We are starting to get ahead of the jet lag, this time we both woke up around 8 and could have functioned, but it turns out we are retired and don’t need to do anything at 8 am, so we went back to sleep until a more civilized hour.
Today the weather was perfect blue skies and temperatures in the mid 70’s so we headed into the city for the day. Ton loves bookshops and libraries and Amsterdam has the largest library in Europe so it was our first stop for the day.
We wandered through the 7 floors of the modern building that hosts the library. In addition to books it has a conference center, a theater and two cafes. It is an impressive and well used facility. We really enjoyed a small art feature by a Portuguese photographer they were showing.
As we were heading to our next destination we came across St. Nicholas Basilica and popped in. While Ton is Buddhist she was educated in Catholic Schools, she enjoys visiting Catholic churches and always seeks out the 6th station of the cross which is known as “Veronica wipes Jesus face”. Ton likes the story of Veronica helping Jesus. St. Nicholas had a very large and detailed depiction of the scene that Ton enjoyed.
After our detour to St. Nicholas we headed on to our main destination for the day the Stork. Last time we visited Amsterdam we stumbled into the Stork by accident and had the best time. The server then went out of her way to make us feel welcome and even ran down the street to get us a slice of apple pie when we mentioned we were looking for a slice of it. It was magnificent customer service.
After that we decided the Stork was our hometown bar in Amsterdam. Today there was a different server worker, but she was just as nice. The Stork is what is known as a Brown Bar. These are local places that used to be frequented by working people before the tourists overran the city. And while the Stork is located in the infamously over touristed red light district it has found a nice balance between catering to locals and tourist. Dutch is definitely the language of the bar, but everyone also welcomes visitors and happily switches to English. We again enjoyed our visit to the Stork and will return again next time we are in town.
Our final stop of the day was the oldest continuously operating bar in Amsterdam. Cafe Karpershoek has been a licensed establishment since 1606. It was also located on the waterfront in Amsterdam, but unlike the Stork its clientele was almost exclusively tourists and English was the first language in the place. We recommend you try it as how often can you drink in a place that has been serving beer for 420 years, but then move to the Stork where you can drink in a place nearly as old that is indisputably Dutch.
