I mean, I don’t even know where to start with this Amsterdam post! Looking back at the photos I immediately wanted to go back! Why had I never known about this amazing, magical city before?? Amsterdam (and the Netherlands in general for that matter) where have you been all my life?

I feel like Amsterdam gets a bad rap in America. The cafes, red light district, that’s all you hear about. But there is so much more! It’s a truly remarkable city and I’m so glad we visited and I can’t wait to go back and see more!

Click to read about our trip! 

Amsterdam is an easy 1 hour flight away from Bristol airport and is a huge tourist city for a reason. It’s great! (I’ll probably use “great” and “amazing” a lot throughout this post, so be prepared. I’ll do my best to use the thesaurus, but to be real, I probably and most likely won’t.) Omri and I arrived in the city on a Thursday afternoon and it was bustling – people, buses, trams, tourists with selfie sticks everywhere. I had read up on the city from quite a few blogs and was really excited to start exploring right away.

We stayed in the Jordaan district in an AirBnB which was really close to the Anne Frank house. I can’t say enough good things about this neighborhood – it is so idyllic and quintessentially Amsterdam, or at least what I thought of when I think Amsterdam. Tall, narrow buildings, canals lined with house boats and row boats and motor boats, and BIKES. EVERYWHERE.

After settling into our apartment, we ventured into the neighborhood for dinner. We came across La Olivia, a Spanish restaurant that lured us in with their beautiful pintxos that were out on display! The pintxos were little toasts piled high with amazing toppings (similar to bruschetta). It was extremely and unseasonably warm in Amsterdam (even though it was summer) so we sat outside with a bottle of wine and enjoyed our dinner.

The next morning we woke up and decided to have Dutch pancakes for breakfast. We went to Pancakes! Amsterdam which was just a few streets over form our apartment. I opted for a sweet strawberry and yoghurt pancake while Omri went for a savory one, with brie, ham, chicory, and raspberry sauce. DELISH!

After our filling breakfast, we walked to the museum area of Amsterdam to go to the Rijksmuseum. It was a huge building and reminded me of the Louvre, filled with a lot of historical Dutch pieces, but also a few funky modern pieces as well.

There is a beautiful garden as well, and just outside are the well known “I Amsterdam” letters – cue the photo opp!

We strolled through Vondelpark and grabbed a quick bite at a small cafe. The park is huge and filled with people lounging and riding bikes and enjoying the great weather!

For dinner that night we tried Indonesian food for the first time! I kept reading on blogs about great Indonesian restaurants and realized that Indonesia was once a Dutch colony, hence the popularity. So we went to Kantjil & de Tijger, which was along this huge street, Spuistraat, filled with bars and restrauants. Since this was our first dive into Indonesian cuisine, we opted for a tasting menu which was a huge feast comprised of a bunch of small plates.

Everything was delicious and tasted similar to other Asian cuisines that we’ve had before (Thai and Chinese mainly), but was really unique and was very flavorful! We were quite full to say the least!

After dinner we strolled around the area and walked by the red light district to take a peek of what all the hoopla was about (alas, no pics of that…) and then caught a beautiful sunset before turning in.