BIKES OF AMSTERDAM

 

A city so beautiful that I feel my pictures can’t quite do it justice. Amsterdam is a grown-ups playground with canals weaving between cobbled streets and dancing houses (slowly sinking into the soft earth, they tip and sway and dance). Bikes are everywhere! Zipping past you as you explore on foot, leaning up against houses, chained to bridges, there isn’t a moment that a bike won’t be in your line of vision and you definitely need to keep your wits about you. It took us at least a day to adjust to being aware of the hundreds of bikes whipping past.

Amsterdam is the most bicycle-friendly capital city in the world and how awesome is that! Around 60% of trips within the inner city are made by bicycle, they’re quick, convenient and saving our Earth. Not to mention how incredibly picturesque the city looks with mis-matched bikes decorating the streets. As a photographer I often miss taking a beautiful image because a modern (ugly and distracting) car is sitting right in the middle of the shot! And I find myself wishing I were born in an older time when classic cars were parked up against the sidewalk. Bikes are the next best thing!

As some of you already know, I’m not much of a bike rider. I only properly learnt when I was eighteen, and after that only rode a bike one or two times. I wasn’t confident… after a day in Amsterdam I was desperate to try again. So we hired bikes from a city shop (there are so many! About 10-15 euro) and decided to spend our afternoon riding around Vondelpark. I wasn’t confident enough to brave the streets, as I think I would be more of a hazard to other rider than myself! But I had the BEST time riding around in the park, and I am now determined to buy a bike when we eventually return to Melbourne.

What I loved most about the bike riders of Amsterdam are that they are all ages! Children as young as three or four, and elderly women with flowing grey hair!

Okay so this sort of turned out to be one big admiration post for bikes… so I hope you can excuse the lack of information about our four day stay in Amsterdam! I’ll be blogging another Amsterdam post outlining some of our favourite things that we got up to 😉  Fundamentally I’m a photographer before a blogger, so sometimes I can obsess over a certain element of a city and just go snap crazy! (Poor Martin is always waiting for me while I get the shot…) So let me just leave you with these pretty pictures of Bikes in Amsterdam.

Ps. I did notice no one wears helmets in Amsterdam… which is a little crazy for an Aussie girl where helmets are compulsory. I think I’ll stick with a helmet when I’m out on the street though, it’s always important to protect your noggin’!