Amsterdam - Days 8 & 9 (Sunday June 1st, Monday June 2nd)
- ledzeppelin6896
- Jun 3
- 3 min read
Day 8 was a travel day for us as we planned on taking a train from Bruges to Amsterdam. We awoke and finished packing from the previous night and had our final delicious breakfast at Augusto B&B in Bruges. We stuck with our standard fare of bacon, eggs, cheese, bread, cappuccino and English breakfast tea. Once finished, we gathered our belongings and hopped in a taxi towards the Bruges train station. The first leg of our trip took us to Brussels where we caught a second train which took us directly to Centraal Station in Amsterdam.
Once we arrived in Amsterdam in the afternoon, we took a taxi from Centraal to our hotel room, which is actually a little room with a kitchenette located behind the Wladimir Dance Studio in the Jordaan neighborhood in the western part of the city. We quickly unpacked, took a quick rest, and took off a bit later to explore the neighborhood. The canals that criss-cross the city are amazing and are a nice way for locals and tourists to get around town as the inner area of the city has tried to restrict the flow of automobiles. Oh, and literally everyone seems to be riding a bicycle in this city. If you are walking or driving, you need to look out for the hundreds of bicyclists who constantly buzz about, darting in and out of traffic. Keep that head on a swivel!!
We strolled along the canals and cobbled streets until we arrived in the neighborhood containing the Anne Frank House and the Westerkerk Church. We will be visiting this area tomorrow, so I suppose this was a bit of a reconnaissance mission! We ended up eating at a fun pancake house (The Pancake Bakery) for dinner. Katie had a delicious chicken and pineapple pancake (see picture) and Mike had an interesting Mexican pancake. It's good to try new things! We finished up the day by heading back to the room to get a good-night's sleep!
Monday morning began with a coffee, tea and pastry breakfast. It doesn't seem that the Dutch have much of a breakfast culture, so coffee and pastries it is! Today we had two primary things on the agenda: (1) take the hop-on, hop-off bus around town to get a general idea of the layout of the city and see some sites; and (2) visit the Anne Frank Museum later in the afternoon.
We packed up and walked about 15 minutes south to catch the bus on it's closest stop to us. We have a tradition of catching hop-on, hop-off busses in the larger cities on our European trips because again, it helps us gain a general understanding of the layout of the city and gives us an opportunity to hop off the bus at one of it's stops and see some interesting attractions. The bus took us around the exterior loop of the city and we ended up hopping of at the southeast quarter where we visited the Gassan Diamond company. Katie then proceeded to show Mike several of the 121 facet 150 point diamonds she would potentially like in an engagement ring someday. Mike took diligent notes for future reference! Afterwards we went to lunch at the nearby Olijfje Mediterranean restaurant and had unquestionably the best meal of the vacation so far (see picture!). With happy bellies, we did some shopping and quickly stopped by the Rembrandt House (where the famous artist was born/lived) and walked to the Jewish Historical Museum where we caught the bus back to our stop.
After a pit stop back at the room, we went over to the Anne Frank House museum for our tour. Katie had purchased the tickets 6 weeks in advance at 1am in the morning because of the tendency of the museum tickets selling out quickly. I'll be owing her for a long time for that one! The tour was about two hours long and included a fascinating introduction which provided context to the story of Anne and her family. After the intro, we traveled through the actual "house" which was really a back annex built behind an office building where Anne's father worked. The entire visit was well worth the time and money and I'd highly recommend the museum to any of you who might be visiting Amsterdam in the future.
We concluded the evening by visiting the Amsterdam Cheese Museum (Mike's new favorite place in the world!) and the Amsterdam Tulip Museum. Both of these "museums" were actually stores and so we had to break down and purchase some delicious cheese!
Tomorrow we plan on a canal boat tour and a visit to the city's notorious Red Light District.
Until then, as the Dutch say, Tot ziens!!
so enjoyable to follow your adventures! Great weather you two are having! I am taking notes for our upcoming travels!
I'm having such a good time following along with you. I have so many questions about what you've seen and eaten! I was surprised to read that the Mediterranean meal was even better than the gluten-free place in Paris, but it sure did look delicious! Yay for cheese! Their Gouda really is fantastic, better than any I've had outside of the Netherlands. I'm so glad y'all are having good weather and such a good time.