I have a confession to make…
I visited Amsterdam with my girlfriends and for the most part, it was all a dream. Literally! Amsterdam had so much to offer when it comes to the Arts and it is home to some of the best museums in the world. For the most part, we squandered the opportunity to enjoy this history and art away. How was it squandered away you might ask? Special Cake… But I will get to that later.
In my opinion, Amsterdam is not a thriving culinary city, and we spent half of our first evening there searching for a suitable place to eat. We settled on a pub that offered shepherd’s pie and french onion soup to get us by. After dinner, we headed straight to the red light district! It was everything that I thought It would be and more. The red light district was full of streets lined with sex shops, peep shows and women posing casually in windows of walk up brownstones waiting for you to make an offer. No photography was allowed of the ladies in the windows, but they were not shy and their intentions were very clear.
Later that night, we stopped by a coffee shop for dessert and stumbled upon what the locals call “special cake”. Amsterdam is famous for its free spirit and long time legalization of weed. It comes in all forms, and one of the most common ways that it is served in Amsterdam is in baked goods. So back to dessert… We had coffee and cake at the Damkring and that is all I can remember about Amsterdam until our last day and our visit to the Anne Frank Museum.
My friend Avital’s father, Fred Spiegel is a Holocaust survivor and author, and because of his ties to the Anne Frank foundation, we were able to walk right into the museum and house to enjoy the tour. As you can see from the photo below, the line gets pretty long very early, so it is recommended that you purchase tickets online before going. You can also purchase them up to two months in advance. http://www.annefrank.org
Unfortunately, we did not go inside of the Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum, or the Rembrandt House. Blame it on the “special cake”. According to my photos, we walked by and I do know that we had a great time! Amsterdam is a great hub to other countries in Europe by plane or by train. We took a roundtrip flight to Rome for $85 from Amsterdam. When we came back, we took the train from the airport to the Hague for about 10 euro and stayed for a couple of days. We explored the North Sea and ate amazing Argentinan food by the beach. I must go back!
So to recap, you have your four must see museum’s in Amsterdam, be sure to check out Fred Spiegel’s book Once the Acacias Bloomed and if all else fails with food, eat pomme frities and waffles!
At the end of the week, I will be traveling to Europe with my In- laws, so be sure to follow my travels on instagram and catch my instastories for the details.
Live, Love, Travel…
Alisha
