Five hour mad dash round Amsterdam, and free ferry !
I’ll find out the name of this, but this is the main canal that runs through Amsterdam and all the tributary canals tributary canals run off it. It’s a beautiful building down the bottom. A big white building with the flags flying. I suspect it’s a hotel. We’re heading that way over towards Damra. which takes us down towards Darm Square, which is very pretty. Some very impressive buildings here. Can’t reiterate enough, watch yourself when you’re walking through Amsterdam. When the green man’s on, you’re safe to go. Well, apparently not with him. you’re not. Um, and you got to watch the bike tracks cuz they’ll kill you. God, red man, you got to be so careful here, huh? You got to watch for bikes and bloody trams and all kinds of there are hundreds and thousands of bikes everywhere. I mean, compared to our country where everybody rides these big specialized posh bikes, these are just kind of comfort bikes. And what you’ve got to do when you’re here, avoid the red paths. Be careful when crossing the red paths cuz that’s where these lunatics on bikes go and you will get moaned down. No n I’ll leap to safety out the way of a bike to get total by a tram. I’m going to have to be so careful. I’m on the red lane. Oh god. These bikes don’t hang around. No shortage of cafes, cafes, restaurants. Those of you who know me will probably want to know how much you’re paying for all this. I shall tell you shortly. No shortage of planes coming in. Skip all. [Music] Outside a coffee shop. A normal coffee shop. Come on. Flat tire. Pump it up with a flat weight. Come inside. That’s where you get your boat trips around the canals. Last stop boats. Show you interesting things like an Frank’s house. It’s not in today, I don’t think. Should I hold it? And this is Damra. Possibly want to cross over here. Probably take the chance. Oh god, that’s seriously scary crossing these bloody roads here. and sense of you know everybody’s so good here they wait for the green man apart from me because they don’t want to die that’s why and we’re going to go so we’re now on the shopping side of the street of Damra It’s been thunder showers and lashing it down today and it’s a Tuesday and this place is absolutely jammed. I mean jammed still. Skip all airport is very busy. There’s planes coming over all the time. Oh yes. Well, I think on Well, it’s fresh in me mind. Um, a little gripe. Just a thing. Imagigen. Imigen. That’s the name of the place. The ferry dock. And it leaves from North Shields. So in theory, it’s North Shields Image and Ferry, not the Newcastle to Amsterdam ferry because it doesn’t go anywhere near Amsterdam cuz the coach trips about 40 minutes. Just a thing. Just It sounds a bit more romantic though, doesn’t it? No, Newcastle to Amsterdam. It’s where the shields. Yeah, I see why they do it. That’s the Amsterdam experience. Strangely enough, selling umbrellas. Oh. I really thought they’d be hiking the price with being like this, but they’re not. Lots of shops actually candy shops. What I found was Edinburgh, excuse me, Edinburgh was just grossly inflated prices specifically for the Americans cuz there’s so many go there. From what I’ve seen this place, obviously it’s a little bit higher, but we’ll have a look at some prices in a minute if we can. The only price on that was a glass of mold wine for€5. Not a lot of comparison there, is there? Aha. Pizza. Just planes. Constant planes over your head. Lots of them. TR. I’m not just going to see things and just say the name of them every have to get out that trams. There’s the stroopery where you can buy a stroop waffle with toppings. It’s one of them. Stroop waffle. It’s a waffle basically with toppings. Uh looks very nice. I gasped there. I love gasping. The reason I gasped is this. Or is it this? No, it’s not this. It’s this that shop there. Manus Versafruit. It’s basically a chip shop. They sell the uh authentic Dutch fries with the meat with that lovely mayonnaise and it’s absolutely lush and I shall be getting some later on. It’s a bit early now, but I’ll get some. Now, if memory serves me right, this used to be called Teasers Bar here. Tea’s bar was uh a men’s bar, shall I say, with scant clad young ladies serving you. I think the Dutch authorities thought it probably wasn’t appropriate for the main shopping street. So, it’s gone now. That beautiful looking building over there. That is a mixture of things. Now, it’s a seafood bar. The bio van burak. This is a horrendous attempt at Dutch accent. Conference events and exhibitions. Now I’ll check this. But if memory serve me right, that used to be the old Dutch stock exchange. I shall check that. And there’s another fruit bar and burgers. That’s the same. That’s just burgers. You get 5 hours here in Amsterdam with the pickup behind the central station. Um, doesn’t sound a lot, but you can do a hell of a lot in 5 hours. Hell of a lot, if you know what I mean. There used to be just one free shop on this road. Now there seems to be loads. There’s another one. I think that one is quite famous as well. Yeah. Yeah. Small €465, medium €4.95, large €6. That’s not bad. That’s not bad for the middle of a huge city full of tourists. It’s really pretty good. Dead affordable. And the weather’s perked up a bit. I’ll be honest, the only reason I brought an umbrella was uh not so much for me cuz I could have worn a cat, put me hood up and stuff. Uh but you know, I didn’t want to be drenched in it’s for the camera cuz the camera is not waterproof. There’s light rain and I didn’t really want to be like a drowned rat. So, I’m rambling. I’m going to do some horrendous attempts at Dutch words, right? So, if there’s any, it’s a long shot, but if anybody from the Netherlands watches this channel, then please don’t be cruel. Just advise that building. It’s obviously a shop. It’s magnificent. It has a sign on it saying D. Oh god, here we go. D Bernov the Bernov. That’s clearly mean something else. I shall find that out as well. There will be a caption underneath and I will tell you what it was. And you will all go, “Oo, that’s interesting.” Or you’ll go, “What’s your channel with that for tit?” [Music] Another interesting thing about that boat, just while I think on security’s a little bit lax. I told I think I told you that earlier on. Anyway, what I mean by lax is When you book, get a booking confirmation, right? And a booking confirmation says no alcohol to be brought on board to be consumed. Fine. All is understood. Right. So, I saw people I’ve told you this before. I think let’s have a quick before we go to down square. We’ll have a little peek down this alleyway, which is uh probably a stupid thing to do, but I’ve got an umbrella. And [Applause] I don’t know if the camera picked that up. That male doing the gun sign to his pal. Oh my lord. Anyway, I think it was just being silly. If I remember rightly, when you come over here, it’s a pedestrianized shopping street with all of your bog standard normal shops on where all the Dutch do the shopping. And it is. I thought it was. Oh, god. McDonald’s. Yeah. So, all the roads anyway, this road leads to Dan Square as well. So, we’ll uh we shall pop out there. Sometimes there’s things going on in D square, but I somehow think on a rainy Tuesday it’s unlikely. Right. I’ve heard of these. They weren’t here when I was here the last time. They’re called Fibo. Now, people cook behind the counter there. You can’t actually you pay at the counter with a machine. But you get your stuff there. And like that burger thing was €4. That’s not bad, is it? Feebo. They’re all over. What a good idea. Let’s not employ anybody anymore to serve. Let’s just put them in the cheese. Well, they are cheese. Lots of cheese. I mean, I’m not I’m not ultra knowledgeable on Dutch cheese. All I can think about is Edam and Ga Haguda. Now that is the royal palace. I’m going to see if there’s anything. Oh, there’s an entry. And you know me, this is a charge. I’m not paying it. Oh, tram lines. Careful. You’ve got to be so you’ve got to have your eyes in the back of your head, do you? This is This is a great Vanam Square. It’s lovely. Beautiful. Beautiful. [Music] There’s two BS on a cherry picker outside the royal palace. I hope they haven’t got a saw, electric saw with them. They’re going over to a window and they’re the same two BS that were in Paris in the Lou the other day. And they’re funny that same thing. Nobody’s pulled them. I’ll video them just in case they’re burglars. Clearly not, but you know. Now the Royal Palace is open. It’s open to the public. I wonder if they charge Ah, Madam Tus and my daughter-in-law and my son told me that this place is like not particularly very good because it’s full of Dutch celebrities. So, you go in and you’re looking at all these lifelike wax work dolls of people you don’t have a clue who they are. So, hey. Yeah. It’s raining again. Hang on. I’ll put me umbrella up. So, I just popped in the church to see if there was uh any charge. And it’s 1350 to walk around. It’s not very big. So, it’s probably got a lot of history. It’s just It’s odd. The young lady, she was lovely. She was only young, you know. She’s basically selling tickets for a historic church while meanwhile on the other side you’ve got well you know what I just explained and drink be aha that is the bulldog. Oh the smell of cannabis of pundloo. Um, it’s the first coffee shop in Amsterdam. The smell outside from is unbelievable. But you can get coffees just plain ordinary coffees. We can get special cakes, special coffees. If you haven’t been Amsterdam before or Holland or the Netherlands, just be aware everybody and I mean everybody speaks English. And sadly, that was the first bulldog cafe. There’s more bulldog coffees along here. In fact, there’s four. So, I don’t know which one was the first. There’s another view down to Dam Square and one of the shopping streets. I don’t know why everybody stopped here as if there’s traffic coming. Okay, a beautiful series of canals. This main one runs all the way down with bridges going across. Obviously on lovely sunny days, these things are just like bikes everywhere. Today, sensible people on bikes don’t go out. They park their bikes and stay in bed like what this lot have done. I suppose what you have to appreciate with this place is it’s a residential area as well. People live here. So prostitution, drugs, dayto-day life and shops and stuff just go hand in hand. Another church. I’ll find out what this is. There’s nothing on the doors. Piet shall pa shall ah I know what this is I think would that be the set square and compass. Could this be m freemason’s hall? Right, we’re at the top of that street now. top of oud. I’m not even going to that one. I’m not even going to attempt it. It’s a difficult language. Another small canal. Is this a canal? Yes, it is. Apparently, somebody wants to be loved. Oh, there you go. It’s a nice building. I can’t get to it. I could swim to it. I’m not going to do that. So one of the things when the French were hiding they were worried about so keep the window shut because maybe someone across the courtyard would get money. So yeah that was always a thing that they were worried about. Anf Frank’s house isn’t far from here. I’m not going to go to it. And the reason I’m going to go to it is there’s not a lot to see there apart from a plaque and a lot of tourists on the outside. Uh which makes it virtually unfilmable. Looks very similar to one of these one of these houses here. Apparently I’ve just been nibbing to a tourist guide. It had spy holes on all sides of the house so that family could see if the Nazis were coming from any direction. Back to the subject of prostitution. Now I need correct I’m going to go down here and see what’s down here. I need corrected on this. Street walkers are totally illegal. You are not allowed to sell sex from the street. So street walkers is a no no. These girls rent the window space, get regular health checks, licensed by the local council order, but street walkers. Oh, absolutely not. And this, not so much every day, but at night, there’s a massive police presence around here. It’s primarily to look after the people that work here and the tourists. Oh, dear me. Sorry. And two young people. So, there’s another beautiful canal. I’ll go on the bridge and have a look at it. Oh, what is that? [Music] Yeah, them two people on the corn, them two young kids were having a a smoke and it wasn’t tobacco or it contained tobacco, shall we say? So, The smell of it around here is it’s actually overpowering. Sometimes you can smell it everywhere. I know penis shaped donut yogurt. by the sto walk down here. Um He must be a minder for the girls. Never mind. I’ll cut that bit out. That bit uh doesn’t make for very good YouTube viewing. Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat up here. [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music]