When you hear of Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands, what comes to mind? For many, they think of a city full of tulips, canals and bicycles in an area of Europe that is known for its history and architecture. For others, they think of young tourists who are partying and smoking weed in the coffeeshops or have visions of sexy women in the infamous red-light district where prostitution is legal. All of these are accurate of my favorite European city, but there is SO much more to Amsterdam. Let me tell you why I love it so much and I might just convince you to book your next trip to the Dutch city.
The Dutch are known to be an open-minded society that are happy (despite the wet weather), well-educated, well-traveled and are all able to speak English…in fact don’t feel like you need to learn a single word in Dutch before travel, you won’t need it. This could not be more different than most European cities I’ve lived or visited. Typically, most of Europe will either appreciate you for trying to speak the language, like Germany or Spain and be patient, but some countries will ridicule your accent and look at you like a “stupid America.” I could care less what people say or think of my accent, I’m from Philly even Americans make fun of how I say w-a-t-e-r (‘wudder’). My husband feels different, languages intimidate him. He’s only been traveling abroad since we’ve been together the past 12 years, but he feels more at home in Amsterdam than America most of the time and I feel that is because of the lack of language barrier.
Travelers often get confused about the terms The Netherlands, Dutch and Holland and use them interchangeably, so here is the scoop. Amsterdam is the capital city of The Netherlands, a royal kingdom whose government is a constitutional monarch and has a royal family. You can visit the royal palace when the family is not present for royal duties. Holland is a region that is split into both North Holland and South Holland, but a very small area of land in the grand scheme of the Low Countries (referring to the countries of The Netherlands, Belgium & Luxembourg). Amsterdam and the famous tulip farms are in North Holland, along with the smaller sister city, Haarlem is just west of the capital and yes New York City’s Harlem is named after it, since NYC was originally a Dutch colony. The cities of Rotterdam, The Hague and Leiden are all located in South Holland. The Dutch are the people of The Netherlands and any of its colonial kingdoms like the Caribbean Islands of Bonaire and Curacao in The Netherlands Antilles. Don’t worry, there will not be a quiz!
The first trip I ever took to Amsterdam was an 18-hour layover while traveling to Cairo, Egypt. I was in my early 20’s, meeting a group in the Middle East and could not be more excited than to go to the Anne Frank House! I was a teacher who focused on the Holocaust and read Anne Frank with numerous classes over the years. 18-hours, when you are young and choose to sleep in planes rather than hotels, is a good long time to really see the city. After stowing my suitcase in a locker, I hopped on the train to head into Central Station in the heart of Amsterdam. It was very early in the morning, so I found a café (not coffeeshop…at least not yet) for breakfast until my Anne Frank ticket, first entrance of the day, time slot arrived. Even though it was a small museum (just the apartment with the attic and then an adjacent building for the museum) I spent hours there soaking everything in, learning more to share with my students and spending a pretty penny in the bookstore. On my way out, I stopped for some photos of Westerkerk (West Church) on the canal at the corner. This was the church that the young author wrote about hearing in her diary, that was her only connection while hiding from the outside world. I got to hear its chim before finding a lunch spot. After grabbing a quick bite, the classic lunch of fruit & cheese and a baguette sandwich I’ve always loved in Europe, I decided on a cruise tour near the train station.
There are a million options and many you don’t need a reservation for, but if you want to research them or are looking for a specific time, book ahead of time on an app like Get Your Guide or Viator. This year, when Hubby and I go for a couple’s trip in Winter, we are going to do a Light Festival canal cruise. We’ve also done wine and cheese cruise tours, romantic sunset canal cruises and even a smoke and cruise boat tour. This summer, we will be bringing the whole family to Amsterdam for the first time and will be looking for a family friendly, informational canal cruise. Whatever your style, a canal cruise in Amsterdam is a must do and should be scheduled early in your trip to help gain your bearings and efficiently see the sites of Amsterdam.
On this celebratory first trip, I also took part in the recreational Marijuana culture. I found a coffeeshop, which does sell coffee but more specifically sells weed. When entering a coffeeshop, they check ID’s and then you order at a marijuana bar, before relaxing in the lounge area. I just bought one ‘pure’ joint (no tobacco) and then ordered a fresh mint tea and ordered a tootsie for a snack (similar to a flat grilled cheese). Finally, I had to say good-bye to Amsterdam to head back to Schiphol airport. Little did I know that I would be spending a miserable 3 days recovering from parasites on my layover on the way home. My friend Brittany and I didn’t leave the hotel airport and had a doctor visit us at the hotel, this is a great part of the Dutch health system. We were prescribed medications, given IV fluids and handed a joint with instructions of how to smoke it medicinally to curb nausea right in our hotel room. Even though it is a terrible memory, Amsterdam was a great place to get medical attention…especially coming from Cairo!
My next three trips were in the years I was living in Berlin, Germany. This is when I first learned about the Keukenhof tulip festival and beautiful spring flowers that Holland has to offer. This became an annual pilgrimage to see each year and thankfully I had lots of long weekend holidays in Spring on my German school calendar. Large groups of friends would share hostel rooms and see the museums and sites of our choice during the day and ate, drank and partied well into the night. European & International teachers are a different breed! My love for the Dutch city grew to be one of my favorite places to travel. I was excited to share it a few years later, with the man who became my husband and life-long travel partner.
My hubby had a big birthday one year into our dating and I wrapped up a passport application with an itinerary for a 12-day trip to Berlin, Amsterdam and Paris. If he was going to be with me, he was going to need to be able to hang and a European tour is not for beginners. I showed him the city of Berlin, Germany where I had lived for a few pivotal years, loving the European lifestyle. Berlin was having a heat wave, and it became very real to my Florida born boyfriend that most of Europe does not have air conditioning. After a few days we were in Amsterdam, with an amazing respite of the heat. Amsterdam is often cool and rainy well into mid-summer months, so be prepared with rain gear and a sweater and jeans. After the most amazing time in Amsterdam, we took the train south to Paris. My husband is a classically trained painter, so between the art museums of Paris and visiting Claude Monet’s home and studio at Giverny, Ken’s first European trip was life changing to say the least. However, Amsterdam was always the city that stuck in his mind and he fell in love with, taking me back many subsequent years during Spring Break, right in time for tulip season. After 5 trips as a couple and my own trips when living just a train ride away in Germany, these are my top recommendations for a visit to Amsterdam.
Best of Amsterdam Attractions
There are a lot of museums in Amsterdam, you are never going to get to them all, so my advice is to pick your top 2-3 choices depending on the length of your trip. Taking into consideration the season and weather, it may be more reasonable to choose more indoor attractions in the winter. The top museums and churches to visit in central Amsterdam:
· Rijksmuseum
· Van Gogh Museum
· Rembrandt House Museum
· Stedelijk Museum (modern art)
· Anne Frank House
· Madame Tussaud’s wax museum
· National Maritime Museum
· Amsterdam Museum
· Houseboat Museum
· Museum On’s Lieve Heer-Op Solder
· Nieuwe Kerk (Amsterdam’s New Church)
· Oude Kerk (Amsterdam’s Old Church)
· Basilica of St. Nicholas
When you first arrive in Amsterdam, almost everyone arrived from the Central train station. This is a great spot to buy metro tickets for the duration of your trip. Amsterdam has an elaborate maze of metro, train and bus transportation that is all covered on a day or week pass. Unless you plan to truly embrace the bicycling culture and rent bikes for your whole trip, public transportation will be your best friend. The maps are easy to read, take a picture of the metro map and ask the metro operators any questions. They are all friendly, knowledgeable and speak English and many other languages. Other top attractions to consider when visiting Amsterdam:
· Canal cruise, bike tour or walking tour (especially good for history enthusiasts)
· Blumenmarket- flower market
· Zaanse Schans- windmill tour just outside of Amsterdam
· Eye Film Museum or Concertgebouw (classical concert hall)
· Dutch food tour or cheese tasting
· Heineken Experience or beer tasting tour
· Red-light district and coffeeshop tour
One of the quintessential parts of visiting Amsterdam any time of year is visiting its parks. This is not just for children, in fact you see more grown-ups in parks than kids, except for a playground area. One of my favorite lunch options is to pick up the makings of a tourist’s picnic. I stop in at one of the bakeries, sandwich shops or even a market stall to pick up European sandwiches & pastries. Then head to a convenience store for drinks and interestingly flavored chips (my favorites are the old bay). Then head to a bench on a canal or neighborhood park to enjoy your lunch outside. There is also a huge, well-maintained park no matter what part of the city you find yourself in. Vondelpark and Rembrandt Park are south and the two most popular with tourists. The other three big parks are Noorderpark in the northern part of the city. Oosterpart in the east and my favorite, Westerpark in the west. Parks are also a great place to enjoy a snack, sweet or ice cream on a sunny day or let the kids run off steam.
Neighborhoods
Once out of Central Station, walk or take the tram down any of the three streets that run directly south. Walking down Damrak you will come across your first experience of Dutch French fries at MannekenPis & Vlaamse Frites Snackland. These delicious fry shops are one of my favorite things and offer lots of great sauce options such as truffle mayo, Amsterdam sauce and curry ketchup. After navigating a few blocks of touristy souvenir and food shops you will emerge in The Dam or Dam Square. The Royal Palace, Nieuwekerk and National Monument are all in this square. Many walking tours will begin and return to this location. There is a second super busy MannekenPis fry window tucked back in these streets. The line is a little shorter, but still wraps down the street most of the time. The main high end department store is De Bijenkorf and is a great place for window shopping. Also on this block are the more affordable types of stores, the ones I shopped in when living in Europe, like Peek and Cloppenburg, Zara and H&M. All three stores are reasonable shopping, but with European style and a great place to pop in if you happened to pack for winter and it is sunny and 80 degrees every day and you need a few short sleeve shirts…been there. This is also the area where my second favorite Coffeeshop is located called Abraxas, tucked down a little side street. This coffee shop has a great atmosphere, music and the best hot chocolates for a cool afternoon. Be prepared to navigate tight spaces and sit close to others, that is the European way.
Just east of the main central area is the neighborhood of De Wallen, otherwise known as the infamous Red-light district. During the day this is a normal, working class area where there are shops and daycares interwoven into the fabric of sex work in these few streets. Book a walking tour or visit Red Light Secrets to learn the history of legal prostitution in Amsterdam and the ins and outs of how to behave (most importantly, don’t take pictures of the girls in the windows). There is a maze of small streets lined with bars, take away food, coffeeshops, sex stores and the infamous red lights. The windows with red lights are showing the girls who are ready for work and if a curtain is drawn, then they are currently with a client. There are also blue lights, although far less, but these are signifying trans working girls. There are many other sex inspired activities in the Red Light District, such as short cinema shows and 5D porn shows that attract single men, couples, groups, bachelor/bachelorette parties all to get wild on the small canal streets. Popular with couples there are two main sex shows you can visit, Moulin Rouge and Casa Rosso. Both have tickets that include drinks, are sure to ignite a fun date night with your partner, but ultimately are quite cheesy. The Red-light district is a fun night out to have, but be ready for some seedy people and pickpockets are popular in this part of town.
The newest and more popular neighborhood with the young residents of Amsterdam is in Noord, located north of Central Station. To access Noord you catch the free ferry from behind Central Station. In recent years, new attractions have been built such as the A’DAM tower lookout. This attraction is both a lookout tower that you can see all of Amsterdam from with fine dining, casual dining and bar atmospheres to suit your taste and time. If you are more of an adrenaline junky, there are two heart pounding attractions, Over the Edge, Europe’s highest swing and Amsterdam VR Ride, an ultimate roller coaster experience. If my kids want to prove something they can do that crazy swing, I’ll be sipping a drink in the revolving restaurant. While you are up in the northern neighborhood, visit the NDSM-Werf where the Anne Frank art installation can be seen. Finally, no trip to Noord is complete without seeing the Krijtmolen d’Admiraal windmill, the last remaining wind powered windmill along the north Holland Canal.
The south canal belt is the part of the city on the inside of the canal ring and then Amsterdam Zuid area gets much more residential. The Bloemenmarkt is a floating flower market and a must see place. Even if you don’t travel in Spring for the Tulip festival you can always see the tulips and beautiful flowers here. This is also a great spot to pick up a small bouquet of flowers for your hotel room if you are staying for a week or longer. The Magere Brug or skinny bridge is another great photo spot and super crowded at sunset since you can get such great photos of the sunset. The trendy neighborhood of de Pijp is also in the south canal belt and is easily accessible from the tram. If you are looking for European hipster culture that is even more casual than the rest of Amsterdam, de Piji (sounds like ‘pipe’) is your place for cafes, coffeeshops and bakeries. Many tourists first venture to this area for the Albert Cuypmarkt, the largest and most well known market in all of Amsterdam. You can get everything from clothing and homegoods to fruit and cheese at this market. A little further southwest in the south canal belt are Rembrandtplein and Leidseplein. Rembrandtplein is known for its statue of Rembrandt and is very popular during the day with tourists. Leidseplein is a popular nightlife location to find bars, clubs and coffeeshops open late into the evening. In Amsterdam, 18 years old is the legal age for all alcohol and marijuana activities, but please be responsible at any age or stage.
Our favorite neighborhood is in the North Jordaan, Harlemerstat neighborhood which is in the most northern part of the Jordaan, above the western canal belt where most of the tourists are attracted by the Anne Frank house and shopping. Haarlemmerstraat is the main road, traveling west from The Central Canal Ring, two of our favorite coffeeshops, Greenhouse and Coffeeshop Amsterdam are located down this street. Café Kobalt and Miss B’s for lunch or dinner, a fry shop that isn’t as busy (Omas Friet Amsterdam) and infamous brunch location of the Breakfast club are all located down this street. Eventually Haarlemmerstraat turns into Haarlemmerdijk running all the way to Haarlemmerplein where the Wednesday market day takes place. The street spills into Westerpark on the far side of the intersection. We have grown to really love this park in the spring and summer, the flower smell is amazing!
The best restaurants and shops are located in the southern part of the Jordaan neighborhood. Restaurants such as Winkle 43 and Box Sociaal Jordaan for breakfast and brunch. Pesca, Salmuera, La Oliva, Black & Blue Steakhouse and La Perla Pizzeria are all amazing lunch and dinner locations I’ve personally tried and loved over our recent trips. I typically try to book reservations most nights, then cancel in the last afternoon if we don’t feel like going or get distracted and don’t end up back in the city in time. For our couples trips, I aim to book a cafe for casual French food, steakhouse, seafood restaurant, Spanish or Latin restaurant and a Chinese restaurant to try to cover our favorite foods. There are also many vegetarian and Indian options that I hear are great, but not our cup of tea. There is a bakery, pastry shop, cheese store or ice cream shop lining the streets of the whole city, but especially the Jordaan neighborhood.
Our last trip, this past Spring of 2023 didn’t start out too well for us and almost was a disaster, but turned into one of our best trips ever! The night before our flight, I started the traditional check in process and was only able to complete mine on my phone app. After getting frustrated, I went onto the website to try to check my husband in and froze in my tracks when I realized that the date of his passport expired just a few days after our scheduled return. I had a faint memory of a friend of mine having this issue when visiting his girlfriend in Germany, the passport couldn’t expire within 3 months of the return date. We panicked, even drove to the airport to verify the issue and see if we had any chance of getting an expedited passport from the airport… no luck. With the heaviest heart, I had to change our flight reservations for 4 weeks later, the soonest we felt was safe for expedited passport service. We spent over $800 and 2 weeks of our lives stressing over getting his passport in time for our rebooked trip, but the lesson was clear…be on top of your passport and 6 months prior to it expiring start the renewal process. In the end, we had to find an alternative hotel in Westerpark since we unknowingly rebooked for one of the busiest weeks of the year in May. Between the Tulip festival and the celebration of King’s Day, which we were not prepared for until 2 days prior when people started to ask us what our plans were and we read up on King’s Day.
Koningsdag is the official name of the holiday and it’s to celebrate the King’s birthday. How do you celebrate? First you have to get something obnoxiously orange to wear, this is a nonnegotiable, orange isn’t my color either, but I now own an orange Holland hoodie and hat just for the occasion. The royal family is named the Huis van Oranje “House of Orange” and as a result it has become a national color, even without being on the Dutch flag. The whole country celebrates and each city has their own parties, but in Amsterdam the biggest celebration is in the Jordaan neighborhood. The festivities start the night before with free concerts and dance festivals set up and people from all over Europe and the world dancing and partying together in the streets, trying not to fall into the canals. In the morning, we woke up to a sea of market style vendors in Westerpark and along ALL the streets and learned that this is the only free day in The Netherlands to sell your personal goods for free. Think of a cross between a flea market and food stalls selling family treats and cold drinks. Some families who live in the main areas have house parties and some homes even sell use of their personal bathrooms for a euro or two! After afternoon sets in, the canals are FULL of party boats and full is an understatement! Watching the boats zig zagging around the canals, with different dance music playing all over the city and partiers enjoying this fun day off. In the late afternoon, I recommend a nap and a good meal before going back out for the evening street parties and concerts. The city swells with tourists and piles up with trash, but quickly cleans up and is back in business in a day or two post celebration. I never would’ve intentionally planned a trip for this specific celebration, I often choose to travel during off times or less peak dates for both enjoyment as well as good travel deals, but I think we will plan to celebrate a future Koningsdag on purpose.
If you have decided to organize any of the day trips easily accessible from Amsterdam you basically have 4 options: organized bus tours, regional trains, uber or renting a car. If you want to take out all of the thought process and you just want to sit back and be a 100% tourist, then book the bus tour. There are tons of options and many are available to book for free from Viator or Get Your Guide, and can be changed up until the last few days. The most expensive option is to uber or book a private tour, but for some places it’s worth it. Keukenhof, Haarlem and Utrect are all easy uber trips for that door to door service. The train system is extensive in this part of Europe and you can plan a train trip for any of these places. These train rides need a different ticket then what you have for the metro, but you only need to arrive a few minutes ahead of time and often can buy a ticket on the platform. You will do the same thing if you leave Amsterdam by train for another city like Paris or Berlin. Other great places to visit near Amsterdam include:
· Keukenhof and tulip field tour in Spring season (end of March-May)
· Giethoorn day trip
· Edam, Volendam & Marken
· Gouda, The Hague or Rotterdam
· Utrecht
· Brussels or Bruges, Belgium
· Christmas Market to Cologne, Germany (December only)
Our family has two more trips to Amsterdam planned during 2024, starting with Ken’s birthday trip in January. We found an awesome mid-winter deal through Priceline that we couldn’t pass up, so we booked it for the week of Ken’s birthday to celebrate in his favorite city. We will be staying in the city center, directly across from Central Station in a much more posh hotel than we typically book in Amsterdam. Then this summer we have booked a family trip starting in Amsterdam for a week, then taking the train to Paris for a few days, before renting a car to drive to Normandy, France and back up to The Netherlands. We plan to stop in Brussels and Antwerp, Belgium and end up spending our last few days on Zandvoot Beach. I have never been to a Dutch beach and have always wanted to, assuming they are similar to the German beach holidays I have experienced. I am sure the kids will really appreciate some beach experiences in France and The Netherlands after the big city days in Amsterdam and Paris.
I can’t wait to share my love for Europe with my kids and see their amazement of how different Europe is through their eyes. I did that about 10 years ago with their dad and now our favorite city of Amsterdam means so much to us. There are so many things I can’t wait to experience with our kids, things I want to show them and foods I want them to try in the city. We also look forward to doing some kid friendly things that we have not done yet such as Artis (zoo), Botanical gardens and NEMO the Science museum. I’m planning a 3 part blog series once we return this summer, so stay tuned. Is Amsterdam on your bucket list?
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