Netherlands - Amsterdam

Netherlands – Amsterdam and the Keukenhof Gardens

In the last post about Germany, I described our epic train ride from Koln to Amsterdam… let’s start this post off with: we made it to Amsterdam shortly after dark. We walked outside the train station, and into a construction zone (they are installing a new subway line). From what we’d read, the tram was the quickest and easiest way to get around in the city. Thankfully for us, three different lines stopped just a few blocks from our hotel. Within 15 minutes of arriving in the city, we were in front of our hotel.

Bring on the next problem – we were staying at a bed and breakfast, and no one was home!! Thankfully, it didn’t take long to get our hosts on the phone. They had run next door to talk to their neighbors and lost track of time. We settled into our beautiful room on the 3rd floor of a house, built in the late 1600’s, right on the one of the canals. Our room overlooked the central courtyard shared by all the houses on the block. Since we hadn’t had a chance to eat during our train trip, we asked our hosts for a recommendation. They sent us to the local pub, where we proceeded to drink our dinner in the form of some yummy Belgian beer!

The next morning cemented our newly-discovered love of bed and breakfasts. We had breakfast on the second floor of the house, in a beautiful dining room with 20’ ceilings and huge windows overlooking the canal. We had soft boiled eggs served in cute little egg holders (neither of us had ever tried a soft boiled egg before, so it was a bit of an experience) and bread with chocolate sprinkles to put on the buttered slices.

After our delicious breakfast, we started our day’s touring adventure at the Rijksmuseum. This is a huge art museum filled with an impressive collection of Dutch artwork. Most of the huge building was under renovation, so we got the condensed version of the museum. All the best works of art crammed into about 12 rooms. It was perfect for Chris and me. No extra walking and no trying to figure out which paintings we’re supposed to be looking for amongst the thousands on the walls (that will come in our tour of the Louvre later in the trip). As with most art museums, no pictures for you!

Having had enough culture for one day (we have a one art museum per day limit), we headed over to the Heineken brewery for the “Heineken Experience”. We toured the brewery and experienced being made into beer in their 3-D theatre. The sampling at the end of the tour was our favorite part! The tables in the sampling area were touch-sensitive, but only to the beer glasses, not your hands.

What better way to follow up a brewery tour than with a trip to the world famous Keukenhof flower gardens. These gardens, open only for a few weeks in the spring, are home to thousands upon thousands of tulips, daffodils, hyacinth, and many others. We spent a chilly but partly sunny afternoon walking through the entire garden (thanks Brass family for this awesome recommendation). We took TONS of pictures, and then we took some more because everything was so pretty. This was by far our biggest picture day of the trip, topping out over 700!

We closed down the park, then took the train back into Amsterdam. We had asked our hosts about what foods were “must eats” in Amsterdam, and they told us we had to have toasties, pancakes, croquettes, and beer. Chris latched onto the pancakes idea, so we went in search of a pancake house for dinner. We found one… sort of. We ordered toasties and pancakes. Let’s just say we were a little disappointed. Pancakes turned out to be crepes with a slice of meat and cheese and toasties were toasted Wonder Bread with sliced tomatoes and cheese. Yummy! We followed up this dinner disappointment with a big order of cheese french fries from a fry stand (apparently fries are big deal in this part of Europe – they were sold everywhere).

Our second morning in Amsterdam started with an interesting and extremely depressing tour of the Anne Frank house. Only in a city constructed like Amsterdam could that many people hide in such a (relatively) large space for so long. This was by far the most tourist-filled place we’d been yet. We pretty much just followed the flow of people, single file, through the house and back out through the gift shop – always through the gift shop. We had lunch across the street from the museum, at a little café along the canal. Chris decided to try croquettes, the last of our recommended foods. They were okay. Kind of like mozzarella sticks, but with gravy instead of cheese.

After lunch, we followed a long and winding path through the Jordaan neighborhood. This neighborhood was supposed to be one of the most picturesque neighborhoods in the city, and it was. We enjoyed walking through the peaceful residential streets and past a few scattered sidewalk cafes. From the Jordaan neighborhood, we eventually made our way to the City Library. The library has one of the best panoramic views of the city, and as a bonus, the inside of the library is seriously cool! We took the required pictures and enjoyed a little dessert at the rooftop cafeteria before setting out for a walk through the famous Red Light District.

The Red Light District did not live up the hype at all. The neighborhood looked almost exactly like the rest of the places we had been walking though with the exception of more police, more tourists and red lights over nearly every door. We expected to see scantily clad women at every turn, but that was true of only a couple of little alleyways. Nothing was nearly as scandalous as we thought it would be (thankfully, I think!). We didn’t take any pictures of this area – we were warned that it was possible to have our memory confiscated should we happen to take a picture of the wrong thing. We decided not to risk it!

We wrapped up our last night Amsterdam with a performance of the Boom Chicago improv comedy group. This came highly recommended from a family friend, and it was the perfect way to finish our time in Amsterdam. Boom Chicago is a group of British comedians that started doing performances in Amsterdam many years ago and never left. The show we saw was all about Social Media – Facebook, eBay, Twitter, you name it. We laughed for two hours straight!

The next morning, we got up late, had a final delicious breakfast, and boarded the train for Brussels!