Canals & Bikes - Amsterdam in 48 Hours

The city of canals and endless rows of houses, that’s what this city is well known for. Amsterdam, like many European big cities has become an ultimate tourism must. It has everything from charm to city life, to a little taste of wild. Since my family came to visit me for the holidays in Paris we decided to also go on a little trip while they were in Europe. We had a few options in mind but in the end decided for a road trip to Amsterdam. With a five hour car ride we stopped by Bruges on our way to Netherlands to see the town and have some lunch.

Bruges, although I only spent a few hours there I can say from what I saw that it is a very tranquil family living place. It has some canals that are lined by small houses of 2-3 floors, all of which have big windows that look out to the canals, it all seemed so cozy. We walked around and stopped by the Grote Markt which currently has a Christmas market and ice skating rink. Booths filled with typical food like fries, Belgian waffles and chocolate…all your Belgian classics.

We sat down for lunch in a restaurant right there on the plaza called De Vier Winden, it offered the mussels my mother had been craving, and some other international classics. But of course the best part was beating the cold with a Belgian beer, a toast for the trip and a meal to keep going.

Before leaving we passed by Neuhaus for some chocolates to snack on the road, I got to admit these Belgians know how to make chocolate. They don’t have those chocolates with weird flavors or the kind where you know you probably won’t like the taste, no the Belgians know how to make good chocolate, for every liking and at a reasonable price.

From Bruges it was non-stop to Amsterdam, three more hours to go. We arrived in Amsterdam around 9pm, we checked into our hotel a little restless? and shortly headed out to find some place still open for dinner. A few blocks from the hotel was a spanish restaurant called Joselito still open and as we say in my Fam “de buena cara” (looks good). We headed in and excitedly ordered tapas for the table, we hadn’t had spanish food in a while and we were excited we found this little place to have a bite.

Day 2: Day two started off great, I had read online about a place called Pancakes! Amsterdam, go figure they offered pancakes only, all types of pancakes; sweet, salty, combination, Dutch, American or french. The place was full, we arrived right at 10am and there was a line outside, that’s when we discovered it opened at exactly that time and we were one of the lucky groups that got a table on the first round. The whole time we were eating there was a line outside, that’s when we realized this is place is really popular. We all ordered something different and typical of the place. My mom got the daily special which included: spinach, eggplant and dutch cheese, my brother got another curious mix with bacon, banana and red peppers. Then my dad and I kept it simple so we could share our halves. He got the salty cheese one and I got a plain one over which I added cinnamon sugar and syrup. These pancakes are peculiar because they look like crepes but taste like pancakes due to the batter they use, overall very recommended for anyone visiting.

From Pancakes! we walked down a few blocks to the Anne Frank Huis, to our greatest shock the line not only went around the corner but rather the whole block surrounding this museum. We were told the line from the point where we were standing would take around 4 hours…casual. We had to make a decision considering this time of year you lose the daylight at around 4:30, so we left Anne Frank for the afternoon and headed to the area of the other museums called, Museumplein where there is several museums including Van Gogh museum and Rijksmuseum, all of which also had hefty long lines for hours. Point of information, we later found out that all these museums you can book online by getting tickets online, you save a ton of time.

Another famous landmark of Amsterdam is the letters “I amsterdam” in front of the museum. Bright big red and white letters that were simply put as a publicity purpose are now a popular tourist stop where people come and climb and pose with the letters for the cliche picture stating your are in Amsterdam.

At that point the rain decided to surprisingly come by and we were on our way back to line up at the Anne Frank house. After a few blocks of familiar streets we were back in the line at Anne’s house, this time the waiting time estimate was 2 and a half hours. So my mom came up with the idea that some of us stay in line while others go get coffee and a snack, so it went that my dad and my brother headed off to Starbucks and to get some fries.

About an hour into the waiting, at which point I could no longer feel my feet, hands and face, I was standing in line at a comfortable 2 degrees celsius — feels like -1 according to the weather app, it may not be the coldest temperature but waiting around in that temperature is quite uncomfortable. My dad and Santi came back with the life saving hot drinks…yey. Nothing like some french fries and coffee to help you regain some strength…haha hefty combination. At about 2 hours into the waiting line we reached the “45 minutes beyond this point” sign…exciting…to be honest at that point you began to wonder how worth this whole line would be.

Eventually we were in, and the best part was definitely getting some warmth. We got our tickets and began a tour following once again a line of people along the whole house. The house is pretty much how it was depicted in the movies and book of Anne Frank’s Diary, you go through the now empty rooms of this house where the Franks had to hide for some years.

It has an intimidating vibe in some way, knowing that someone who went through a different time, who was taken unjustly and suffered, a young girl specifically who was oh so innocent at one point lived there. But in the end I believe the house is absolutely a must while visiting Amsterdam.

By the time we were done at the museum it was about 7pm and considering our light snack lunch we were ready for a good dinner. Once again I had read about a place nearby on the canal that had peruvian food. The restaurant was called Mashua, and I gotta admit even though one usually doesn’t think Netherlands and going to eat Latin food, this place was very good and surpassed our expectations. Being that I don’t really eat seafood I ordered the lomo salteado which is marinated strips of sirloin with onions, tomatoes and other ingredients. It has a salty flavor that is very typical peruvian, the dish was served with some rice and potatoes on the side. My family ordered a few more exotic seafood dishes and my brother got the “ceviche de pato” a dish with duck flambeed with beans and some risotto on the side.

After dinner we headed off to a wine bar on the same street called Vyne, we had passed by it several times during the day and so we stopped by after dinner for a glass of wine. This place was quite cool, it offers 270 wine varieties, everything from wine to champagne and also cocktails if you please. We all chose once again to order different things, I got a muscat from Italy, my brother a Porto from Portugal, and my parents both a red wine. The place is a good concept, it has a long hall lined with just tables and a booth sitting against the wall, on the opposite wall hundreds of bottles are on display. We finished our night there and walked back to the hotel afterwards.

Day 3: Tuesday was our last day in Amsterdam, my family is routine style and once we like something we very rarely change things up…therefore you can only imagine where we went to breakfast the second day, yup Pancakes! Though we did order different things the second time around. My dad, ever since I began blogging is not only following up on my posts but comments on what I write. Similarly during the whole time I was with him for the holidays he had a few ideas as to what should go on the blog post haha he would constantly say “this is for the blog marina, remember it, take notes.” My dad as sarcastic as he can be, does bring up valid points and accurate opinions. We luckily got the last available table for the four of us at 10am that morning.

From breakfast we went to wander around for a bit, the area where we were is called 9 streets and it’s the most typical in regards to what you imagine Amsterdam to look like. There is canals lined with town houses, each varying in color but following the same structure, every 10 feet you see a bike…literally every 10, and the city has some of the nicest people I’ve met in Europe. Turns out, just a couple blocks from the breakfast spot was the one and only bench from The Fault In Our Stars movie. Now I never really go all obsessed with movies or stars, but I must admit that movie is one of the reasons I was so curious to visit Amsterdam. So, it was only natural to stop by the bench from the movie.

After the bench, we wandered off to the flower market, unfortunately if flowers are what you are going for in Amsterdam…don’t go in the winter. The flower market had all the available seeds or bulbs, as well as the essentials for planting, but the one thing lacking was natural flowers…tis not the season. Lastly, we did some shopping along the streets of Leidsestraat and from there tried to find a place to have some lunch before we hit the road. Along our shopping was an essential stop to a cheese shop for some gouda…my family is the ultimate cheese fanatic family so buying cheese was high on our list of to-do’s.

For lunch, we ended up walking by this place called Wolvenstraat 23, it was a small place full at lunch time on the area called 9 streets. We were told it was a 45 min wait, which ended up being 20, and the most popular thing people were ordering that day was the Chinese noodle soup, and the pizzas…both very good from this casual yet very trendy place.

With that it was a wrap, we finished lunch, headed back to the hotel and hit the road to Paris. Overall, great weekend, with even better company, and now I have a check next to Amsterdam on my list.