A winter break in Amsterdam

With the way Christmas landed in 2018, I had 11 full days including weekends to enjoy between my office closing before Christmas and re-opening on the 2nd of January. We considered a few different break options including going away for Christmas itself, but in the end, decided to go away for four days between Christmas and New Year. This decision was driven by price - it's so much cheaper to fly out of London on the 27th and return on the 31st than flying before Christmas and/or returning on New Years' Day.

In the end, I think these dates worked really well for Amsterdam. It's not the sort of city that you need to be in for Christmas markets (although they do have a few leading up to Christmas) and arriving on the 27th meant trading hours were back to usual.

We stayed in an Airbnb in North West Amsterdam near Westerpark. I really liked this location as it gave us the opportunity to see more of the city and a good excuse to ride bikes everywhere. The Airbnb itself was really nice. We had a one-bedroom ground floor apartment that had been recently renovated. While there was public transport nearby, it was much easier to get around by bike. We hired our bikes from a local bike rental shop. This wasn't one of the big touristy bike rentals so we had very inconspicuous and somewhat rusty bikes - this is what you need in Amsterdam if you don't want your bike to be stolen!

By the time we arrived in our Airbnb on the 27th, it was around 3 pm so we didn't do too much exploring this day. We walked to De Jordaan, a really nice neighbourhood for cafes and boutique shopping and had a late lunch at Kessens, a good spot for brunch, lunch or even just coffee. We shared a sandwich, the French onion soup and Bitterballen (Dutch croquettes). After lunch, we crossed a few more canals and made our way to de Nine Straatjes (the nine streets) shopping area. This is a great area to find small boutiques and also has one of my favourite shops, Fabienne Chapot. In the evening, we had dinner at Haesje Claes, a traditional Dutch restaurant. It was full of tourists as you'd expect, but a good place to try more traditional food.

The first full day was pretty much a dedicated museum day. We visited the Van Gogh Museum first up. This museum has a very large collection of Van Gogh's work so it's definitely worthwhile if that's your type of thing. After Van Gogh, we visited the Moco Museum, a modern art museum which currently has quite a few of Banksy's works. This is a much smaller museum, which made it an easy place to visit in the afternoon. In the evening, we had dinner at Foodhallen, a big hall area full of hawker style food and drinks (a bit like Mercato Metropolitano in London). We then cycled to Winkel 43 for the most amazing apple pie!

I booked a walking tour for the next morning by myself since Asher had done this tour previously. The tour was with FreeDam Tours and is well worth it if you are curious about Amsterdam's history. The tour lasted around 2.5 hours and took us around central Amsterdam, starting at Oude Kerk and walking through the Red Light District, along canals (of course), through the Jewish Quarter and many other areas. After the tour, we met for an Amazing lunch at Guts and Glory. We had the four-course set menu and I have to say this was one of the best lunches that I've had in a long time! Guts and Glory have themed menus and when we were visiting, the theme was Brittany. After lunch, we made our way back to De Jordaan for some retail therapy. I found a really nice German brand, Kauf Dich Glücklich - a great find if you like slightly more interesting clothes than what can usually be found on Oxford Street.

We had dinner at Kantjil & de Tiger, a very large Indonesian restaurant in the centre of Amsterdam. The food was great but the service not so much - it may be better at a less busy time of year. To top off this long day, we went on the Amsterdam Light Festival boat cruise. We were a bit apprehensive about whether or not it would be worthwhile booking this tour since we had seen a lot of lights while riding our bikes. We were really glad we did go ahead with it in the end. We got to sit in a comfortable 'lounge boat' with a glass ceiling and free-flowing drinks while we received information about each light installation and the artist. This particular tour is only on for the festival, which runs around Christmas each year.

Our last full day in Amsterdam was a reasonably quiet day. We started with brunch at De Bakkerswinkel in nearby Westerpark. This is a nice and cosy cafe with home-style food and a relaxed vibe. This area of the park has a few different shops, cafes and even a brewery to check out. If you stay in this area of Amsterdam, it's definitely worth a visit. I then rode my bike around the whole of Westerpark, which turns out to be a very big park with stables and a lot of green space. We had pre-booked Anne Frank House about three weeks in advance for 4.15 pm on this particular afternoon. If you are planning a trip to Amsterdam and want to visit Anne Frank House, I definitely recommend pre-booking. Even at the time we booked, there weren't many time slots left. It was a very worthwhile museum to visit - even Asher enjoyed it so that must mean it's good! Anne Frank House combines general museum areas with background information about the Frank's and their time during WW2 with the actual rooms of the annex that they lived in.

Our final day was a short and slow-paced day. Our flight wasn't until around 3 pm but we decided to sleep in a have a late start. We took the bus to Central Station, thinking that we would store our luggage for a few hours, but this seemed rather complicated (you need to buy a train ticket first and go through the ticket barriers to access the luggage storage area). Instead, we walked to Vinnies, a nearby cafe, for a delicious brunch. We then made our way to the airport and back to London.