The Hampton-by-Hilton - welcome to the modern world!

[Vorpal]

A couple of weeks ago, I stayed at an airport hotel near Amsterdam. It was a chain hotel, but the room was layed out oddly. The WC was on the opposite side of a wall from the shower & bathroom. My windows opened, and I had a nice view of a little lake, that I think was just a glorified drainage pond. When I asked about shopping, the hotel staff suggested that I take the free shuttle back to the airport

However, I asked about hire bikes, and they had them So, I hired a clunky, heavy, three-speed and rode 10ish km into Amsterdam and wandered around taking pictures. I found a decent pizza, and map so I could get back to the hotel (which only had single page tourist maps of the town centre). Then I rode back, taking a couple of detours to satisfy my curiosity and snap some pictures of a windmill.

Access to the hotel by bicycle was good, and the cycle path into the city was about 40 metres from the hotel entrance. Though the parking for the hire cycles was on the level above where the cycle path arrived, so I had to use the bus and taxi entrance.

Altogether, it was one of the best evenings I have ever had staying someplace by myself on a business trip.

[horizon]

It's lovely when you can take advantage of a lull in the storm and cycle blissfully (and perhaps unwittingly ) across the bombshell-littered battlefield (I don't mean that sarcastically, BTW).

Here's a link to the background to Schiphol - I'm sorry I cannot cut and paste anything from it:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=lryl ... sy&f=false

PS I'm always pleased when we stay at a Travelodge - that's the idea.