Prior to this visit, we thought that Xenia, Ohio, was the Bicycle Capital of the World. It says it on their water tower, so it has to be true, right? Turns out they might be telling a bit of a stretcher back in Ohio, cuz we've seen the real bike capital, and it's in the Netherlands. Wiki tells us that there are about 750,000 residents in the city, and roughly 900,000 bicycles! One of many reasons Rich loved this city!
The architecture is amazing. The streets are narrow, the houses narrow (taxes used to be based on the width of the building), and the houses in many cases appear to be leaning on each other for support. We saw them at all kinds of odd angles..but no one seems worried!
This trip was a reminder of one reason why we chose to spend two years in Europe. The city was beautiful, full of parks, friendly people, lots of history, and it was just a 3 hour drive from home!
Oh, and of course the food was amazing too! You don't hear much about Dutch food, but we discovered one of their true specialties: pancakes. We heard about the Pancake Bakery from Katherine, and also read about it online, so we HAD to find it. It was a tough decision what to order...the age old question of sweet or savory had Rich mired in indecision, until the helpful waitress suggested her favorite: bacon & cheese. Which, she said, is even better with maple syrup. She wasn't kidding!
Other highlights from the weekend included a wander through the infamous red light district, a boat tour of the canals, a somber tour of Anne Frank's House. When we opted out of a 2 hour wait for entrance to the Van Gogh Museum we had the good luck of stumbling across a local artist that we loved named Mark Raven. We ended up buying one of his pieces, which portrayed a bicycle in Amsterdam.
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