After another nice French breakfast, headed north using only small roads to better experience the villages and open spaces as I made my way to Amsterdam.
Luxembourg is bigger than I thought with lots of green open spaces and farmland north of the capital. I entered Belgium without noticing as no sign was posted anywhere. The contrast was substantial. A bit dirtier, the villages were poorer, busier, with more graffiti, and a lot more ethnically diverse.
My first stop for the day was Maastricht, a dutch city close to the border with Belgium. A nice, beautiful university town. The university was founded in 1976 (very new) and has 20,000 student of which 55% are foreign.
Dutch cities are overrun by bicycles. You have to look all around at every intersection when riding or walking to not be hit. All streets are marked first for bicycles, then pedestrians, and last the lowly cars and motorcycles. Also all busses and trams are electric and there are Teslas, solar panels, and wind turbines everywhere. Probably a vision of the future.
Getting to my hotel in Amsterdam was tricky ... had to go over canal bridges, pedestrian streets, sidewalks, and alleys to finally get there. The hotel is a nice old, very vertical, house in a narrow street. Very cool.
Went out to explore the town. Lots to see. A very unique place. Nothing like it. Tomorrow I have the whole day to explore the city starting with the Rijksmuseum which houses the largest collection of painting from the dutch golden age.
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