Noord

We had the proper Dutch experience today by starting with hiring bikes and heading north out of the city!

We cycled through Het Twiske, a beautiful open park area which had lots of greenery, lakes and animals (including cows and highland cows) - very fun to ride past! We even saw a lovely windmill and some nice lakes. It started to rain a little bit but it passed pretty quickly.

We made our way back to the hostel to have a quick lunch and then continued south into the main city. We first jumped on the ferry on our bikes for a couple of minutes to get into the cuty. We had lots of fun exploring the canals of Amsterdam and continued out of the city towards the regatta centre. We had a ride around the regatta centre before heading back to the city for a very important appointment - the Heineken Museum! At this point, we were glad to be off our bikes because we had ridden about 60km!!

We checked in to the Heineken musesum and commenced our tour back in the late 1900s, when Heineken was first brewed. We learnt a lot about the worlds most famous beer as we explored the museum. Some things we learnt included that:
- The main Heineken brewery in the Netherlands is the biggest brewery in Europe (the musesum site is no longer used for brewing beer).
- Heineken was the first imported beer in US.
- There is a special ‘Heineken A Yeast’ which is the secret ingredient that gives Heineken its distinct taste. Only 11 brewers in the world know the recipe and it’s kept under lock and key until needed for a new brewery.
- 95% of Heineken is water.
- The alcohol free Heineken (called "Heineken 0.0") is made exactly the same way but the beer is boiled at the end to get rid of the alcohol (which is probably why it is one of the best no-alcohol beers!)
- Heineken was the first beer brand on TV.

As we progressed through the museum, we went through a 4D experience where we became part of the beer, explored the old brewery vats and learnt about the importance that sports sponsorship has had on the development of the Heineken brand. We finished the tour with a couple of well deserved cold Heinekens!

We completed our Dutch experience by cycling to a spot for dinner and having a traditional dinner of bitterballs (fried mystery meat), stampoot (vegetables and potatoes mashed together with meat on top) and finished with dessert of Dutch pancakes. Absolutely delicious! We cycled back to the north of Amsterdam and returned our bikes late before walking back to the hostel for a much needed rest for our legs!!Read more