Last week me and my boyfriend took ourselves off for a few days to enjoy a city break in Amsterdam, and enjoy we did! Despite me being a bad flyer, I love to travel, visit new places and experience new cultures and Amsterdam is a great place to discover as it is so different to any other foreign city that I have been to. Firstly, the architecture, in terms of its lopsided and banana shaped buildings, Amsterdam is completely unique. Apart from boat houses, you will rarely see stand alone houses as it is completely jam packed of terraced housing, each building a different colour with quaint wooden window shutters and balcony's, my dream home!
The food! I'm a big foodie and with breakfast being my fave meal of the day I was thrilled when I came across all the breakfast cafes, little patisseries and bakeries where I ate some of the best pancakes and apple flap, or turnover as we Brits call it, that I've ever eaten. Famous for it's cheese, I was in my element surrounded by shops offering tasters of Amsterdam's finest cheese in so many different flavours; red pesto being my fave! Although we did eat at 3 different Italians 3 nights in a row (oops) I feel like we made up for it with the amount of their cheese we ate!
And of course, the sights! We had done a bit of research prior to our trip and there was so much we wanted to do in the space of just 4 days but we managed to cram it all in. If you ever get the chance to visit the city you must pay a visit to the Heineken museum, Amsterdam are renowned for this beer and there wasn't a bar that we walked past that didn't serve it. It was a great atmosphere, a learning experience and you also got some free beers along the way!
We also visited the Van Gogh museum which had hung on its walls many of the artists original paintings, although I was little dissapointed that some of his most famous paintings were on loan to other galleries so I felt a bit short changed of my 15 euros, but still a good museum to visit if you are a Van Gogh fan. And from admiring elegant centuries old paintings to blushing over erotic imagery and bondage costumes, our next visit was to the sex museum. An interesting experience to say the least and probably the most value for money out of all the museums for only 4 euros, so a worthwhile visit. One of the places I was most looking forward to seeing was the Anne Frank house, I had some knowledge of Anne Franks story and had always been extremely fascinated by it, but until going to the museum I had no idea of the depth of the young girls thoughts and it was quite emotional being in the house where she went into hiding and wrote her diary. It put a lot of things into perspective. I have not yet read her diary in full but I will be making sure I do, a must see in Amsterdam! And again from one extreme to another, we couldn't of visited Amsterdam without sussing out the red light district, as I imagine many other tourists are, we were very curious to see it. It was bazaar how we were walking past restaurants followed by coffee shops, a few sex shops and only a few steps away from a number of the red lit windows, some with stunning women in, was a church! It was strange how laid back the atmosphere was as this is obviously the norm in Amsterdam, so not what I was expecting but this made it feel quite safe, and not seedy which is how some people who have not visited may portray it. It was certainly fascinating, so definitely worth a walk through.
Typing this I cant believe how much we actually managed to cram in as on the last day we also made time for a luxury canal boat cruise and a trip to Artis zoo! The canal cruise was a fab way to see the city by boat, with many narrow canals running round the entire city, it felt very Venice like and also meant you were able to see lots of the area. We had seen some huge tour boats on the main river but you were all boxed in by a glass roof, but we managed to find the most gorgeous little open air boat that had huge comfy cushions, rugs and heaters so it was super cosy! We were also served with complimentary wine, and hot chocolate by the very friendly owners, I felt like a bit of a celeb! Definitely great value to say it was the same price as the bigger, less glamorous boat tours! As for the zoo, I'm a sucker for letting out my inner child so I had a fab day, I had never been to a zoo where some of the animals enclosures are surrounding you so we had monkeys swinging and birds flying above our heads whilst lizards were crawling past you on the floor. We thought it was a bit pricey for 20 euros but we spent a good 2 hours there as there is so much to see, from butterflies to elephants, sea lion shows and an aquarium! I wouldn't say to put this at the top of your list but if you have any spare time it is a fun visit!
Mmm we could not resist!
Everything Amsterdam, in a picture
Best pancake ever!
The cliche photograph
Any guess as to where this was taken?
Getting cosy on our canal boat cruise
Some gorgeous boat houses
Marcus not impressing the birds at the zoo
So by now you will be able to understand why I'd love to spend every weekend in Amsterdam, if only!
Have an of you ever visited the city?
