Paul had
mentioned his curiosity about visiting Amsterdam; hence, I decided to take him
for a birthday weekend getaway.
Another
reason to choose Amsterdam was that there are 2-3 direct flights a day from
Stansted Airport to Amsterdam. In London there are many airports (like Stansted,
Gatwick, Luton, Heathrow, Southend and London City), but Stansted is the
closest to Cambridge, just a 30 minutes train ride away. Also one expense to
keep in mind and add to the final traveling cost when in UK is the train ticket
to the airport. Going from Cambridge to Stansted airport cost £14 return vs £44
- £75 that cost to go from Cambridge to Heathrow. Luckily EasyJet a popular
charter airline travels to Amsterdam for an affordable price. I found return
tickets for £85.48 per person from January 24th to the 27th.
For
budgeted travel my preferred way of accommodation are vacation rentals, which
are leased directly by their owners. I typically use websites like airbnb.com,
homeaway.com, flipkey.com, tripadvisor.com and vrbo.com etc. For this
particular time I found a studio using bookings.com for £63 pounds per night (a
total of 3 nights for 189). The studio name was Truelove Antique Guesthouse.
Although Guesthouse is part of the name it seemed to me the business consisted
of various apartments scattered around a close perimeter but not all in the
same building. Our studio was at 2 Herenstraat, strategically located close to
everything. I mean it when I say everything. It was two blocks away from the
Red District, but yet, completely isolated from it. Ten minute walk from the
main train station, four blocks away from the Anne Frank museum, a couple of
blocks away from the outdoor market called Boerenmarkt and basically with easy access
to all sorts of things like bike rentals and Jordaan, the new hip neighborhood
with a myriad of restaurants to choose from. Here is a street view of the
studio (http://goo.gl/maps/PNxvD)
located in the basement.
In preparation
for the trip I made three maps using My Places from Google Maps, these maps are
public and here are the links to them.
Museums Amsterdam http://goo.gl/maps/FuXEw
Touristy in Amsterdam http://goo.gl/maps/yBNwH
I was
able to gather a lot of this information thanks to my College friend JO who
lives in Amsterdam now for nearly a decade with his lovely Dutch wife.
I was
really excited planning this trip because I knew Amsterdam had a lot of things
that P likes. For example, Amsterdam has embraced a bit more than other
European countries the concept of microbrewing and experimental brewing. Also
the city, made famous by its manmade canals system has a nautical feel about it
that I know P is fond of, not to mention that some of his favorites painters
are Dutch, including Rembrandt. Last, but not least, is the idea of experiencing
what is advertised as a very liberal society and his hopes of seeing/experiencing
me very very high. The only thing we had against us was the insanely cold
January weather.
The flight
to Amsterdam with EasyJet was ok but extremely full. Amsterdam is one of the
favorite destinations for Stag parties (so call Bachelors’ parties in USA),
hence a larger than normal amount of obnoxious males were on the plane. When
arriving at the airport we needed to get a 15-20 minute train to the center of
the town. The easiest way to buy the tickets is using the machines above the
train tracks. Unfortunately those machines do not accept Visa or Mastercard
debit cards and to use them you must have a Dutch debit card or a
Maestro-enabled debit card. Of course we didn’t know that and spend some time
trying to figure out why it didn’t work. Luckily you can buy train tickets at
the ticket office with cash or any credit/debit card plus the added surcharge
of 50 cents per ticket. When we arrived to the city train station we walked
around 10 minutes to pick up the keys of the rental, we got a bit lost but were
able to find it alright. We left our stuff at the studio and ran to Arendsnest (tp://www.arendsnest.nl/)
a great bar serving 30 Dutch microbrews on tap and 10 bottled. Amongst
others, we sampled Texels Skuumkoppe, Mikkie Stout a beer made for the owner of
the Proenflokaal (tasting bar) and TempelBier Blond. This bar is considered
world class and we felt that when we were there, definitely will come back here
next time.
Woke up went to Baton Brasserie (http://www.brasseriebaton.nl/) for
breakfast, nothing memorable but a very nice ambient. The closest museum was
Anne Frank’s; this one is located in the
actual place where the hiding took place during WWII. The front of the museum
is the storage and office of the Frank family business Opekta (selling spices
and pectin). Everyone has to go, I am still speechless. We stopped at the Boerenmarkt a more organic type of market by Jordaan and
walked around a bit. Right at one corner of the market area we ate the famous
Dutch apple pie at Cafe Winkel (http://www.winkel43.nl/).
We spent some time at a coffeeshop but that was a bit disappointing because they
were not very helpful or educational. We then headed for a nap at the studio if
I remember well. Then we we woke up and went to Los Pilones (http://www.lospilones.com/) a restaurant
recommended by JO. It was really good and we were not disappointed.
The next day we went to Rijksmuseum where they hold
Rembrandts masterpiece the Night Watch. Unfortunately the museum was partly
close but we were able to see some of Rembrandts and Vermeer’s important
paintings. We then decided to rent some bikes in the corner of Westermarkt. To see some of the Van Gogh exhibit, we biked to
the Hermitage museum were the masterpieces are being show while they remodelled
the proper Van Gogh museum. The exhibit was very informative but not overwhelming.
I definitely became more aware of his genius, and was particularly amazed by
paintings like Vase with Violet Irises
Against a Yellow Background. I
am ever drawn to still life but seen this one in person really changed my
perspective. Later we went for lunch to Albertcuypmarkt in a very ethnically
diverse part of town. There you can find anything you might need. That day we
had lunch at the Butcher (http://www.the-butcher.com/about.html)
a pretty hip burger place. Apparently
the establishment also holds an exclusive secret bar behind carefully designed
movable walls that you can only access with the proper password. By that time my dear friend JO was ready to
show us around. We met at AlbertCuyp markt and biked to his home. There we
truly had a great time hanging out with him and his wife. They cooked a
traditional Dutch meal called Witlofschotel ,
SUPER. Then we headed to the Red Light District were we met with a friend of JO
who happened to live there. That was really nice because he showed us around
and took us to all the must see in RLD. We ended up in a really nice bar that I
wished I remembered the name of. Anyhow that was a long night with peek show
included and all.
The next morning we woke with only
enough time to get ready and check out. The check out was as easy as the check
in, but then we had all day to play around. Luckily the train station holds a
self served luggage storage system; it is uber convenient and affordable. Then
we basically walked around all day. We went to the center to see the Palace,
the touristy stores, the Flower market and some other things I can’t remember
because we were really hang over that day. The trip was great we regret not
being able to do two things. One was to take a boat trip on the canal and the
other one was to tour the Heineken Factory. Hopefully we can go back to do it
again.
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