Fabulous short break in Amsterdam

Well i have just come back after the bank holiday from a little short break in the beautiful city of Amsterdam.

I love the canals and the buildings and the scenery, it is just perfect for a short break. A quick one hour flight, hand luggage and checking in online means straight through to the gate so its nice and quick.

I have been before to Amsterdam with work on conferences and river cruises, but this was the first time I had time to properly explore the city.

And it was as good as I remember. Only this time we had time to visit the Van Gogh museum. I am always one for looking at interesting art and particularly enjoy doing this onboard the cruise ships, some of which have some amazing works of art onboard worth millions.

But the Van Gogh museum took it to another level. Absolutely spectacular, certainly a museum you should a visit at some point. The shadow theatre has your create some brilliant shadow effects, this is me:

A little tip however for the Van Gogh museum, ensure to buy tickets online before you go as the queues can be extremely long. Once we got there and joined the queue we were told at least an hour wait, so we bought them on our phone and strolled right in.

We stayed at the Ibis Amsterdam Central, which is right next to the train station so make the journey by train from the airport very easy, 2 mins walk from the station and you are there. I am quite sure there are some better more quaint traditional hotels in Amsterdam but the Ibis worked for us being the location that its in. It had a great buffet breakfast room and a lovely bar and restaurant.

You could walk everywhere, being mindful of course not to get run down by bicycles or trams, it is a very busy city. But its great as not many cars and you can really notice this from the difference of say London.

There are apparently 881000 bicycles in Amsterdam, more bikes than there are residents, I would just like to know where everyone is that owns these bikes, there are so many.

The weather was just perfect for sitting in a bar by the canal enjoying a cocktail

A walk through the red light district is an eye opener for sure particularly at night. Full of hen and stag parties going a little wild. But its a tourist sight in its own right for sure.

I just wish we had more time to venture further out to the windmills and tulip gardens, looks like will have to go again for sure.

Or if you have another recommendation for a short break, let me know, always good to explore new and wonderful places 🙂