Category: Videos

What Amsterdam in the snow looks like through the lens of street photographer Thomas Schlijper

Amsterdam was made for bicycling.

Well, actually, the 700+ year-old city’s narrow streets were made for pedestrians, horse-draw carts, push carts and boats, but bicycles fit this city to a T

Technically it’s still winter, of course, but today the sun is shining and the deep freeze that had all the Netherlands in its grip for a week or so is only a memory.

With that in mind, here we present one more video — this one in retro style — of the ice skating fun we Amsterdammers had last week.

It’s been more than a decade since the winter weather in Amsterdam was cold enough — for long enough — to allow people to ice skate the city’s famous canals. But the winter of 2012 will long be remembered for its excellent ice skating weather. Watch this beautiful video.

In Amsterdam bicycling is seen primarily as the best way to get from point A to point B in a 700+ years old city that was not designed for heavy traffic.

But tourists also view cycling in Amsterdam as a tourist attraction — either as a fun activity or a spectator sport.

Tourists who visit Amsterdam generally concentrate all their attention on the city’s historic center.

But Amsterdam has so much more to offer — not just in its various districts but also in its wonderfully-diverse metropolitan area.

Even Amsterdammers sometimes need to be reminded that anything parked too close to a canal could end up in it…

Amsterdammer and bicycle enthousiast Marc van Woudenberg says, “I witnessed a bicycle getting blown into the canal by the wind. My friend Suze and I ventured outside to salvage it, here’s what happened.”