September was a busy month for travelling - cheap flights and close proximity to London gave me the opportunity to hop across to Amsterdam with my housemate Mary and a few friends for the weekend.
Amsterdam is quite a charming city, with it's impressive architecture, crooked houses, cobbled streets, tree-lined canals that criss-cross the city, great shopping, friendly people, and bicycles everywhere! Bicycles are by far the preferred mode of transport around Amsterdam. You have to keep your eyes open and make sure you don't meander into a bicycle lane and get bowled over by the ruthless locals!
Arriving in Amsterdam on Saturday morning after a ridiculously early start to the weekend (at Heathrow at 5am - the things you have to do to get budget flights!), checking into the hostel then downing a typically Dutch breakfast comprised of lots of pancakes, we joined a bicycle tour in the afternoon to see as much of the city as possible (and stay awake!). The tour had it all, especially as we hit the outskirts of the city - windmills, clog-makers and cheese farms - everything you expect from a day in Holland!
We hit the crazy and totally buzzing Red Light district at night (empahsis on the word 'crazy'). An eye-opening experience to say the least, but definitely something different and heaps of fun. With this and the "coffeeshops" everywhere, it really does show how open the Dutch are.
So after a big night out, our second day was a nice and relaxed affair - we took a cruise through the canals, did a bit of shopping, and even sighted the Queen of Netherlands coming out of the Rembrant museum!
We also paid a visit to the Anne Frank museum - the most famous canal house in Amsterdam where a young Jewish girl famously documented the horrors of WWII while in hiding with her family in the attic of this house. Despite the fact that it's a tiny space and the place is constantly packed with visitors, it still provides quite a powerful (and emotional) experience, focusing on the ordeals of a Jewish family that hid in the attic throughout the second world war, where they survived until they were mysteriously betrayed to the Germans in August 1944 (so achingly close to the end of the war).
A few photos:
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