De Eland bar is located at the corner of Elandsgracht and Prinsengracht in the centre of Amsterdam. The coffee is great and inexpensive — for Europe — as is the white wine, and nobody seems to care if you loiter for a few minutes or for a few hours. With large windows on all sides, it is a wonderful place to watch life pass by.

Or at least it is after the first, tense hour, which the average foreigner spends waiting for the inevitable bicycle pile-up as cyclists fly by at seemingly reckless speeds. And the bikes are not all just simple affairs; some are five-seaters with a box-like contraption in the front for a few children and a dog and another seat at the back for a larger child...

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