Amsterdam is such an easy country to get to from the UK the flight I took from London was shorter than a flight from Gatwick to Glasgow! Providing you book flights a few weeks in advance you can get some pretty cheap seats too.
Shopping
Amsterdam has an amazing array of markets, boutique stalls and thrift shops as well as all the normal shops you find all over Europe like my favourite Desigual. The Albert Cuypmarkt was the best market, located not far from the Heineken Experience. It was a real locals place with such a wide rage of goods for sale. I also found an awesome cafe called Trust here. The market I was most excited about seeing however wasn’t open on a sunday! The Waterlooplein Markt is a huge flea market located not far from the Nieumarkt which I did visit - although a little small it still had a nice vibe to it. I also found myself wandering through the thrift stores in an area called the ‘Nine Streets’ where you will find those fancy boutique stalls too.
Architecture
The buildings in this city are amazing. Every picture you have seen of this city just won’t do the buildings justice until you are wandering the canals and having to remind yourself to look where you are going not at all the buildings. Most of them are your typical tall and skinny building with some dating back hundreds of years! If you wander down Kloveniersburgwal to number 29 you will find a huge overblown mansion built by one of the cities richest families and is one of the widest buildings in the whole city. In contrast number 26 opposite is one of the narrowest buildings. It isn’t just the residential buildings that are worth a mention even Amsterdam Central Station is beautiful. Also worth a mention are the art museum of Rijksmuseum and the Koninklijk Paleis in Dam Square.
Canals
After cannabis and the red light district the canals are probably the next most famous thing about Amsterdam although shadowed by the fact Venice is famous only for its canals. I still loved wandering along these beautiful canals. They are easy to get totally lost among and on the first day I certainly did just that by bike! The second day I took things a lot slower, wandering around on foot and stopping every two minutes to take a photo. I wasted several hours among those canals and could easily have wasted a few more hours if I hadn’t gone off shopping! Taking a canal boat is also a fantastic way to see the canals and find out a lot more about the history…
After cannabis and the red light district the canals are probably the next most famous thing about Amsterdam although shadowed by the fact Venice is famous only for its canals. I still loved wandering along these beautiful canals. They are easy to get totally lost among and on the first day I certainly did just that by bike! The second day I took things a lot slower, wandering around on foot and stopping every two minutes to take a photo. I wasted several hours among those canals and could easily have wasted a few more hours if I hadn’t gone off shopping! Taking a canal boat is also a fantastic way to see the canals and find out a lot more about the history…
History
Amsterdam is full of history: from how the canals used to work - the buildings on the edge of the city were used as warehouses, the bigger ships would bring goods in to that point and unload them off in the warehouses before smaller boats would distribute the goods around the city - to Anne Frank’s House which is open to the public and remains the most popular tourist attraction in the city. I decided to visit her house but before I could do so had to stand in a queue for 40 minutes, yes it is that popular everyday! If you are lucky enough to book a ticket in advance online you can save yourself the time.
Autumn
Autumn is the perfect time of year to visit. I was there during a late September weekend and the weather was perfect. I was completely overdressed in my long sleeve top and coat! With clear blue skies and the sun streaming down it was perfect exploring weather. The trees around the canals had just started to change colour and begin dropping their leaves. What made autumn even better was the light, as a photographer we talk about something called the ‘golden hour’ well Amsterdam’s lasted for about three hours and I managed to snap some beautiful images during this time. I also found because the main ‘high’ season was over the city was a nice level of busy.
Amsterdam is a great place to visit for a cheeky Europe weekend away from the UK, I loved my time there and was surprised by how much I found to do. You can read more about my trip over on The Little Backpacker.
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