Parks! Reviews! Hippies!

Park review: Amstelpark, Vondel park, Westerpark, Amsterdamsebos
Although Amsterdam is a very dense city, the city planners still managed to include several municipal parks. I've visited several of them, and so instead of writing several different posts about my trips, I decided to stick them all into one post. Also, since reviewing different city parks might be considered kinda boring, its going to be mainly pictures. An online picture book, if you will.

As mentioned, there are a lot of parks in the city, but many of them are pretty small. Those bloodstain-looking splotches on the city are the locations of the larger parks around Amsterdam. Of those on the map, I haven't yet visited Vliegenbos or Beatrix Park, so I'm not going to review those.

One of the fields in Amsterdamsebos

Amsterdamsebos (dutch for "amsterdam forest") - by far the largest park in Amsterdam. It is technically in Amstelveen, the city just south of Amsterdam (I live at the very north end of Amstelveen), but the two cities aren't very distinct, as you can probably tell from the map. This park is huge-not only does it have fields for soccer, field hockey, and cricket (!), but it also has long, winding paths throughout the forest - separate ones for walking, biking, and horseback riding. Its also only a 5 minute bike ride from where I live, so I go over there a lot.

A church in Amstelveen that's visible near the edge of the forest.

Westerpark - This is a bit farther away from where I live (about 9 kilometers), up in the northwest end of Amsterdam, so I've only been there twice. This park is also pretty large. On the quieter west end are some canals and more wildlife growth, but the eastern end is set up like a beach - when I visited there were a lot of people sitting around or barbecuing, giving it a relaxed and festive feel.

A panorama of westerpark.

Vondelpark - I've only been here once, at the beginning of the semester, so I don't have too much to say. It sticks out in my mind because our Calvin prof has told us how hippies used to camp out there several decades ago, but it made the park so bad that they were kicked out. On queen's day (konniningedag, a dutch holiday celebrating the birthday of the queen), kids will go to that park and sell stuff(think lemonade stand/garage sale combo) or perform.

I didn't have any photos of vondel park, so the photo I grabbed from this dutch tourism website of hippies in vondel park. You can tell its authentic, because its in black and white.

The entry to Amstelpark

Amstelpark This park feels much less 'public' than the other parks, in a good way- the trails are more narrow, and, at least when I visited, it was much more quiet and peaceful. The park also borders the Amstel river, so you can walk along that and watch the people rowing/running/biking if you get tired of nature.

A bird chilling in a high-rise nest in amstel park

My favorite thus far? Amsterdamsebos. You can spend hours there and still not see it all, which is surprising for being so close to the city. However, they all have their own unique and interesting vibes.