Day 16 - Berlin to Amsterdam

Dec 29th - It's a travel day, so of course that means up early to get our next train. I must say it was nice having the station so darn close to the hotel in Berlin. Today we have another 6 hour jaunt on high speed trains, destination Amsterdam. We decided to take a break part way with a short pit stop in the middle - Rob's goal, to have Kolsch in Cologne (Koln).

Sion Kolsch

We hopped off the train at about 1:00 intending to store the bags in a locker & have just under 90 minutes to get some lunch and a Kolsch. Rob had already researched a couple of options within walking distance of the train station. We discovered the bag storage here not to be the typical lockers we'd found in other train stations. Here it was a machine you put your bag in & it went somewhere (not sure where), and then trust when you put your card in on return that your bag would come out. I'm sure the whole system works very well, but with such a short time we weren't chancing it. The spot we were heading to was only a 5 minute walk from the train station, so the packs stayed on our backs...20 minutes later of walking :) and what seemed like a complete loop because we were now literlally 3 minutes from the station, we found one of the places on Rob's list (Sion) and found a spot to sit. Service was not top notch, so we opted not to order lunch given the time, but settled in to enjoy a few Kolsch's. These were served in the traditional small 0.2 L glass as we'd had in Berlin, and as expected very light, clear and refreshing. The 3 minute walk back to the train station gave us plenty of time to catch the next train to Amsterdam.


Our canal view



The train was a packed one...lots of people heading to Amsterdam! We'd only gone a couple of stops when we were told that due to technical issues we'd all have to get off the train & take another, so we all loaded in to finish up the end of the trip. When we arrived in Amsterdam it was dark out and swarms of people were out & about. We successfully navigated our way to the B&B - we'd had trouble finding accomodations in Amsterdam, so had settled for a B&B that had a shared bath. This happened to be the owner's house & she rents out 2 rooms - not perfect, but it will do. Our room was on the top floor of a very steep, narrow, spiraling staircase. I assume this is a typical staircase in Amsterdam with all of the tall, skinny rows of houses. The view out our window is great...looking right over a canal.

Since we missed lunch we were about starved at this point, so we headed into the Joordan area, just a few canals away and settled in at a little Italian joint for some food & then off to find one of the highly recommended beer bars that was very close to our B&B. One thing I have to say about walking around Amsterdam, besides the beautiful canals, bridges, and cobbleston streets, is holy bicycles!! They are absolutely everywhere...and they are booking it! We very quickly learned to not only look for cars when crossing a street, but to keep an extra eye out for approaching bicycles. It'll be a miracle if I don't get run over by one :) We got caught in the middle of a huge thunder & lightening storm with torrential rain & hail - we took cover in a doorway to let it pass and were amazed by the crazy bikers who kept going, with an umbrella in one hand, other hand on the handlebar.

We found t'Arendsnest, which is a spot that came very highly recommended by several people - a gem of a beer bar indeed. The servers really know their stuff, and is almost a piece of art to watch them pour the perfect glass of beer. One thing we love here (Europe in general, not just this place) is that every single beer has a specific glass to be served in...makes for a great display of glassware everywhere we go. After hanging out at t'Arendsnest for a little while, that was the end of the day for us.

Tap list at t'Arendsnest

New Beers for the day: Sion Kolsch, Heineken (the one and only for this trip!), Le Trappe Blond, Le Trappe Bock, Budels Kolos, Texelsel Tripel, Hertog Jan Grand Prestige (to date one of Rob's favorites for the trip), Jopen Extra Stout