including various craft to convey tourists.  I have been curious about canals since living so near one in England.  I imagine that the canals are now more valuable aestheically than as trade or transport routes, but they certainly lend a Venetian charm to the city.

The main form of transport in Amsterdam is the bicycle.  Bicycles are everywhere, some 465,000 of them.  These are serious bike people.   Apparently, about 30 percent of people regularly make their daily commute by bicycle and a further 40 percent occasionally cycle to work.  There are bicycle lanes on both sides of the road.  I don’t think you’ll find many car parks, but rows and rows of parked bicycles are everywhere.

Bicycle fashion amongst these bike people is quite different from that in the U.S. or the U.K.  There are no spandex shorts with logos plastered on the bum and helmets are verbotten, even for kids riding in the local version of the mini-van shown below:

Bicycles are such an important part of the fabric of life in Amsterdam.  After nearly getting run over a few times, we decided we had to try it for ourselves and we rented bicycles for the day.  How else to understand what is means to live in Amsterdam?  It turned out to be relatively easy to navigate the streets and we managed to see large parts of the city that would have been out of range of pedestrians.  I would highly recommend this to anyone visiting Amsterdam.

One advantage of being below sea level is that the area is essentially flat, making complicated gearing systems superfluous.  Almost all the bicycles in Amsterdam are variations on the same basic design, simple and functional:

I came across these observations on bike culture from a San Fransisco visitor and this video:

Overall, I got a sense of the culture in the Netherlands to be a unique combination of social responsibility and independent freethinking that has resulted in a particularly engaging city to visit.  Particular thanks are due to Gail for taking care of our new puppy while I was gone.

Then we headed for the Royal Mile, the famous section of streets between the Holyrood Abbey and Edinburgh Castle.  We ate a late breakfast in a cafe and then wandered towards the castle.  River took quite a few pictures along the way.  Some of the highlights include these classic red telephone boxes.  These are now being replaced by more exposed public phones that offer internet and text messaging in addition to the traditional phone service.  They aren’t nearly as aesthetically pleasing, though.  

We also encountered Adam Smith, father of modern economics and creator of the invisible hand metaphor.  It seems to me that the market’s guiding hand hasn’t been merely been invisible recently, but perhaps absent altogether? 

Nearby is the Heart of Midlothian, marking the spot where the tolls where collected at the old entrance to the city.   Apparently, some people have a tradition of spitting on the heart or leaving their chewed gum here.  There are several interpretations of the origin of this custom, but all of them seem pretty barbaric to me.

At the top of the Royal Mile, Edinburgh Castle is perched on the basalt plug of an extinct volano.  This position provides an incredible view over the city as well as making the castle almost impossible take by force.  The water supply, though, was restricted due these geological circumstances and became a severe weakness during sieges. 

There is an incredible historical legacy in this castle.  We learned a bit about the people who lived in the castle, including Robert the Bruce and Mary Queen of Scotts, while looking for clues to complete puzzle sheet the kids were working on.  While exploring the castle, we saw the sword, sceptre, and crown known as the Honours of Scotland and heard the one o’clock gun that ships in the harbor once used to set their chronometers.

This lion guards the entrance to the Scottish National War Memorial in the castle.

We also saw the churchyard known as Greyfriars Kirk where the scottish terrier Greyfriars Bobby is buried.