Amsterdam: the bicycles

Ok, words do not even begin to explain how many bicycles there are in Amsterdam. 

Seriously. Our tour guide told us there were 850,000 bikes in Amsterdam for 750,000 residents (however wikipedia disagrees with this figure). But even if it's incorrect, it's still entirely believable. There are so many people riding bikes all over this city. Even through all the tourists. 

Trust me, to get through the hoards of out-of-towners, you have to be a very aggressive rider. And aggressive they are. The clinging of bike bells is sort of a constant background noise in Amsterdam. But if you hear it coming from behind you, you basically need to spring dive out of the way or you will get run over. In fact, by the end of our 3 day trip, we could barely walk down the street without anxiously looking over our shoulder every 30 seconds, just in case! 

Amsterdam also has a really unique selection of bikes. We saw so many different bikes, and I'm not even sure we scratched the surface of all the strange kinds of bikes out there! 


We saw blue bikes

and green bikes

and yellow bikes on a bridge (a personal goal for Katharina).

We saw bikes with built in baby carriages in front,

and (my favorite) even a bike growing a garden! 

So many bikes everywhere! Which begs the question: if everyone is riding their bike and running you over, how are there still so many bike locked up everywhere?!

SO MANY BIKES!!