We got an email for a great price on a River Cruise along the Rhine and Danube Rivers through Gate 1 travel. We had never heard of Gate 1, but the price was too good to pass up.
The River Cruise started in Amsterdam and ended in Budapest. We tacked on 4 extra days at the beginning and ending cities to explore on our own since we were flying all the way to Europe.
This is the first of three postings for our 3 week Amsterdam to Budapest Trip. As usual, there’s a “Top 8” for each major city, and then our full itinerary at the bottom of the post. For the itinerary, we mostly followed the guidance in Rick Steve’s Amsterdam book. We also downloaded his three free audio walking tours (City walk, Jordaan walk and Red light district walk), and walked around Amsterdam's streets with earphones listening to his guide. (We saw a lot of people doing the same thing while walking the circuit.) By the way, we just listened with one ear piece because we wanted to still be fully aware of our surroundings--Amsterdam has a ton of bicyclists and trams to watch out for, so you definitely want to hear the street traffic and be careful where you walk!
TOP 8
1. Take in the City's Canal Atmosphere by Foot and Boat
With all of the canals (165 of them!), Amsterdam reminds me of Venice. Initially built to drain and reclaim the land for new development during the 17th Century Dutch Golden Age, the network of canals is now a symbol of Amsterdam and a UNESCO world heritage site. It's just amazing that the engineering existed back then to build a whole city that is well below sea level.
The three main canals, Herengracht, Prinsengracht and Keizergracht, form concentric belts around the city and it's fun to just stroll around exploring the canals and bridges both during the day time and at night. In the very early morning, before all the canal boats start their tours, the canal waters will be calm and beautifully glassy. At night, the bridges of the canals are lit up and equally beautiful-- especially the bridges at Leidsegracht and Keizersgracht intersection where you will see three golden circles of light if the waters are calm at night. We used this website for finding great canal photography spots cuz it's got links to exact locations of where the photos were taken.
We also took a canal cruise so that we can view the city and canal system from the water because that's an iconic thing to do in Amsterdam, but honestly, I enjoyed the canals more when strolling the streets in the early morning, admiring the beautiful glassy waters of tree lined canals in relative peace and quiet.
2. Visit Anne Frank Museum
This museum was really emotionally moving and a must when visiting Amsterdam. With the cramped quarters of the "secret annex" hidden behind the bookcase entrance of a store front, you can really feel what Anne Frank and the seven others that hid for 2 years from German occupation during WWII felt. An English (or 9 other languages) audio head set was available (free) to guide you through each of the rooms.
You have to buy tickets in advance online from the official museum website (link to Anne Frank Museum tickets here) and generally, the tickets are sold out 2-4 weeks in advance, so plan accordingly. Tickets can be purchased up to 2 months in advance of a given date.
3. Tour the Red Light District
A walking tour of the famous red light district is another must in Amsterdam, just because you will not be able to find another city where legal prostitution is so prominently displayed. There’s sex theaters, sex toy shops, and sex workers beckoning from behind red-curtained windows just about everywhere you look. Don't take photos of the prostitutes behind the windows though.
Our cousins who had gone to Amsterdam earlier recommended taking a guided tour of the district, because they said the guide explained what all the different colored lights in the windows meant, among pointing out other tid bits of history and info you couldn't get otherwise, but the timing didn't really work out for us, so we just followed the Rick Steve's Red Light District audio guide, and that was sufficient for us.
4. Visit Van Gogh Museum
The museum houses over 200 pieces of Van Gogh's art work, and is laid out in a way that tells the life of Vincent Van Gogh from his early years to his death. I never knew that the support of Van Gogh's brother Theo and his wife Johanna was what eventually made Van Gogh's art work world famous. After Van Gogh's death, Johanna sold his work to spread knowledge of Van Gogh's art, but prior, Van Gogh's art work was not that popular.
This museum was organized really well and thus enjoyable, even for a non-artsy person like me. I read the Rick Steves book's descriptions of various highlighted Van Gogh art pieces while waiting in line to get into the museum (we purchased tickets day of), and the book helped me appreciate the museum visit more. So I guess it was kinda fortuitous that we had to wait in line.
5. Visit Rijksmuseum
We made the mistake of going to this museum on the same day that our plane landed. We were so tired going through the museum, and so it was hard to concentrate and read through all the descriptions. But even then, there were a few stand out pieces of art that we enjoyed such as Rembrant's Nightwatch pictured above. It's also the only museum where you can bike through the former passage way for horse drawn carriages, and there's a cool spider sculpture garden outside the museum.
I didn't do my research properly and thought the the "Iamsterdam" sign was here at the Rijksmuseum. It was no longer there in 2019, so we should have stopped off to take a picture of the one at the Schiphol airport.
6. Go to the top of the NEMO Science Museum
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| NEMO |
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| View from Top of NEMO Museum |
NEMO is that weird looking green ship-like structure in the distance...
Plan to come to the NEMO Science Museum roof top on the last day of your Amsterdam visit. That way, when you climb to the top and view the Amsterdam skyline, you will be able to appreciate and recognize the iconic landmarks.
It was a great panoramic view, and it's FREE! Afterwards, we enjoyed a nice piece of Dutch apple pie with a generous amount of whipped cream inside the museum cafe, and so I was a happy camper. Bathrooms here were free too. Double bonus. (Bathrooms cost anywhere from 0.50 to 1 euro in Europe. One mall in Amsterdam even charged 2 euros for the restroom! So I'm always excited when I find a free bathroom. I even thought about making a "free pee map" for each European city, but decided that was a bit tacky.)
7. Amsterdam "Must Try" Foods That Stood out to Us
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| Indonesian Rice Table |
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| FEBO |
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| Frens Harringhandel |
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| Vlaamse Frites |
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| Stroopwafels |
We tried some of the local Dutch food-- and the stampots, meatballs, stews, dutch pancakes, and dutch apple pies were all delicious, but a few items pictured above were stand outs for us, either because of the taste, or because of the way it's dispensed. You have to go try these!
Indonesian rice table: We went to Kartika and had the meat rice table (ramayana rijsttafel). For 19 euros a person, it included a nice sampling of over 10 different flavorful dishes, plus rice and various casava chips and dipping sauces. Turns out Indonesia was a Dutch colony for years and so there are a lot of delicious Indonesian restaurants in the area.
FEBO: This is a fast food chain that sells hot fried foods out of a vending machine. It was just too cute of a concept for me to pass up, and it was a hoot to just browse through the windows and put in coins for the items that looked yummy. The various fried croquets were crispy creamy perfection, but the fried sausages were just OK. There are multiple locations in Amsterdam, so there's bound to be one close to where you are staying.
Vlaamse Frites: There was a line for this french fry joint, and I think the lure is that you can get whatever topping you want for these freshly fried potatoes. I was reeled in with the curry topping, cuz you can't find that in the states.
Frens Harringhandel: I was skeptical initially because herring has such a bad rap, but when we ordered it from the herring stall, it tasted so fresh, and not fishy at all. It's served cut into bite size pieces and topped with diced raw onions and some pickles on the side. It reminded us of fresh sashimi and we wanted to go back for a second serving.
Stroopwafels at the Albert Cuypt market: Nothing beats a warm fresh and crispy waffle sandwich filled with caramel. The fun part was actually watching the guy press the dough ball in the waffle iron, slice the thin waffle and spread the "stroop", aka caramel, in the middle. How does he slice that already thin waffle without breaking it?
8. Take the Train to Zaanse Schans for the day
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| Zaanse Schans |
Yes, Zaanse Schans is touristy, and Rick Steve's warned against going, but we were short on time and Zaanse Schans is only a short train ride from Amsterdam, so we went anyways.
And we had a great time.
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| Tour the inside of a working windmill |
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| Feel and hear the sails turn |
We got to see picturesque windmills along the shoreline and even toured the inside of a running windmill that was grinding seeds into oil. The highlight was walking up to the top and standing close to the sails, feeling and hearing the power of the wind as it turned the sails.
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| Watch wooden clogs being made |
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| Watch wooden clogs being made |
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| And take silly pictures wearing these giant clogs |
There was also a museum for the traditional wooden clogs that were worn by peasants to protect their feet. There was a live demo of how these clogs are shaped from a piece of poplar tree wood, which is a wood with a lot of moisture and can be carved easily prior to drying. I was shocked when he blew into the freshly carved shoe and about a 1/4 c of water came out of the wood!
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| Sample Dutch cheese for free |
And there was even a shop that had so many free samples of dutch cheese--at least 20 different kinds. Some were really tasty, like the plain aged gouda or smoked gouda cheeses, or those flavored with various italian herbs. But we didn't like the lavendar infused cheese. So wrong...
Our Amsterdam Itinerary in Oct 2019
(Sunrise ~8:15AM, sunset 6:33PM; Temperature: Low 43 F, high 65 F)
| Date... | Time... | Activity |
| Day 1 | 11 AM | Arrive in Amsterdam. Uber to Owl Hotel and check in. Later, the owner of the hotel said we should have taken the 397 bus because the bus stops just around the corner from the hotel, and would have only costed 6 euros from the airport. |
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| 1 PM | Lunch at FEBO vending machine. Two are close to hotel. |
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| 2 PM | Rijksmuseum (open 9-7, 20 euros, 8 min walk from hotel) |
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| 5 PM | Dinner at Kartika (Indonesian rice table) |
| Day 2 | 8 AM | Early morning photos of canals. Rick Steve’s Audio walking tour of the Jordaan. Got to snack on fresh herring at Frens Harringhandel |
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| 12 PM | Lunch at De Bejinkof (Cafeteria style at the top floor of the department store. Restrooms are free here!) |
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| 1 PM | Rick Steve’s Audio walking tour of Amsterdam City walk |
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| 6 PM | Dinner at Hap humm (homey local dutch food) |
| Day 3 | 8 AM | Start walking to Anne Frank Museum (only an 18 minute walk, but budgeting for time to take pictures of the canals along the walk). Purchase a 24 hour tram ticket at a kiosk on the street at a tram station (the 1st use on the tram starts the clock, not when you purchase it) |
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| 9:30 AM | Timed ticket entrance for the Anne Frank Museum |
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| 11 AM | Snack of Dutch apple pie at museum cafe |
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| 11:30 AM | Walk to Mouse Mansion (miniature mouse habitats of famous Dutch children’s author) |
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| 12 PM | Take tram to central station. Buy train ticket for Zaanse Schans, and ride the train. |
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| 1 PM | Arrive at Zaanse Schans. Tour a windmill museum, a hot chocolate bar, a clog museum, cheese and chocolate shop. Have a dutch pancake at one of the restaurants (Kraai) |
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| 5 PM | Take train back to Amsterdam |
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| 6 PM | Rick Steves Audio walking tour of the Red Light District |
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| 8 PM | Dinner at Haes Claus (traditional Dutch food) |
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| 10 PM | Night time photos of canals |
| Day 4 | 9 AM | Check out of hotel. |
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| 10 AM | Take tram to Albert Cuypt Market (24 hr tram ticket still good). Tried fresh stroopwafels |
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| 12 PM | Van Gogh Museum |
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| 3 PM | Uber to River Cruise ship dock |
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| 7PM | Captain’s Dinner on River Cruise ship |
| Day 5 | 8 AM | Included City bus tour by cruise ship itinerary |
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| 10 AM | 1 hour canal boat ride included in cruise ship itinerary |
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| 11 AM | Free afternoon on our own |
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| 12 PM | Amsterdam City Museum |
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| 2:30 PM | Snack on beef croquettes and curry fries @ Vlaamse Frites |
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| 3 PM | Walk to NEMO museumroof top |
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| 5:30 PM | All aboard for sailing out of Amsterdam |