Amsterdam Is The Land Of Weird Motorcycles And Clog-Shaped Boats

Photo: Daniel Golson/Jalopnik

I recently got stuck in Amsterdam for two days thanks to the Crowdstrike outage, which gave me a weekend’s worth of time to explore the glorious city. Amsterdam contains 165 canals that total over 60 miles in length, and on the streets that border them you’ll find some of the best carspotting in the entire world. There’s everything from brand new EVs and sports cars to iconic classics and things you’ve never heard of before. Every corner I turned, there was something cool to look at.

Not only that, Amsterdam is home to an incredible variety of mobility solutions of all types prowling the streets. There are all sorts of interesting boats floating through the canals, including some with big greenhouses that you’re meant to hot box, which I’ve gotta try next time I go. You’ll see weird motorcycles and trikes, quadricycles driven by teenagers, amphibious vehicles, floating clogs and more.

The ultimate mobility solution in Amsterdam is the bicycle, but I didn’t bother taking any photos specifically of bicycles because there are just so many, and there’s plenty to be seen in a bunch of my images anyway. Amsterdam has an estimated 881,000 bicycles, which means there are more bikes than people in the city. Bikes rule the streets, seemingly not following any rules of the road as they dart past pedestrians and trains. And no one wears a helmet, which is wild to me. This is all on top of a public transit system made up of buses, above-ground trains and underground subways that make getting around the city even easier.

Anyway, take a stroll through this slideshow to see some of the coolest, most interesting vehicles I spotted while stuck in Amsterdam.