Amsterdam Mini Break

I've been fortunate enough to have done a fair bit of travelling already this year (I'm counting my lucky stars!) I went to New York in February and the New Forest in July, both of which you can read about by clicking the links. Callum's new job took him to the Netherlands in August for a month and we quickly agreed that I'd go see him one weekend, talk about gate crashing a business trip. Amsterdam is a place we'd both been wanting to go for a while so there was no discussion, I booked my flights asap and almost immediately started fretting about the journey. It was going to be the first flight I'd taken on my own and I'm not a good flyer at the best of times, generally I have Callum's or a friend's hand to squeeze during take off and landing but I wasn't so sure the strangers sat next to me would appreciate the unnecessary physical contact from the girl with nervous clammy hands. 

Thankfully the flight there was pleasant and short and Callum was waiting on the other side with a bag of goodies - white chocolate covered oreos, um yes please. We went to the hotel to drop off my bags and made our way into the centre of Amsterdam to grab some food. We ended up doing a lot of walking and exploring and spent a good few hours at Hard Rock cafe filling each other in on our weeks. We were both exhausted as it approached midnight and we made our way back to the hotel.



From the stories Callum had told me from the time he'd already been there, it was going to be a rainy and chilly weekend. It actually turned out to be beautiful weather. Warm and sunny but not too uncomfortable so we could still enjoy walking around. And that we did. The first photograph above was taken in Vondelpark and we spent the afternoon sat watching a theatrical orchestra play music and perform little skits in the bandstand. We had planned to visit the Anne Frank House in the morning but the queue was huge so we decided to wait until the evening. After we'd eaten we gave it another go. No luck. By 8pm the queue was still winding around the streets so we decided to just continue walking and exploring. We did lots of nipping in and out of shops and lots and lots of walking. Did I say that already? We had a little wander around the Red Light District which was an experience in itself. It was daylight when we went so obviously it didn't have quite the same affect as it would've if we'd have gone in the evening but it was interesting nonetheless and I do think if you're going to go to Amsterdam then you might as well have a walk around. Just prepare yourself!



Sunday was a very similar affair. We hit the Anne Frank house in the morning but it was still massively busy and we decided that since we only had a few hours left that we'd skip it altogether and enjoy the nice weather. We found a lovely little secluded side street to sit by the canal and just enjoy each other's company in the beautiful setting. It was busy everywhere in Amsterdam that weekend so as soon as we spied a quieter corner of the city, we took advantage. More shopping was done before heading to the airport to fly home. Nobody warns you how bad airport goodbyes are. There should be a public warning in airports about crying women and children.

I didn't take as many photos as I would have liked, I was too busy just enjoying the little bit of time I had with Callum. I did have a lovely weekend though and we've already decided we'll go back one day and do all the things we couldn't do last weekend. Have any of you been to Amsterdam? What did you get up to?

No comments