Biking tour of Amsterdam

Our large group was off to do a bike tour. We were using Mike's Bike Tours. I got paired with the beautiful Purple Rain which was to be my ride for the day. All the bikes had equally cool names. We saddled up and headed out in hopes of not dying. That was big on all of our lists of things to do that day.

We rode in single file along the roads, mingling with the locals and trying not to break any laws. We headed under the Rijksmuseum to the famous I amsterdam where we stopped to enjoy the beautiful weather, the tulips and to try and get photos with the sign. It was quite busy so I got Josie to take an awkward photo of me in front of it. Eh, I tried.

Off we went, next stop was the Vondelpark which is a 47 acre public park in Amsterdam.  It has several playgrounds, ponds, works of art and a cafe/restaurant called the Blue Teahouse.  We enjoyed our ride through the park. Stopping to learn about Amsterdam's history and how lax the Dutch laws are in certain ways.  He also told us about the fact that you can have sex in the Vondelpark as long as it was not near a playground and you did it at night. Wikipedia says "Starting in September 2008, adults were planned to be legally allowed to have sex in the park, as long as they "take their garbage with them afterwards and never have intercourse near the playground. The sex must be limited to the evening hours and night.", in the words of current Amsterdam Alderman Paul Van Grieken. However, Amsterdam Police announced that they would not in fact tolerate this as the law required them to prevent it."

Our bike tour took us away from the Vondelpark and we headed through the streets, across bridges and past many stores that I wish I could remember the street names of. There are no photos from the rest of the bike ride as I did not feel at all comfortable taking photos and controlling a bike on the actual roads. The bike ride made me want to go back to Amsterdam because though I thoroughly enjoyed my time in the city and it became one of my favourites, I feel that there is so much more to see and do. I hope I make it there very soon.

If you are ever in Amsterdam and want to do a bike tour, I highly suggest Mike's Bike Tours. I had a lot of fun with them.