This will be your guide to 4 AMAZING days in Amsterdam, Netherlands. I have to start by saying, I’ve never seen a more beautiful city than this one. Experiencing the different culture and way of life of the people that live there was incredible. I am so grateful to have explored this city with my dad. This guide will include things to do, places to eat, and some helpful tips when navigating your way through this unique city! I will also include a few things that I would have loved to do, but didn’t get a chance to because of timing.
DAY ONE
My dad and I arrived in Amsterdam by plane from Dublin, Ireland around 2:00 in the afternoon. We jumped on public transportation from the airport to the city center where we checked into our Airbnb (we opted for cheaper places to stay because we only needed a place to sleep, not hang out). We stayed on Kinkerstraat, which ended up being a perfect location! I loved this little spot in our apartment that overlooked the busy street and made us feel like we were lived there.
We stumbled upon an adorable restaurant close to our street that had a ton of outdoor seating right along one of the canals, so we decided to eat there. The restaurant is called Dapper, Amsterdam. Here we tried a few of the native street foods of Amsterdam, bitterballen and cheesefingers. Bitterballen are fried balls of meat mixed with a thickening agent, making them a very interesting texture. Cheesefingers ended up being fried wonton wrapped cheese (tasted like spray cheese). We didn’t love either of these, but dedicated ourselves to try some of the local foods, so it was fun! We ordered the Dapper Platter that was DELICIOUS. This platter of goodness was filled with cheese, olives, hummus, rustic bread, amazing ribs, fresh salami, and an assortment of roasted vegetables. I was sold on Amsterdam after I tasted this.
We walked around the city and explored for the rest of that night. We were amazed at how many canals there were and how HUGE Amsterdam is. We also walked through the beautiful Vondel Park. This park is a great way to admire the gorgeous greenery Amsterdam has to offer right there in the heart of the city. It was a nice and quiet park filled with people riding their bikes, sitting on benches, and just strolling through to get to the next location.
DAY TWO
We woke up later and had a slow morning so we had to find a breakfast place that served breakfast all day. I found Pancakes Amsterdam and we indulged in the most filling and satisfying Dutch pancakes. There we ordered yet ANOTHER local food, poffertjes. We got the classic ones with butter and powdered sugar. Unlike the other strange street foods of Amsterdam, these were like eating little pillows of heaven. They are mini fluffy pancakes covered in salty butter and sweet powdered sugar!!! The second thing we ordered was a Dutch pancake. We had no idea what type to even order, so we got a Dutch pancake with bacon. This was a HUGE thin pancake with bacon cooked into it. This was delicious too!! Pancakes Amsterdam is located right next to the Anne Frank House, so it would be ideal to eat there before your Anne Frank time slot to avoid extra walking as it was a bit of a walk from Kinkerstraat (the street we stayed on).
From here, we went to Bloemenmarkt, the floating flower market on one of the canals. It is open from 9:00am-5:30pm most days and can be found on google maps! I had really high expectations for this market because I adore flowers!! Although it is really amazing how far this market goes on for, I was sadly disappointed by the lack of real flowers for sale and how each stall sold the same things. The first stall however is really beautiful and has dried flowers hanging from the top of the tent. They sell a lot different types of tulip bulbs to plant. I did buy a small bouquet of wooden tulips there to bring home, since Amsterdam is known for its’ beautiful tulip fields!!
We decided to basically eat our way through Amsterdam, so we had to go to every hip food spot we heard about. I had done some research before we left for the trip and had a few things on my list of places to eat. One of these places was Foodhallen. If you live in Orange County, Foodhallen is just like an Anaheim packing District or Union Market. A trendy building filled with lots and lots of unique food vendors. It’s the perfect place to snap a picture for instagram!! It is located right down the street from where we stayed, so we HAD to go here for a snack! We got something from a vendor called Txosta, a place with mini toast tapas. This place is definitely a must when in Amsterdam!
For dinner we found a small Italian restaurant called Lucca Due. This place was one of the best Italian restaurants I have ever been to. Here we ordered Spaghetti Bolognese and the Delicata pizza. Both were incredible. The pizza was like a margherita pizza, but had fresh/unbaked buffalo mozzarella on top. They put it on after they bake the pizza to preserve the flavor of the uncooked cheese. My dad was also looking to try their meat sauce, so the server told us they could do a spaghetti bolognese even though it wasn’t on the menu. This was the perfect meal after a long day of walking around the city.
DAY THREE
To start off our second to last day in Amsterdam, we visited The Avocado Show for breakfast! This place was filled with pink and green decorations all focusing on my favorite food, AVOCADOS!! They had some interesting avocado dishes on their menu and we decided to both get the coconut yogurt with granola, fruit, and avocado. Sounds strange I know, but it was surprisingly really good. Walking to this place for breakfast took us through a part of the city we hadn’t been yet!! This part of town in called De Pijp. This is a super foodie and artsy district that we fell in love with!! I would highly recommend checking this area out and browsing the little farmer’s markets that go on in the streets here too!
From here we walked about 30 minutes to the Anne Frank House. *Buy tickets in advance for this or you won’t be able to go in!!!* The tickets are fairly inexpensive and you choose your time slot. It took us about an hour to go through the whole house. I 100% think that everyone should pay this place a visit if you are in Amsterdam. The history in that building is unreal. It was so cool to go through every room in the house and see how it was set up and where they stayed hidden for so long. Anne wanted to be a famous writer when she grew up and little did she know her journals would be world famous one day. It was incredible to see these and reflect on how she must’ve felt during the Holocaust. It was really humbling for me and made me just feel so much more grateful for the safety I feel everyday where I live.
For dinner we stopped by one of the many gourmet burger places, The Butcher. This place is a meat lovers DREAM. Tons of different burgers to choose from and even some other non red meat options too! We ordered The Cowboy (a burger of course!) and The Codfather (the best fish n chips we have ever had).
Neither of us are big on dessert, but we had to try Amsterdam’s famous stroopwafels at Van Wonderen Stroopwafels. These are freshly made right in front of your eyes and come out hot and melty, which made these desserts delightful. They have a few different sizes you can get and offer different ways to top them! We got medium stroopwafels and I topped mine (right) with carmel fudge squares. My dad (left) topped his with oreo pieces. I do suggest getting these from this place or a stand at a farmer’s market, not just any bakery you find. We had one from a random bakery the first night and it was not NEAR as good as the ones we had on our third day.
DAY FOUR
We woke up on our last full day in this gorgeous city, grabbed a quick pastry, and headed to Boaty boat rental. Here we were able to rent a small boat for about 80 euros for 3 hours on the water! We were given a map and we set out to explore the city from the center of the canals. This was a really cool way to see the city from a different perspective. A much more relaxing and slower paced way to take in the scenery.
Our boat ride ended around lunch time so we decided to catch the FREE ferry behind the central train station over to Amsterdam-Noord. This is where the IAMSTERDAM sign was placed while we were there, so of course we took some pictures with it and then grabbed lunch at one of the decks overlooking the water. After eating pretty yummy poke bowl and falafel bowl, we went up to the A’DAM Lookout. There was an admission fee to go up to this lookout, but it gave us something to do and to take in the beautiful city from up high. There’s also a swing that swings out over the building which we didn’t do but would be a pretty cool experience if you aren’t afraid of heights!! This was a a pretty place to hang out for a little bit on our last day.
THINGS I WANTED TO DO, BUT DIDN’T GET A CHANCE TO/OTHER TIPS FOR TRAVELING TO AMSTERDAM
I was bummed that the Keukenhof Gardens closed the day we arrived. I really wanted to see Amsterdam’s famous tulip fields, but there just wasn’t time for us to see them!! I would definitely try to do this if I ever go back to Holland! If you can’t make it (or don’t want to pay for tickets) to the gardens, there are places to see the tulips fields owned by private farmer’s around Haarlem all the way down to Lisse. I read about some bike trails you can go on that go through these fields.
I also would have liked to take to a boat out on the canals closer to sunset, but the morning was great and I loved it!!
A few restaurants that look great, but I didn’t get to try are:
Vegan Junk Food Bar
HappyHappyJoyJoy
Omelegg
Pluk
And finally just a tip for all my heavy coffee drinkers out there. If you order a large coffee anywhere, it will most likely look like a small. And each of these “large” coffees cost about 3 to 4 euros each. So I only recommend this if you absolutely NEED coffee to function in the mornings, but the only place you are going to find a large coffee is Starbucks. I know going to Starbucks while in Europe is not ideal at all, but if you’re serious about coffee it will save you some money.
If you read this whole post, THANK YOU for reading and hearing about my experience in Amsterdam, Netherlands. I hope I was able to give you some good tips and recommend some entertaining things to do and places to eat to make your experience AMAZING! And if you are debating whether going to Amsterdam or not, do it. It’s well worth your money and definitely somewhere I think everyone should experience in their life!!
xo
Avery
