Albert Cuypmarkt

I spent last weekend in “De Pijp” (pronounced like what the drunken tourists use to smoke what they can’t buy legally back home.) “The Pipe” is a neighborhood, the neighborhood where Cindy and Ronan live with Chelsea, the energetic husky. It is the neighborhood that Chels and I, het man die spreekt tot honden,” explored on our two-a-day walks. (Hey, Cesar Millan’ll tell you—you gotta bleed some of that dog’s energy out somehow.)

Chelsea

Friday evening we walked to Museumplein, the huge plaza where both the Van Gogh Museum and the Rijksmuseum are located. Chelsea has a nasty habit of being nasty whenever she sees another dog, and there were simply too many dogs out there to suit me. So, Saturday morning we headed in the opposite direction in search of Sarphatipark, which turned out to be a beautiful little park replete with a pond and statuary and plenty of goodies to sniff and explore.

Monument to Dr. Samuel Sarphati, social activist (1813-1866)

On the way home we took (for me) the road less traveled into the surrounding neighborhood. That’s where we found the Albert Cuypmarkt, the largest open-air, street market in Amsterdam. (The locals can still remember back in 2005 when the queen herself shopped among the hundreds of stalls—and ran out of money!)

The Albert Cuypmarkt

The Cuypmarkt stretches for several blocks and features almost anything you can imagine. From clothes to bikes, from shoes to freshly made stroopwafels, the market is the place to be on most mornings.

Fresh-made stroopwafels!

I wasn’t worried about of running out of euros; more like it, I was worried how I would carry home the worthless crap I started collecting. (I shoulda got another bike chain!)

Best two euros I spent all day

To say the very least, the Cuypmarkt was downright cool.