Amsterdam - It takes all sorts.. (Amsterdam)

Member Name: pphb

Product:	Amsterdam
Date:	22/01/02 (214 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fun, good night life, cheap to get to

Disadvantages: weather like England!, Traffic

I visited Amsterdam at the weekend, all very lovely, apart from the weather! We set off on KLM airlines on Friday afternoon after a 50 min drive to Birmingham airport (very easy to get to from Cheltenham). The plane was to leave at 5.50pm the flight took 55 minutes & they are an hour ahead of us time wise. We got off the plane at Schipol airport & decided to take the train to Central Station (as it was quicker & cheaper than a taxi) this cost us 2.90 euros this is about £1.80.

We got off the train & left the station & promptly had to drag my partner out of the road to save his pride (which he say’s is more important than his life – men!?) After a bike came whizzing out of nowhere straight at him! Note: Look both ways for Trams, bikes, cars & buses! I thought Hong Kong & Bangkok were bad – Amsterdam was by far the most dangerous!

We booked the flights & the hotels separately (this gave us a better choice of hotels) we chose the Swissotel which was on the main road that left Central Station. The hotel was a 4* & was very comfortable. The cost was £60 per night including breakfast.

On our first evening there we thought we would take a walk, there are many canals & walkways & the area is very easy to get around without a map. As there were many pizza places etc that were on every road we decided to get some & keep going. We then found ourselves in the middle of the red light district (I’m sure this was all planned by my boyfriend – I’m sure he has the trip mapped out!) Never mind, I’m not a prude & was quite curious. We walked down the canals where the girls obviously hire out window space & stand under a uv type light in their white underwear, we popped into pub after pub & checked out one of the ‘cafés’ – When in Amsterdam…

Well!! What can I say about that? We walked into the Grasshopper, which has a café on the bottom floor, a pub on the middle floor &
a brasserie on the top floor. We went into the café & we hit almost instantly with the smell – we didn’t have to buy anything, as the second hand smoke was enough for me to get up & leave with a fuzzy head! We found the drinks out there were quite expensive, a pint of larger & a vodka & coke were 12 euros, and this is about £8!

We went back to our hotel that night & slept the fuzzy head off! The next day we looked through our guide of Amsterdam & the top 25 places to go – being a very ignorant 23 year old none of this interested me very much!! Such as the Van Gogh museum & Anna Franks House – We did get to the house but the queue was as big as The Nemesis ride at Alton Towers on a Bank Holiday Weekend!! So we decided against this! We took in a few shops & came across the soup kitchen, where they sell the famous pea type soup, it was lovely, it had chicken, frankfurter sausage & peas & although it doesn’t sound very nice it was beautiful.

We took a canal boat ride, which shows off some of Amsterdam’s finest architecture, varying throughout the years. The tour took an hour & was 8 euros about £5 per person. After that we hopped back on the plane (after an hour delay!) and came home, a lovely weekend. For the younger ones Amsterdam is most definitely a night city & for the more appreciative of us it’s both!

All in all a lovely place to go for all ages & all interests, just don’t forget your umberella!

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