Colleen, your Amsterdam Guide

This is a very peaceful, calm part of tourists' Amsterdam. Shops and restaurants are medium to upscale, and you see people dressed a little more. The district's hotels, commercial buildings, restaurants and houses all tend to be immaculate or better.

More Bridges
This is a bridge just a little west by the Rijksmuseum. It is utterly lovely. Weeping willows dot the canal banks, and the carnival of exotic canal boats float silently by, now and again.
This moment alone is worth the trip to Europe.

But going back to the bridge where Colleen is standing as your Amsterdam Guide...
It is just one block from there to Leidsestraat, the street that goes to the Leidseplein. Here we find another bridge, but this one is wider and filled with the entire gamut of AmsterTraffic. There are cars, pedestrians, buses and taxis, of course. But there are also lots of bicycles and frequent trams.

This is the entrance to the Centrum, where the heaviest traffic is by foot. Shortly after the bridge, the vehicular traffic goes mostty to the right. Then it is mostly people, trams and the agile native bicyclists who fill the streets all the way to Centraal Station. Speaking of the trams, Amsterdam's system is efficient, inexpensive and... different. Amsterdam is a very art-conscious town, and in honor of the Dutch Masters, perhaps, many of the tram cars have been themselves transformed into art, although of a much more modern school.

Your Amsterdam Guide goes toward the Leidsplein

These photos were taken looking both directions from a very good Money Exchange. There are so many in Amsterdam. Downtown, several next to each other all swear they have the lowest rates. My thought was to look for lines. There was one that always had long lines. Yep, they had the lowest rates. That can be important when you are getting money for several days. By the way, the banks we checked with did NOT have the lowest exchange rates in Amsterdam, although that is usually the case in most countries. I was surprised, but glad I checked around before exchanging any large sums.

Here is your Amsterdam Guide exchanging travelers checks for local currency (Euros now). As you get ready to travel to Europe, you will hear and read all sorts of advice about how to safeguard your money and what to take in terms of credit cards, debit cards, etc. One of the things you hear is not to take travelers checks. I disagree.

As long as you can produce some kind of ID and the numbers of the checks (which you can keep in a separate place from the checks) you can get replacements if they are lost or stolen. Replacing credit cards is not nearly as easy or quick, and the 'bite' the credit card companies are taking on foreign exchange transactions keep creeping up. Call your card's company right before you leave. They may have made a big change lately, and they will not tell you unless you ask. However, the cards are accepted almost universally, and it is handy to have one in case you suddenly need something.

Hard money is not safe, but you must have some of it, especially in some other countries. You need local currency for taxi, subway, food, whatever... when you arrive in each country. That is easy to do. Even easier now that The Netherlands and most other European Union countries use the Euro. But some, like England, still use their national currency. You can order some currency for each country when you make your train travel arrangements with Rail Europe (Click here for Rail Europe.). Don't count on exchanging currency at the airport. Sometimes the Bureau de Exchange is closed or has terrible rates. As for paying in US dollars, it is gauche at best and impossible at worst.

The Leidseplein
There are probably two 'most famous' squares in Amsterdam.
One is Dam Square, the other is the Leidseplein. Of the two, your Amsterdam Guide likes this one much better. It is smaller in scale, and surrounded by interesting restaurants and sidewalk cafes. Always there are the Entertainers, as on Dam Square. Jugglers and fire-breathers and a guy who likes to set up his own tall pole and hang suspended by... well, you just have to see it.

Off the Leidseplein are streets even more full of even more little places to eat, from Mexican to Szchwan to Greek to Russian. A veritable smorgasborg of just about everything and anything you could want. Quite appropriate, since Amsterdam is all about choices.

We're heading downtown next. Click here to see what's there,
or click on one of the buttons at the bottom of the page to select another country.

If you can manage to go to Europe now, please don't wait. The individual countries are changing rapidly, and some of the fun is changing with it. The world is getting to be all the same. My feeling is that I want to experience the cultural differences that are still there, before it goes away. Colleen and I are hoping to go back to Europe again soon, so we can live and experience the exciting differences once more.
I hope you enjoy your trip tremendously. Pat.