We live an hour away by plane to Amsterdam, and fly through Schiphol on most connecting flights so it was a surprise to lots of people when they learnt we hadn’t ever visited properly and had never actually left the airport. We aimed to rectify that by having a weekend break in Amsterdam.
So off we went on Boxing Day 2017, our bellies still full from Christmas dinner and our minds still whirring from the chaos of present unwrapping and holiday packing. Due to leaving at dark o’clock, we arrived quite early and headed to our Ibis Hotel not far from the centre where we started off our trip with a walk around the city. We trundled alongside beautiful canals, taking it all in whilst heading towards our first stops of the main square and Anne Frank’s House.
We were slightly early so we stopped in at a tea shop just outside the Anne Frank House. Now this was strange experience. Being a lover of tea and it being a cold winter’s day, I ordered what I thought would be a steaming hot milky cuppa just the way I like it. However, out came a milk-less tea and it was in a see through mug! Now this may not seem strange to you but it was to me! The upside of this tea stop however was the discovery of stroopwaffels. I had never heard of them at the time and was in complete awe at both the use of them and their delicious taste. I actually purchased five packets of them in the airport on the way home and made Liam stuff them into our already very full hand luggage!
So after the strange tea, it was time for Anne Frank’s House which was something I’ll never forget. I read Anne Frank’s diary in my early teens and it had always interested me to see and explore where she went through everything she wrote about. It was amazing to finally put a image to the words which had meant so much to younger me.
The next morning we were up bright and early and left the hotel heading in the same direction as yesterday’s adventure. We were starving and looking for somewhere tasty to have breakfast. As we walked past this café and caught a glimpse of some mouth-watering, hot chocolate drizzled waffles in the window – we couldn’t resist! We had to get a couple and they were so delicious (maybe slightly too much sugar for 8:30am!).
After this we headed along to the main square and went to visit the Royal Palace. We had spent a long time looking at this building the night before and we were intrigued about lay inside. We got there right at opening so we didn’t have to compete with many people. It was ten euros entry which we thought was a good price as it also included an audio guide.
We went inside and it’s incredible to think that it was originally a town hall which later became the Royal Palace after much turmoil. The palace is currently used for formal and state events and is a tourist attraction. The interior was amazing and I adored the floor in the main hall which had huge images of the Earth built into it. However it must have caught me in a daze as out of nowhere I launched my audio guide across it and it made an almighty racket as it bounced along the historic floor, I genuinely thought I was about to be detained for breaking a priceless piece of art (and if not arrested but that Liam might have murdered me for making such a spectacle!). Luckily for me there was a rather kind security guard on duty and instead of throwing us out, he instead handed back my now slightly scuffed audio guide and I embarrassingly scuttled away as quick as I could.
That afternoon we headed to the AFC Ajax stadium. We love seeing football stadiums as they are always such impressive structures and Ajax’s did not disappoint. It was a guided tour round the main parts of the stadium showing you the pitch, up in the stands, security rooms, dressing rooms and much more. Fun fact, our favourite football team, Falkirk actually beat Ajax in 2007 (and Liam was there!) so he was definitely lording that over them as we walked round.
That evening we went on a night cruise along the canals, it wasn’t planned as we weren’t actually convinced we would like it but we just caught one starting as we passed, took the chance on it and we were so glad we did! During the time we were there, there was a lights festival going on and even though we didn’t pay to go on the official light tour we ended seeing most of it anyway. It was such a lovely way to spend the evening, especially as we hadn’t been sure if we would actually like it. Luckily, we both loved it and this actually inspired us to take one when we went to Budapest! We had an audio tour in English the whole way round and it gave a lot of background information.
My favourite thing we learned on this tour was about how they used hooks on the outside of the buildings to move heavier items inside, something I had noticed on our walks through the city but never considered their use.
The next day we headed south for Den Haag and what was meant to be a simple get on and get off journey turned into the grand tour of the Netherlands. It started off well, we left early and took the train towards Den Haag, however we hadn’t even made it 30 minutes out and all of a sudden there was lots of announcements in Dutch. We sat for ages trying to work it out until the conductor came round and explained there had been an issue and this train was now cancelled. Now, we were in a random station in the Netherlands and had to either find our way back to Amsterdam or onwards to Den Haag. It was here we were both lucky and silly as we found a lovely conductor who told us to to get the train to Howda and get a train direct to Den Haag from there…so off we went to the train board to find this Howda train only to discover there was none and started to panic again. After five minutes of wracking our brains we realised our mistake and that the conductor had actually said ‘Gouda’ in the proper Dutch pronunciation. So five trains later and what seemed like the longest travel morning ever we finally made it to Den Haag with loads of time to spare for our tour in the afternoon.
The day trip to Den Haag was to see the Binnenhoff and the Mauritshuis museum. The Binnenhoff is the Dutch Parliament and it was so interesting to see inside, their parliament is a mixture of old and new and our tour guide was super, giving us looks into areas we might never have seen on a normal tour.
After that we headed to the Mauritshuis museum which houses the Girl with the Pearl Earring, a painting I had always wanted to see. What was also impressive it turned out, was the building itself, it was like a Royal Palace, all regal and polished.
Luckily we had a much easier trip home than we did getting there and we were so glad we made the trip to Den Haag, it was worth the crazy train journey!
For our final day in Amsterdam we visited the world famous Rijksmuseum, for one main reason: not only does it have a huge amount of impressive artwork, it also contains The Night Watch painting which we had heard Liam’s Nan talk so much about and we wanted to see in person. It was truly impressive, a sight to behold, we couldn’t get over how large it was!
This was by far the busiest place we went so I would recommend getting there early as we were there for just after opening and it was already packed!
The last attraction we went to was our favourite of the trip, the Heineken Experience. This was so much more than we expected! We thought it would just be a brewery tour but it was a history tour/experience/brewery/bar! I loved hearing about the history of the brewery and its beginnings. You also got to see the process of making the beer which lead on to the coolest part…the stables where they were handing out pints of beer and these lovely little pastries.
Now, I’m not a huge beer drinker so Liam got 6 beers this day, as you got one in the stables then two tokens you could redeem in the bar at the end. I tried half in the stables, wasn’t keen so Liam had his then finished mine and then proceeded to redeem all four of our remaining tokens.
Another section we really enjoyed was the design your own beer bottle experience, we highly recommend this but please don’t make the mistake we did as we forgot to put it in our checked luggage (as it’s over 100ml) and we had to discard it at security! However, the funniest part of the day was Liam sneaking out one of the Heineken glasses up his sleeve and then us getting stopped at the door convinced we had been caught and it was actually just to complete a satisfaction survey! That glass now sits pride of place in our flat and reminds us of the stress and hilarity of that moment!
This ended our trip to Amsterdam and we headed home that night. I had thought Amsterdam would be one of our favourite places but for some reason it just never made it there. We loved the city but it doesn’t hold a special place in our hearts like other cities have done in the past. However, that being said we did enjoy ourselves and would recommend people go to see the cultural experience that is Amsterdam.
