Netherlands - Rotterdam and Amsterdam

Our first stop in the Netherlands was Rotterdam. We had originally planned to stay for an extra few days somewhere in France but it was too tricky to work out transport and accommodation at the last minute so we had to chose an extra stop before Amsterdam. We chose Rotterdam because it had the highest rated hostel and knew nothing about the city when we booked, but it turned out to be an excellent choice. The city was pretty much entirely destroyed in WW2 so there is a lot of modern architecture which made a nice change from the old cities which are very beautiful but start to all look the same after a while. It was also the 5th Birthday of the hostel so there was an all day party going on, free drinks at the bar and a great band playing most of the evening.

The Erasmus Bridge.

Houses along the river. Rottedam has the biggest port in Europe so there is plenty of water and  lots of boats.

Cube houses. These houses are built on top of a bridge. 

Our last stop was Amsterdam. We stayed in a hotel/hostel (they called it a hotel but the prices were like a hostel and the bathrooms were communal) that was about 20mins outside of the centre by tram. It was really nice to be in a bit of a quieter area but our room was tiny! Lucky there was a fantastic breakfast to make up for it.

Our room.  There was no window, just a skylight that you could open and close with a long pole.  The only problem was that it was really hot with thunderstorms, so we couldn't leave the skylight open because we got rained on at night.

Amsterdam street.

Peak hour on the canal. It was such a sunny day that everyone was out drinking in their boats.

In the city centre.

Another canal

...and another

 We did a bike tour of the outer city one day which gave me a greater appreciation for the crazyness of the bike riders. Sometimes we had no idea who had right of way or where to go so you would just keep riding and hope you didn't crash. The tour also included cheese tasting and watching some clog-making.

photo from the bike

Riding in the countryside. About 2m below sea level - the water level of the canals was above the land.

Clogs.

Buildings in Amsterdam. They have moved because they are built on clay so the buildings all lean towards the street at different angles.

This is a "Piss-Deflector". The idea is that because lots of people get drunk and don't want to pay to use a toilet the guys all piss in the streets, so to stop this happening the council put all these piss-deflectors up in corners. As the name suggests, they are designed so that whatever direction you piss on them from it deflects back at you. Andy and I thought that this probably isn't very effective because if you were really drunk it would seem like a great challenge to try to get an angle that didn't deflect.

Our plane home.