Amsterdam, Netherlands

Amsterdam is easily one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever had the pleasure of visiting. Here our some of the highlights from our trip:

Van Gogh Museum

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I am not usually a museum person. Europe has completely changed that. The Van Gogh museum was wonderful! Really cool glimpse into the mind of Vincent, as the museum was organized in the sequence of his life. Was a little disappointed that Starry Night was not among the collection (it’s currently in the MOMA in New York if you were wondering), but I still thoroughly enjoyed our time there.

^my favorite of his works

Bloemenmarkt

Did you really go to Holland if you don't go see the Tulips??? We went to one of the many flower markets along the canals and got to see tons of the famous flowers! Fun fact: the entire flower market is the only floating flower market in the world!

Heineken Experience

I still have mixed thoughts about this particular experience. Possibly because I’ve already done a couple other brewery tours in Dublin, the first part of the tour seemed a little redundant. They just recently unveiled a new part of the “experience” in which you move room to room and are shown the brewing process from the perspective of the beer? It was interesting… I did, however, like that they had the Heineken Horses there in the stables (which we later saw on the streets actually delivering Heineken to local pubs!).

Albert Cuypmarkt

With more than 260 stalls, this is Amsterdams largest and busiest market! Since it was super close to our hotel (we stayed in De Pijp neighborhood) so we ended up here on multiple occasions. Lots of great fresh food and suveniers. This is where I had my first official Dutch Stroopwafel!!

The Canals

On our first full day in the city we decided to take a canal boat ride to get our bearings and learn a little of the history of the city. It was a nice relaxing interlude to the day and we even got to scope out some of the places we wanted to visit!

The Fault in our Stars Bench

Not gunna lie, this movie was a big part of me wanting to come visit Amsterdam in the first place. Finding the bench was pretty easy and on our way into town so it was definitely worth checking out! Fun fact: it’s one of the only benches actually attached to the ground due to the fact that after the film was released many attempted to steal the bench…

A Note on Bikes

Amsterdam is known as being the “biking capital of the world” and I can personally attest to the fact I’ve never seen so many bikes on the street at a time. Never have I ever been more cautious when crossing the street (if you know me, this isn’t normally the case). The bikes here are CRAZY!!! I am seriously impressed that we both made it the entire trip without being run over.

Food

There was so much good food that I’m not going to bore you with the details… in this post. I have created an entirely separate post dedicated to the wonderful food of Amsterdam, linked here.

Amsterdam has officially secured itself near the top of my list of favorite places in the world, and I hope this post showed you a little bit about why.

As the Dutch say, “Tot de volgende keer”

-B

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