Amsterdam Getaway!

We spent the European May Day holiday weekend in Amsterdam, the largest city and capital of the Netherlands. The city boasts a population of about 1 million people, over 45% of which are non-Dutch nationalities, truly a melting “pot” (more on that later). This really was a getaway, as we left the kids in Budapest with a trusted nanny and met our friends Cameron & Megan Moates, who live in Moscow.

The city of Amsterdam, whose name was easily derived from ‘the dam across the Amstel River’ is most well known for its freewheeling nature, tolerance and open-mindedness when it comes to soft drugs and legalized prostitution. Before these characteristics defined the city, it was a giant trading port that put Holland on the map.

The 16th and 17th centuries were known as the Golden Age in the city, when merchants, skippers and artisans flocked to Amsterdam to trade diamonds, tobacco and spices. However, by the late 17th century, a decline in trade brought poverty and before Napoleon was defeated in the early 19th century, Amsterdam was actually turned into a sleepy market town. That definition did not last long, as the city benefited from the Industrial Revolution, breweries were built, and they hosted the Olympic Games (in 1928). Despite short-term success, Amsterdam was again crippled by WWII when only 5,000 of Amsterdam’s 90,000 Jews survived the war. Shortly after the war ended in 1945, Amsterdam became Europe’s ‘Magic Centre’ and hippies found their place to smoke, drink and be generally merry. Over centuries of seeing the world flow in and out of this trading port, it is no wonder Amsterdamers have one of the most progressive mindsets in the world.

Kyle and I started our trip by taking a direct shuttle from the airport west of the city to Keukenhof Gardens, the largest garden in Europe. The garden is famous for its over 7,000,000 tulip blooms and welcomes as many as 800,000 visitors in the short 2 months it is open each year. Despite pulling our luggage all over the gardens, we really enjoyed the pleasant weather and beautiful views. I even got Kyle to pose for a few pictures; although we did miss our cute kids a lot as they would have looked much better than us in front of the flowers! Did you know the tulip does not have its origin in Holland? It was actually brought to Holland in 1570 by nomadic tribes from Central and Western Asia.

We arrived in the city center around 6:00pm on Friday and found that our lodging for the night at Hotel Pulitzer was not quite ready. The Netherlands biggest holiday, Queen’s Day, was the day before our arrival. The day is supposed to celebrate the birthday of a former queen, but is really just an excuse for a Mardi Gras’esque street party complete with LOADS of trash on the street the following day. We were told the maid staff was still working to clean the rooms from partiers checking out late, so the only room available to us was a handicap room. Not a big deal, but I did manage to set off the “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” alarm (red tension line surrounding the base of the bathroom) by dropping my towel on it. Even though we found the source of the alarm to turn it off, the hotel staff still rushed to the door with medical kits. Kyle had to say at least 5 times that everything was fine to get them to go away! Ah, what a start.

We spent the evening hours touring the western canals around our hotel, discovering a great little wine bar called Vyne and eating dinner at a recommended restaurant. We even found an ice cream parlor open late for dessert! All this before the Moates’ even got to town!

We rendezvoused with the Moates’ early Saturday morning and enjoyed a big American style breakfast at a café around the corner from our hotel. It is a good thing we had a large breakfast because we spent the remainder of the day walking all over the city. We saw the Anne Frank house (TOOOO long a line to enter), the Western Church, Koninklijk Palace, the Old and New Churches, Dam Square, Central Station and the harbor, Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh Museum and Albert Cuypmarket. We tried to make a stop into the Holland Casino but we were not prepared with passports and admission fees. In between all our walking and sightseeing, we stopped at a café for Heinekens and lunch and also took a hop-on-hop-off canal boat down Prinsengracht. The city is quite charming and also confusing! Cameron was our navigator but I still felt turned around by all the circling canals.

The highlight of our day (at least for the guys) was The Heineken Brewery Experience, a tour of the old working brewery in southern Amsterdam. We toured the historic Brewroom and learned about the family business as we were “brewed and bottled” through a fantastic 4-D experience (complete with spraying water…or maybe it was beer)! After walking all over the building we were anxiously anticipating the end of the tour and our 3 cold brewed Heinekens waiting for us at The World Bar. An interesting fact we learned, most of the pubs in Amsterdam is sponsored by a local brewery. The pub can only serve the local brew of its sponsor (and imports as well), but not the other local beers. We quickly learned the signs to look for to see whether the pubs served Heineken, Amstel or something else. Very interesting…

We ended our evening with dinner at a quaint Italian eatery and further strolls through the city, including the famed red-light district. While the sights and smells of the district are common to Amsterdamers, it is a little mind-bending when you first set your eyes on it. We felt “illuminated” after a short while and headed back to our familiar neighborhood to toast our last night in Amsterdam at Vyne.

We bid farewell to the city (and 2 full nights sleep) the next morning with a traditional Dutch breakfast of sweet and savory pancakes, or pannekoek. We might have gained 5 pounds this weekend were it not for all our walking! We really enjoyed our weekend getaway with the Moates’ and the opportunity to tour another European destination (the 5th most visited city in Europe). Cross it off our list!

You can see all our pictures here. Beware…lots of tulips!

P.S. The kids did GREAT and were thrilled to see Mommy & Daddy Sunday afternoon.