Amsterdam, Netherlands

We took a train from Rotterdam to Amsterdam and, despite some construction, the train station in Amsterdam was a beautiful introduction to this historic city.

Our first day here we bought an iAmsterdam city card at the Amsterdam Visitor Center in the Centraal Train Station. This gave us access to all major highlights in and around the city, and more than 70 museums, city-wide public transport, a canal cruise and bicycle rental. We never did rent the bikes, but we did explore museums we never would have seen otherwise, and enjoyed a free canal cruise one evening. We also took a day trip to nearby Zaandam to see some more historic windmills and museums.

Here are some of the sights we saw walking around Amsterdam:

Amsterdam is an extremely walkable city and is famous for its’ picturesque canals; they were everywhere and did not disappoint.

Dam Square – “It was created in the 13th century when a dam was built around the river Amstel to prevent the Zuiderzee sea from flooding the city. During the sixties, the square was renowned for its Dam Square hippies.” – Amsterdam.info

We wanted to visit the Anne Frank Huis (house) but didn’t purchase tickets in time. This is the most popular museum in Amsterdam. When we were here in August 2024 there was a six-week waitlist for tickets.

“In July 1942, the Frank family went into hiding. The Van Pels family followed a week later. The two families already knew each other: Hermann van Pels worked for Otto’s company. Four months later, they were joined by an eighth person: Fritz Pfeffer, an acquaintance of the Frank family.” – Anne Frank House

If you, like us, are unable to get tickets (or you aren’t planning to be in Amsterdam anytime soon) you can see a virtual tour of Anne Frank’s room and the secret annex with this link. (note: it takes a moment to load)

Across the canal from Anne Frank Huis is the first free museum we checked out.

Another fun museum just a couple of doors down from the Tulip Museum is the Cheese Museum. We didn’t visit this one but I thought the front was cute.

Many people throughout the Netherlands live on houseboats. In Amsterdam there is one that has been converted to a Houseboat Museum. We toured this for free with our iAmsterdam City Card.

The narrow cobblestone streets are really too small for most cars. Most people here rode their bikes or had super small two-seater cars. Here is one of many we saw. They were perfect for this city and could fit in almost anywhere.

Our city card gave us a free canal boat cruise. There are many tour companies here that offer cruises and all of them seem to take the same path.

Here are some of the sights from our tour.

We also toured the Heineken Brewing Company.

We also toured two of the larger, more popular museums here – the Moco Museum, which was all modern art, and the Rijksmuseum, which included fine art by the Dutch masters and a large European art collection.

We took a train to the Zaan Region one day. It was a short 20 minute ride from the Amsterdam Centraal train station.

On our last day in town we did a cheese tasting at the Henri Willig Cheese shop, toured the world’s largest floating flower market, walked through the Red Light District and passed by The Bulldog, a famous “coffee” house (which is what pot shops are called here).

Amsterdam was a good place to end this European adventure. After this we flew to Washington, DC, to spend some time with old friends.