Thursday, August 19th on the train from the Hague to Brussels

We never did get to the music festival in Brussels on Monday night because it was pouring rain. On Tuesday morning we caught the train to The Hague in the Netherlands. The train trip was interesting. The land is very flat, of course, with very lush looking farm fields criss-crossed with all sizes of drainage canals. You see lots of houseboats and small cabin cruisers, some moored in canals that are just going through fields. Lots of people live in houseboats although the majority naturally live in regular houses. I don’t imagine anybody has a basement.

We arrived early in the afternoon. We had no map but found our hotel with only one wrong turn that took an extra 10 minutes. When we knew we had taken a wrong turn but weren’t sure exactly where, a man in a truck saw that we were confused, got out of his truck, walked over and asked if we needed directions. He quickly set us back on the right route and we went straight to our hotel. We’re staying at the NH Den Haag, a quite nice high rise business and tourist hotel. It’s surprisingly cheap at 87 euros per night including a great buffet breakfast in the restaurant.

On Tuesday afternoon, we toured the Hague (or Den Haag as it’s known here). We saw the parliament buildings, the royal palace and the old part of town but there was really nothing remarkable that we haven’t seen before. The Hague is famous for the world court and lots of international diplomacy so it seems like more of a government and business centre than a tourist destination. It started to rain fairly hard so we just bought something to eat and headed back to our hotel.

Yesterday we walked into the Central Station and booked seat reservations for Paris. The only trains on the direct route are the really fancy high-speed Thalys trains. The seats are often booked well in advance and even the seat reservations for pass holders are expensive. We couldn’t get any of the trains we wanted so instead we’re taking an IC (Inter City) train back to Brussels, which doesn’t require a seat reservation, and then a Thalys train from Brussels to Paris. For the 2 ¼ hour 1^st class trip to Brussels, we paid nothing extra. For the 1 ¼ hour 2^nd class trip from Brussels to Paris, we’re paying seat reservation fees of 26 euros each. First class would have been 41 euros each. However, the Thalys trains are really fast and supposed to be really luxurious. We’ll see.

After we had booked our flights (as we’ve been calling them), we hopped on a regional train to Amsterdam Central station for the day. It took less than 50 minutes to get there. When you arrive it’s really busy. There are lots of people, construction, trams, and water taxis in the canals at the front and the back.

Once we got away from the station area, it was just normally busy, not insane. The biggest danger is getting hit by someone on a bicycle. We have never seen so many bicycles. There are parking lots just packed with them. There are dedicated bike lanes in Amsterdam (and the Hague) and you have to be careful when you cross them. In one of our guide books, it says that there are 735,000 people in Amsterdam and 600,000 bicycles. We believe it. Everybody rides a bike. Nobody wears a helmet. There are all kinds of contraptions for carrying children on bikes. There are bike traffic lights. However, at intersections, you have to really watch the bike lanes as well as the automobile and tram lanes. Plus Amsterdam is criss-crossed with hundreds of canals. It make walking an adventure.

We walked all over the old downtown part of Amsterdam. Unlike Venice, where everything is sinking in unison, in Amsterdam there are lots of old 4 to 6 story buildings that are tilting every which way and are still in use. It makes the builder in me nervous. A 4 story building might lean a foot forward of its neighbour at the top.

Everywhere you go in the old city core, there are only periods of a few minutes at a time when you can’t smell somebody smoking pot. People whip by on bicycles with a joints in their mouths. Some bars and coffee shops have a marijuana haze drifting out the door. Especially in the Red Light District there are lots of head shops, sex shops, sex shows and, of course, prostitutes standing in windows with red curtains open and red lights. This isn’t Barry’s Bay. However, this is all in quaint old buildings on streets with trees and along canals. It isn’t really too grimy or dingy. It’s just that everything that’s available anywhere else in the world is more openly available here. It’s all legal, licensed, controlled and safe. Works for me.

We had a big lunch in a café, wandered around some more and then caught a train back to the Hague. We were pretty tired by the time we got back so we just stayed in the hotel.

On the internet last night, we found a reasonably priced small hotel, the Mayflower, not too far off the Champs Elysee in Paris. We booked 3 nights. We’ll arrive at Paris Nord station about 5:30 this afternoon .

Friday Morning, August 20th, Paris

Yesterday afternoon we had an hour or so at the Brussels Midi station so we had our picnic lunch outside in a small square. There are lots of traveller warnings about pickpockets in the station and I've read about muggings in the square but it was the middle of the afternoon so it was okay. We are always vigilant for snatch and run thieves. It's become a habit.

The Thalys train wasn't exceptionally luxurious in 2nd class but it was certainly fast. There was no screen to tell us the speed but it was definitely faster than the 200 km/hr trains we've taken before. It only took an hour and 20 minutes to get from Brussels to Paris.

When we arrived in the Paris du Nord station, we got seat reservations from Paris Montparnasse to Arcachon, with a connection in Bordeau, on Sunday. Only 4.50 euros each. The pricing system is impossible to figure out but it seems that the Netherlands is just plain expensive because they can get it.

We took 2 different subway lines to get to the Charles de Gaulle station right at the Arc de Triomphe, the hub of the Champs Elysee Boulevard and other streets. The Champs Elysee, being one of the most famous boulevards in the world, is extremely busy with both automobiles and pedestrians. We walked less than 10 minutes down the Champs Elysee and then about 2 minutes down a couple of side streets to our hotel. It's a typical older Parisian hotel, not fancy but quaint and serviceable.

We'll soon go for breakfast downstairs and then we're off to explore Paris for the next two days. We've included some pictures of Amsterdam.