Our third day in Amsterdam started off with one of the best hotel breakfasts I’ve ever had. You can’t go wrong with hot food made to order and fresh fruit and bread! After fueling up on a late breakfast, it was off to the train station for a day trip to Rotterdam.
Tip: When purchasing a train ticket, you can essentially purchase a day pass that is good for outbound and return. None of us were able to use our credit cards on the ticket machine, but you can always go to the ticket office to make your purchase. After getting your ticket, you simply pick the train and time that works best for you from the many screens available and go to that platform!
We scheduled a private tour around Rotterdam through Viator that began in the afternoon. With plenty of time to kill after our hour long train ride, we ate a light snack and met our guide at a statue called “De Verwoeste Stad.” After google translate helped us, we realized we were in the right spot. Our guide described this statue as representative of the city of Rotterdam; it’s missing its heart. “De Verwoeste Stad” translates to “The Destroyed City.”
Fun fact: I knew nothing about Rotterdam’s history going into the tour. So why did I want to go here? When I did my research on Instagram and Pinterest, I saw amazing architecture with fun-shaped buildings that I knew I had to see in person. This tour was a reminder for me to look past the visual part of a location when doing ‘research.’ Sure it may be pretty, but what is its back story?
What I did not know about Rotterdam was its World War II history. During the war, Germany essentially blitzed the entire city until it was nothing. Prior to the war, it was surrounding by canals, similar to Amsterdam. After the city was destroyed, the canals were filled with the building remnants as a way of cleaning up the mess. It was surreal walking around the city knowing that parts of it used to be water!
We walked so much but I also learned so much. Some of the highlights of the guided tour include the memorial for the Jewish children who died in WWII, the amazing bridge that we crossed in the freezing cold, eating freshly made stroopwafels at the Markethal, and the awesome buildings such as the famous cube houses.
After the most walking we had ever done in the span of four hours, we all were tired. When we got back to Amsterdam, we found a cute Italian restaurant called D’Antica that served our pasta in a cheese wheel.
The next day began bright and early with another hotel breakfast. We took an uber to a cafe across the water from the train station (we took the long way around when we could’ve easily taken the free ferry) and met up with a group of people for another half day tour. This time we would be visiting the famous windmills that are iconic to Holland.
The drive was short and we made it to the Zaanse Schans windmills just as it started to get crowded. The clear, blue sky combined with the green windmills was picturesque.
After, it as off to a cheese making factory where we got to sample cheeses and Dutch schnapps. The cheese that I sampled was some of the best I’d ever had! We loved the cheese/cumin combo so much that we ended up taking some home.
Next, we were taken to Volendam for a lunch break. Volendam is located on a port so fish and chips seemed to be the specialty at every restaurant. We ate stroopwafels for dessert and met up with the group for our next destination.
Our final stop on the tour was a quaint town called Broek in Waterland. There were zero tourists in this town and it was so nice and quiet. We meandered through the village and ended the tour with tastings of vodka and licorice liquer. I highly recommend this tour if you want to see a bit of the countryside, the quintessential windmills, and try some tasty cheeses.
After the tour, we had about an hour to kill before our reserved tickets at the Anne Frank house, so we spontaneously hopped on a canal cruise.
Right after the canal cruise, it was our time to enter the Anne Frank house. Tip: buy your tickets online for the Anne Frank house way in advance, as soon as the date you want becomes available. Seeing where Anne Frank and her family and others lived for years was a sobering experience. The space that they hid in was tiny and way smaller than I had imagined from reading about it in her diary. The saddest part to me was that most of them did not survive the war, despite trying to hide for years. Even though no pictures were allowed, I managed to sneak a picture of this wall right before entering behind the bookcase.
Our next stop after the Anne Frank house was a place called Foodhallen, which was exactly how it sounds: a big hall filled with food. It was packed with mostly locals and stalls of various food vendors and even a few bars. You should definitely go here to experience samples of different types of food. I ended up getting a green smoothie and sharing some bitterballen, which are flavorful meatballs filled with a gravy-type consistency. Trust me, it’s way more delicious than it sounds!
We ventured back to our hotel and enjoyed happy hour in the dark because the power was out for several blocks. This meant that every restaurant nearby was closed. Luckily, we walked further and found a crowded Italian restaurant called Il Primo that was open.
On our last full day in Amsterdam, I got up bright and early to take pictures of the city. As I walked up and down the canals, it felt as if I had the whole city to myself. Since it was a Saturday morning, there were only a handful of people out and about; not the usual rush hour ‘traffic’ of bicycles zooming by. I’ve never been to a foreign city like this where I felt very safe and at peace. It was during this morning that I truly fell in love with Amsterdam. Below are some of the pictures that I snapped.
The remainder of the day was spent discovering other parts of the city such as the Albert Cuypmarkt for some fresh stroopwafels and souvenir shopping, Cafe Pepeneiland for some wine and their famous apple pie, and then our final dinner at Castillo Tapas y Steaks.
Amsterdam has become one of my favorite cities in the world and I can’t wait to go back already!
Love this!!! I forgot we got that cheese’n
This just made me EXTRA excited and I cant wait to be here! Definitely took down some notes for some of your recommendations like Foodhallen. Also loved your idea of waking up early to snap pictures. The Anne Frank museum was definitely such a sad place to visit. Since we did museums the first time, I’m excited to just get lost in this beautiful city!