Category: Clay Doyle

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Amsterdam A to Zed: B is for bicycle

 

You just have to ride a bicycle—it’s by far the quickest, easiest way around the city. It may look intimidating at first, but once on a bike you have the advantage as bicycles have the right-of-way. Rent one from Frederic Rent-a-Bike—their bikes don’t have any annoying logos that label you as a tourist. (Many shops that sell bikes also rent them—without the tourist identifying adverts—just ask.) Sadly, bike rentals are not the bargain they once were (now about 10 euros a day, with discounts for longer rentals) so when you rent one, do use it!

Frederic Bike Rentals
Brouwersgracht 78
+31-20/624-5509
www.frederic.nl

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Amsterdam A to Zed: A is for app

One of the things that makes Apple’s iPhone so addictive are the wide range of third party created “apps” (which do span the admittedly silly to the overly complicated) but also include many which are downright useful and easy to use.

Kudos to the Netherlands Board of Tourism and Conventions for creating the elegantly designed Amsterdam Mobile Guide app. Download this to your iPhone (it’s available absolutely free from the iTunes App Store!) and you’ll have a combination city map/guidebook right on your phone. While far from comprehensive, the maps are great, and there’s good information on sights, museums, cafes, and restaurants. While it’s at its best while connected to the internet (where you can use it to pinpoint your exact location) it’s also quite useful offline (saving expensive connection charges) as most of the information is stored right in the app itself, providing useful descriptions of historical sights, museum opening hours, cafes, restaurants, shops and more.  And so far, the board of tourism seems to be committed to keeping it current with regular updates. One of the best travel apps I’ve come across, the Amsterdam app is simple to use, well designed, a great portable map—and much more.

 
iPhone image from The Netherlands Board of Tourism and Conventions.
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Cane Parking

 

On the Campo di Fiori in Rome we came across a concept we’d like to see catch on world wide: cane parking. Outside a shop on the square, there was a convenient hitching post to park your dog while you went inside to pick up some wine and cheese….

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California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco

 

San Francisco’s newest museum building thrusts one of its oldest institutions into the 21st century, with the latest in sustainable architecture and green technology…

My most recent travel article, on the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, appeared in the May 2009 issue of The Advocate. If you missed the print edition, you can read the entire article on their web site at:

http://www.advocate.com/issue_story_ektid76378.asp

Added 12 September 2009: The original text of the article is reproduced below:

Nature and Nurture

San Francisco’s newest museum building thrusts one of its oldest institutions into the 21st century, with the latest in sustainable architecture and green technology.

A field of native California plants rolls across a plain of undulating hills—hovering high above the ground in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Supported largely by glass walls, the “green roof” is only the most surprising of the many striking features of internationally renowned architect Renzo Piano’s new building for the venerable California Academy of Sciences.

The Academy, which houses research and educational facilities and a vast collection of scientific specimens as well as the Kimball Natural History Museum, the Steinhart Aquarium, the Morrison Planetarium and more, was formerly housed in a hodgepodge of 13 buildings built in Golden Gate park over the course of 20th century. The park location was chosen after the Academy, founded in 1853, lost it’s original building and and most of its collections to the 1906 Earthquake and fire.

The new building grew from San Francisco’s second major earthquake, the 1989 Loma Pietra. While the museum remained open until 2003, structural damage from the quake presented the opportunity to reinvent the Academy in a totally new, unified, and revolutionary building.

The Academy selected Pritzker Prize winning Architect Renzo Piano, designer (with Richard Rogers) of the revolutionary Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and numerous other museums, to create a new structure that is not only an artistic landmark but also reflects and reinforces the mission of the Academy.

“The Academy’s mission is to explore, explain, and protect the natural world” according to Executive Director, Gregory C. Farrington, Ph.D. The result is a structure that is not only visually striking but is also the world’s “greenest” museum. The building has earned a Platinum rating for for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), making it the largest sustainable public building in the world, incorporating, among other features, solar energy panels and a passive cooling system.

“This museum has always worked on three levels – displaying the collection, educating the public, researching the science. The spirit of this new building is to announce and enforce this complexity of function,” Piano explains.

The long lines waiting to enter the building since it’s opening at the end of 2008 likely have as much or more to do with the awe-inspiring exhibits inside as the environmentally friendly structure however.

The main floor, an enormous rectangle of glass and limestone, houses the Morrison Planetarium in a giant opaque sphere, and a four story rainforest in a sealed transparent dome, on each side of square glass courtyard. Exhibits on the main floor are a creationist’s nightmare: the evolution of species is thoughtfully and clearly explained in series of very visual exhibits illustrating natural selection and biodiversity. The second main floor display is devoted to the effects of climate change and habitat destruction.

Interestingly, favorite sections of the old buildings have been incorporated into the new museum to delightful effect. The neoclassical African hall, with it’s classic dioramas of taxidermied animals has been preserved—with a twist. The main window now contains the Steinhart Aquarium’s collection of live South African penguins, swimming and waddling in startling contrast to the stuffed creatures. Other parts of the original buildings have been preserved to great effect as well, including the 1934 entry colonnade, the Foucault Pendulum, and the playful brass seahorse railings of the original aquarium building.

The aquarium itself now occupies the entire basement of the new structure—an underground, underwater fantasia of 38,000 living creatures. Twenty-five feet high and holding 212,000 gallons of water, the Philippine Coral Reef is one of the deepest exhibits of live corals in the world; while the 100,000 gallon Northern California Coast tank highlights local sea life. Other exhibits feature a walk beneath a glass bottomed Amazon lake, tanks of delicate jellyfish, a hands-on tide pool, and a swamp housing the aquarium’s famous decades-old Albino Alligator.

And high above, a rooftop viewing platform provides a close up look at the amazing living roof.

Finally, the building also features the Moss Room, a gourmet restaurant open for lunch and dinner, featuring local, organic, and sustainably raised produce, sea food and meat—addressing the one question not answered elsewhere in the museum: how does nature taste?

The museum is located at 55 Music Concourse Drive in Golden Gate Park. It’s a short walk from the 9th Avenue N-Judah streetcar stop. Admission can be guaranteed by purchasing tickets online at least 24 hours in advance. Phone: 415 379-8000. www.calacademy.org

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Amsterdam Hotels

 

A friend of my sister recently wrote:

Do you know of any cheap but clean/safe hotels in Amsterdam (specifically, safe for a mom and child alone)? I want to get a hotel in Amsterdam for a couple nights to avoid all the train riding back and forth from my friend’s house in the Hague but money is very tight so….some inside info would be great! My friend in the Hague never really seems to go to Amsterdam; perhaps you can help?

Hi

I haven’t stayed in a hotel in Amsterdam for quite sometime, but I’ll try to give you some help.

My favorite hotel is the Ambassade (http://www.ambassade-hotel.nl/) great location, rooms, service etc, but it might be more than you want to spend. Hotel prices in Amsterdam have risen quite a bit since the introduction of the Euro.

I think the NH chain of hotels in the city are good values for larger hotels with elevators, etc.

You might also check out the Lloyd Hotel (http://www.lloydhotel.com) along the eastern docklands; they have rooms in all price ranges and it’s rather a fun place. A short tram ride from the historic center.

A brand new hotel that might be good for you is the Citizen M Amsterdam City (http://www.citizenm.com/) it’s adjacent the WTC train station (NOT centraal Station) which you can get to by direct train from the Hague. It’s brand new, seems really nice and cheap. It’s in a quiet residential neighborhood, but the number 5 tram will take you to the museum quarter and the city center.

If you go to hotels.nl you can compare prices and possibly find a good deal. There are lots of great little hotels along the canals if you don’t mind the steep dutch stairs. Best places to stay would be along the Western or Southern canal belt. This is the most picturesque part of the city, and it’s central yet quiet. Hotels between the Central Station and the Dam can be nice, but the nightlife there can be noisy and perhaps a bit seedy for a child, though the whole city is quite safe. Find a hotel that meets your budget, check the location on google maps, then go to the hotel’s website to check it out and see if you can book it even cheaper directly.

Also, if you don’t plan on staying out very late in Amsterdam, you can easily get from the Hague (either Den Haag CS or Den Haag HS stations) to Amsterdam on the intercity trains which run quite frequently. The trip takes about 45 minutes. The The train system is excellent so you may also want to visit Haarlem, Utrecht or Rotterdam as well. You can check the schedules online (in English at ns.nl. By the way, you can get to Delft from Den Haag by city tram.

Clay