Viking's Grand European River Cruise: Amsterdam

 

 Viking River Cruise, Day 1:  Amsterdam (Facebook collage)

Most of you know by now that Amsterdam is just an hour's drive from where we live here in the Netherlands.  That's why starting our Grand European Tour there was no big deal for us.  We've already been there a hundred times!  It helped that we didn't have to fly there from America, Canada or Australia, like so many of our cruise friends.

However, we knew we'd have the afternoon to go see something we hadn't yet seen:  the Python Bridge, built in 2001. 

We rode the train from Gorinchem to Amsterdam, and started looking for our ship in one of 3 possible docking locations behind Central Station.  Lo and behold, there it was in the first location, just a 10-minute walk from the station:

See those 3 longships in the top image?  The middle, white one is the Viking Idun, our ship.

If you're familiar with the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ sitting in the water, with its long entrance ramp,

we were docked just a stone's throw away.

It made a good photo op for our first impressions before sailing.

It was a one-hour slow walk from the boat to the Python Bridge,

passing many photo ops.  You know me and architecture, right?

This Python Bridge is a 300-ft. pedestrian bridge, built in 2001,

linking Amsterdam's Sporenburg area with Borneo Island.

It won the International Footbridge Award in 2002.

 It was a nice way to start our river cruise, seeing something new in Amsterdam!

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My goal is to keep posting each cruise day as soon as I have the images ready (instead of my usual once-a-week posting).  So, chalk up the first and easiest day of our cruise!  :)