Amsterdam

One of my favorite cities is Amsterdam, in Holland.  I was fortunate to spend quite a bit of time there in the 70's and the 80's.  This view is about as typical as you can get of the water, the bridges and the buildings.

The city is build around three semicircular canals and it's one of the most confusing places to drive a car.  Everywhere you look there is a canal, a church and a bridge.  It makes navigating pretty hard.

The city is crammed with little eateries, pubs and museums.  You can spend days and days going around the galleries of art, and they even have a red light district!

Just writing about it I'm thinking I could go a coffee in the American Hotel right now.

A few weeks ago on August 4th, it was the sad anniversary of the arrest of Anne Frank in 1944.  She was 15 and died eight months later in Bergen Belson concentration camp.  She and her family had been in hiding for two years in a secret annex above an office in Westerkerk, Amsterdam.  Like most visitors I have visited her museum and found it chilling to imagine her life locked away before they were all betrayed.  Her crime?  Being a Jew!

These houses are typical and the posts sticking out from the tops are for hauling up furniture as the stairs inside are usually very steep and narrow.  You could not build these types of houses these days as they would certainly not be up to code.
If I could get used once again to rainy gray weather, and wanted to live in a city, then Amsterdam would have to be near the top of the list.  I've got the bicycle which is the best form of transportation.

But I don't think I could go back to that weather, as I would miss the mountains so much.  And there are no mountains in Holland!