Back to my fave! On my last trip to Amsterdam in September 2016 as a part of a three-city Eurotrip, I visited a few museums such as Van Gogh, Rijksmuseum, the iamsterdam sign, which was in Museumplein at the time, and some local shops, but I left with a long list of things I still needed to do. This time I made sure to complete my list, but is the list ever really complete or completed?!
On this weekend trip, we biked as our form of transportation, which was first on my list, but it can be sort of intimidating, if you haven’t before. The residents are not really biking for leisure or to be cute; they are commuting, and tourists can easily be in the way. (They even paint the hotel/rental bikes bright colors with the hotel name sprawled across, so that locals know who to avoid.) I believe biking in Copenhagen prepared me for the experience. The city is very biker-friendly, as they have their own pathways (I mean truly, not just a white stripe on the side of the vehicle roads, ahem, Chicago), and the biker traffic control is very well-designed. There are bike parking lots everywhere, and if not, you just park it wherever it’ll fit. The streets are littered with bikes; there are as many bikes as there are people in Amsterdam.
We dropped in on the happy hour on the rooftop of Volkshotel, a hipster’s dream. Think, yoga in the lobby, free, open-plan work spaces, coffee bar and a club in the basement vibes. Everything about this hotel embodies the reasons Amsterdam is my favorite European city. We took a canal tour, which was much more suited for this trip, since it was warm and sunny. It was also pretty informative with fun facts about the city. Like, did you know there are thousands of bikes lost at the bottom of the canal? (See, no reasons to be concerned about biking). We ventured to the A’dam Tower, where the A’dam Lookout sits atop, which is an observation deck that boasts the highest swing in Europe. We discovered the iamsterdam sign had been moved here, and it gave it a fresh, water backdrop. We grabbed a couple beers (ciders for me) at Hannekes Boom, which is a spot with salvaged and recycled furniture that has a waterfront cafe/a dock in Amsterdam Central. This was the pull-up for parking lot pimpin’, but with boats, including some homemade. Not kidding — we saw a crew with some couches strapped to some wood on top of two rubber canoes. Add this spot and Pllek – a restaurant housed in re-purposed containers, which reminded me a lot of Paper Island in Copenhagen, to the reasons Amsterdam is my favorite European city. Blue Ivy heard our cries for an afro-fusion party and delivered.
We stopped in Vondelpark to relax a bit, and I got to be zen and do my daily stretches in the grass. I wandered into the Bloemenmarkt, which is a floating flower market full of colors and opposite a strip of restaurants and shops. I dined at an Inonesian restaurant in that area which just may have had the best food I’ve had in Amsterdam. And of course, the most important part of the weekend in any city: brunch! We loved the dutch-style pancakes at De Carousel and the vegetarian spot, Beter & Leuk.
As I’m writing this, and some things I didn’t even include, I am wondering how did we possibly do all of this in a weekend?! And can you believe after all of this, I still did not visit the Anne Frank museum or do the Heineken Tour? Leaves me more reasons to return.
All photos taken with Nikon D5100.
Jenai M. Davis 