3 DAYS IN AMSTERDAM | TRAVEL GUIDE

For such a famous city, that is only 60 mins away from London - it has taken me quite a while to visit it. 

Yes, I'm talking about Amsterdam. 

My family recently decided to spend a long weekend in the land of weed tulips. And, despite the far from ideal weather, I ended up enjoying the city much more than I thought I did. From walking around the canals, to finding the cutest independent stores to eating five hundreds types of cheese in 15 minutes. It was an unexpected but amazing break from London. 

DAY 1 - JORDAAN & MOCO MUSEUM

We started off our trip by doing what we do best: eat. We headed to Winkel 43 to try their famous apple pie - it was soft, buttery, sweet, moist and warm. Simple put: perfect.  Definitley not a light breakfast, but would do it all over again. We managed to find a table outside but expect the cafe to be incredibly packed and to have to queue for around 15-20mins. 

Once our stomachs were content, we wandered around the district of Jordaan, which is where most of the canals are. It's such a nice area to walk around, and get lost in the little side streets. It is, however, quite a touristy area so expect souvenir shops, a lot  of bakeries selling everything from stroopwaffles to cheese and quite a few tulip shops too. 

We also ran into a flower market right next to one of the main canals - I don't think I had ever seen so many different types of tulips and cheeses.

For lunch, we decided to go the Foodhallen on Tollensstraat, which was a great indoor food market (similar to the TimeOut Market in Lisbon!) - it had all sorts of cuisines. Mexican, Chinese, South American, Italian, Mediterranean, etc. - you name it. I had some sort of healthy burrito bowl, which was really good - almost as good as Chipotle's. And that's saying a lot.

Around the Foodhallen, there were so many little art galleries and stores - definitely worth a walk around to digest your food! 

To end our day, we spent our afternoon at the Coco Museum. a modern and contemporary art museum which was, in all honesty, one of the best museums I have ever been to. And I have been to many. For once, I actually had fun looking at art. And every piece was different from the other. I would definitely recommend it to everyone that visits Amsterdam! 

DAY 2 - RIKJSMUSEUM, DAMRAK & RED LIGHT DISTRICT

After a healthy and delicious breakfast at Le Pain Quotidian (very local, I know), we spent our morning at the Rikjsmuseum. It is meant to be one of the best museums in Europe but, in all honesty, I thought it was just alright. Now, I don't know much about art so I am sure someone who had more knowledge than me would enjoy it much much more than I did. But if you're just the average human then I don't think it's any better than the museums in Paris, London or Italy. 

The afternoon was spend walking around the city centre: the main square, Damrak and all the way to the train station. We also enjoyed some warm, freshly made stroopwaffles (i.e. one of my favourite foods), some ice cream as well as fresh waffles. So a lot of food was consumed that day, as you can see. 

We also wandered around the famous Red Light District which was not  what I was expecting at all. I personally didn't really like it and thought it was too touristy and just not a nice area to explore. But to each their own I guess.

DAY 3 - BRUNCH, BEGIJNHOF & MORE FOOD

Our last day consisted of mostly... wait for it.... food. Shock. 

We started off the day by having brunch at the CT Coffee & Coconuts, a lovely and popular cafe in De Pijp which, from what I gathered, seemed to be the Soho/Shoreditch of Amsterdam. The food was really great, and not too expensive (taking into account that Amsterdam is quite expensive in general).

Then, we headed to Begijnhof - a lovely neighbourhood in the city centre which was nice to walk around and explore. 

Nearby, we stumbled upon one of the best cookie places in the Netherlands: Van Stapele Koekmakerij. They were incredibly gooey chocolate filled buttery cookies, simply amazing. And 5 minutes, later we found another place that prepared fresh stroopwaffles drizzled with warm chocolated - so, of course, I had to try them. They were as good as they sound. The place was called Bakkerij Egstorf, so definitely give it a visit if you're around.

To finish off our time in Amsterdam, we wanted to try Dutch mini pancakes - which were probably the best thing I had during my time in Amsterdam. We had them at a very random place in a park nearby our hotel, it was called Pannenkotken Restaurant De Vier Pilaren  - they were superb. Definitely recommend going. It was located by a canal and they had some lovely outdoor seating. However, it was so packed we only managed to find a table inside.