From years of flying KLM to India, I’ve had the chance to visit Amsterdam before. Of course, “visit” meant spent a couple of hours in Schiphol, not really go into the city.
Summer of ‘07, however, we did stop for a couple of days on our way to Istanbul. Both of which were amazing.
So, when we were trying to decide where to go for Reading Week, I pushed Amsterdam, and, using my large smile and charming wit, managed to convince Jeffrey, Julie and Stacey to come with me.
Unfortunately, Jeff fell ill just before our departure, and so missed the Amsterdam section of the journey. But he did manage to come to Dusseldorf and Brussels.
Anyway. We stayed our first night in Travel Hotel, which was quite literally a few minutes walk from Centraal Station. Also a few minutes walk from the Red Light District. And, the room was clean, and gave us towels. The shower, however, most definitely left something to be desired, in terms of its functionality and its cleanliness.
Luckily, we spent our next three nights at the Globe, a place described by our tour guide as on the lowest tier of accommodation in Amsterdam. It wasn’t terrible…though they forced you to buy one of their overpriced drinks to hang out in the bar (or watch TV), and our room increasingly smelt of sewage as the days went on. It was relatively clean, though.
Two important points about the globe: if you walk down the street, a few buildings down there is free wireless (i.e., wireless someone hasn’t passworded) and, also important–if you ask for towels at the desk, they will give them to you free of charge. They don’t tell you this, or put towels in your room. Go figure.
Accommodation aside, Amsterdam was wonderful. The Van Gogh Museum should not be missed, especially the special exhibition, which they have managed to get MoMA to give up The Starry Night for.
Other interesting things:
- New Europe Tours gives an excellent Amsterdam Tour. We had a guide named Kevin. He was passionate and a bit quirky, but definitely knowledgeable.
- Unfortunately, we discovered it only on our last night, but Amnesia Coffeeshop was by far the best coffeeshop we went to. They were nice, gave us milk, and even though we didn’t really know what we were looking for, were far nicer than any of the other people behind the counter in coffeeshops. I wholeheartedly recommend paying them a visit [map].
- Wok to Walk is wonderful. Also wonderfully expensive, but that’s Amsterdam.
Some pictures:
I’m having trouble getting the photos to embed…here’s a link to a slideshow
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