Amsterdam February 2013

In early February, we arrived into a frosty Amsterdam for a few days of sightseeing. We enjoyed wandering or biking along the canals, stopping off at a cafes or coffee shops to warm up. I always find the Dutch architecture interesting to look at, with their unique step-like facades, and incredibly skinny buildings.

This was Kylie’s first taste of the Netherlands, and taste we did, enjoying cheese, ham, bread, and stroopwafels (round thin wafer-type waffles filled with syrup, particularly delectable when rested on the top of a hot drink so that the syrup starts to become gooey). A local delicacy which we enjoyed less was pickled herring on bread.

 

At times we found it a little hard to find some tasty and authentic restaurants, as the centre of the city seemed to be dominated by tourist-trap type restaurants, including, oddly, a number of Argentinean steakhouse restaurants.

Our hotel was near to the Vondelpark, a lovely park full of people walking, jogging, and of course, biking. One day we took a picnic of ham, cheese and bread there but sitting still chilled us through and we headed straight for a coffee in the nearby café.

The Van Gogh museum was being renovated at the time, but we enjoyed visiting the Rijksmuseum with impressive works by famous Dutch artists Vermeer, Rembrandt, as well as some Van Gogh.

On our last day we trekked across town in the snow on our bicycles to a great little market, on the hunt for delicious goodies to take back to the flatmates. My toes felt like they were about to freeze and drop off however, so we didn’t hang around long!