Sunday, April 15, 2012

Bicycling in Amsterdam - Park Tour

I love biking in Amsterdam. The city is totally set up for bikes and bikers. There are separate paths, actually an entire alternate road network with its own dedicated traffic controls, running alongside virtually every street and road in the entire city. And here in the Netherlands, where drivers are never surly or in a rush and always obey the rules, you feel that drivers of motor vehicles sincerely respect you as someone having the same rights to use the roads as they do. They give you plenty of space and will even politely wait if you happen to be in an intersection when you shouldn't be.

Saturday dawned cold and cloudy. It made me less than excited to jump on a bicycle right away so I did my computer chores, edited my blog, visited Facebook and did some exploring on Google Earth to put together some sort of tour of the city that I would then follow with my GPS. I had brought along the handlebar mount from my CBR because last time I was here I carried the GPS in my pocket -- not handy at all. My tendency was to pull it out and while driving one-handed to check for directions. The handlebar mount would make following my route easier and safer.

I decided to do another park tour, sort of like I did when I was here last. Amsterdam is a city just full of wonderful public parks. There are parks and green spaces scattered about in every part of the city. And after the sun finally came out on such a gray morning, people followed suit.

Vondelpark (N52.35925 E4.87226)
Climbing tree - Vondelpark
Two girls - Vondelpark
Spring is here!

Big hair meeting - Vondelpark

Boat racing at the Bos (N52.32580 E4.83550)
Here's the tour on Google Maps. Clicking on the link below the map will open a larger version in Google Maps.



View Amsterdam 2012 - Park Tour in a larger map

I covered about 30 miles on this tour and almost the same distance on Sunday when I decided to take a windmill tour. That's next  ....


1 comment:

  1. I travel a lot with my folding bike, but have never visited Amsterdam! Hoping to make it this summer - those pictures sure do offer some good motivation.
    -Chris

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