Van Gogh Authentic

Four Times More Bikes Than Cars

Fun day; went to the Van Gogh Museum. The authentic Van Gogh experience, not like the over hyped touring display of Van Gogh images on the walls of a tent in Edinburgh. The real museum has the largest collection of Van Gogh's paintings and drawings in the world. The hours we spent in the museum really brought his work to life. Also went to the Rijksmuseum for some real art.

Did more strolling around the city as well. Watch out! Six lanes of traffic. Can be risky to cross as a pedestrian. Step off the sidewalk, look both ways for bikes in the separate dedicated bike path, step over the curb, look to the left for oncoming electric trams, scoot across a lane of auto traffic (they drive on the same side as in the US - confusing after spending so much time in Scotland with driving on the opposite side), then another lane of auto traffic coming the other way, do the tram thing again, and do the bike lane thing again. Yikes, I did not mention that powered scooters are allowed in the bike lanes; they don't seem to mind disregarding the red traffic lights and other conventions. Phew. Made it across.

There are around 850,000 bikes in Amsterdam that belong to half as many households. There are four times more bicycles than cars in Amsterdam; 80% of residents own a bike and almost 60% use their bikes on a daily basis. The photo shows just a small portion of the thousands and thousands of bikes parked at the Central Train Station.