Cycling into Amsterdam from Haarlem only takes about an hour and a half according to Google Maps but my experience of a couple of days prior to this suggested it may be otherwise depending on whether I make any bad decisions about my route but all of this was rendered moot when I woke up just in time to catch the end of "Lazy Sunday" breakfast in the hostel. By the time I was ready to leave time had passed to such an extent that it seemed to me wise to simply cycle to the train, park the bike at Haarlem Station then take the train into Amsterdam, after all I know it well enough now to not need a map to go where I want to go. Train ticket purchased, I was bound for Amsterdam for a day travelling on foot, and to be honest I'm glad I did park the bike because Amsterdam was positively heaving with tourists on bikes.
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| Back in the 'Dam |
So I've got to say if you are a bikey person you may not find anything of too much interest in this post, but if like me you think it's about the journey not about the bike then please read on. I've cycled in Amsterdam before and to be honest it's been written about so much I doubt I could add anything new to the discussion. It's a lovely way to get around the city but I'd made my decision to go on foot and had a brief itinerary as outlined above. Here's the thing though, as I walked across the road towards the Damrak I noticed the smell of weed so much more than I ever have done before and a lot more litter and general run-down feel around the Martelaarsgracht area just across from the station. Maybe I'm just a bit older and the prospect of wild weekends in...well anywhere no longer have the appeal they once had, but I couldn't help feeling that maybe this isn't the best way to greet a tourist stepping off the train for the first time, but then again who am I to judge? No-one was fighting or falling about the place drunk and vomiting so maybe I should just carry on, so...
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| On the way to nirvana, but Palm Guitars was closed... |
I decided to head straight to Palm Guitars and in doing so straight to my first disappointment. Closed. Looks like this is more than a temporary closure, it seems the building was flooded late 2014 and has been closed ever since. The company is still trading online but I had been looking forward to snaking between the lines of weird and wonderful and sometimes downright rare acoustic guitars, mandolins, and so on but it was not to be. OK then, off to the flower market and have a browse there, meh, I've been here before, plenty of times. I know! The American Book Centre quick look around, nothing doing, hmm last time I was here I walked out with a huge tome under my arm - AC/DC Complete Guitar Transcriptions, for my daughter of course, who else would it be for? This time however nothing, not a thing. Walk on, thinking "wish I'd brought the bike", walk down an unpromising side street, a very attractive window display of silks and satins catches my eye, there are some rather nice looking pastries on display too. I step inside, result! The shop is run by a Portugeuse lady who of course speaks English very well and naturally I have to have a coffee and a sublime custard tart fresh out of a tiny oven by the window. Of course she has been to Scotland and asks if I'm from Edinburgh, I'm not but know it well enough from my frequent visits there to play and listen to music, so we chat about Edinburgh and indyref and Portugal where I've been a few times although not for many years. We are joined by a Dutch gentleman who is entertaining his young nephew from Paris for a few days whilst the boys' father is away on business, an hour passes, I could have happily sat enjoying the conversation all afternoon but I pay and somewhat reluctantly move on.
By this time something has occurred to me, I've been to Amsterdam so many times now, it's a bit like, well going through to Edinburgh. I'm so familiar with where to go and where not to go that although I love visiting, it has maybe lost a bit of the sparkle through over-familiarity, or am I just getting older and jaded? I wish I'd brought the bike on the train.
Actually, bear with me and allow me to backtrack for a bit, I think I've some explaining to do.
When I first visited Holland in 1980 I stayed at a campsite not far from the Olympic Stadium. I had gone there on a bit of a pilgrimage, being a big fan of what I would describe as Euro jazz or jazz-rock, I was always on the look out in Glasgow for albums by bands with names like Association PC, Solution, Pork Pie (yes really). Most of the music I was listening to or searching for was being created by a core of Dutch musicians and so together with my friend David we booked student rail tickets and headed off on my search for vinyl in Amsterdam. Frankly I had no idea where I was going to find any of this stuff but I knew I had to go to Amsterdam and somehow it would, well just happen. At the risk of this turning into a somewhat tedious autobiography, the bottom line was I came back to Glasgow with a ludicrous weight of vinyl in my backpack, all of which I still possess to this day and still enjoy. Indeed this one trip arguably led me down a musical road that I've followed all my life, but now I'm really digressing.
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| See, I wasn't joking. Fabulous jazz-rock. I'll get me coat... |
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| Would I find what I was looking for...again? |
I was fascinated back then by how so many people went around Amsterdam on bicycles, I no longer had one back home, my Raleigh something or other with 20 inch wheels having being gifted to my cousin after gathering rust in my parents cellar for ages after I fell out of love with cycling - I had wanted a "proper bike" or what's now known as a road bike. I used to love hanging around big Angus's house across the road when the gang were round fixing and customising their bikes that looked so amazing to me with their drop handlebars, thin tubing and so on. For my birthday I got the Raleigh, I don't know what it was called, maybe a Raleigh 20? It was a bike, I was pleased, but I wasn't ecstatic, it wasn't a road bike, and I remember being left way behind the others when rides up to the Barrhead dams were happening, someone would wait but then they'd have to go on for fear of being left behind themselves. I fell out of love with the bike. Yet here I was standing by a canal in 21st century Amsterdam wishing I'd not left my Dahon 20 inch wheeled folder in Haarlem, oh the irony of it!
It wasn't a long walk, but having decided I'd had enough I would before leaving head over Vijzelgracht and check out the new Jazz-Inn which had apparently closed sometime in the '90s but re-opened a few years back due to popular demand no less. Two things struck me about the street, I hadn't been over that way for at least five years having cycled along it with the family last time we did a holiday there, but it now appears to be changing and for the better. There are a lot of works going on that I was told are part of a program to further pedestrianise that part of the city which is such a great thing, reclaiming public space back from motorised transport and making it pedestrian friendly seems such an excellent thing to do.
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| Vijzelgracht, but where was the Jazz-Inn? |
Up and down, across the road and up and down again. Could I find the fabled Jazz-Inn? In a word, no. I could have Googled it and phoned but somehow I felt that was wrong. Back in the day when I spotted it from the tram heading into the city centre it felt like I'd stumbled upon something special, I wanted it to remain that way, I wanted to stumble upon it again, but I didn't. I was disappointed, I knew of other record shops on my route back to CS but they wouldn't be quite the same, I'd tried to find a part of my youth but like that it's gone, period.
I found a few really interesting albums in a second hand vinyl store somewhere or other, I can't remember the street name but I could take you there. It was time to go back to the station and catch a train back to Haarlem, food was taken on as I hadn't placed a meal order at the hostel so after a huge plate of Bangers 'n Mash at O'Reilly's Irish Pub I wandered back up the Damrak and caught my train. I wish I'd taken my bike into A'dam with me.
