PLANNING A CITY TRIP: 3 DAYS IN AMSTERDAM

This Friday, we’re going to Amsterdam for 3 days. Although it’s only a 3 hours’ drive from where we live, we’ve never been there before. I’ve heard many people say it’s a great city, so I’m looking forward to being there!

When I go on a short city trip, I usually try to find a good deal on websites like Groupon, Travelbird, etc. For longer trips, this doesn’t always work because most of the times their offers are for shorter stays. This time, I found a coupon in ‘Flair’ (a magazine for women): a double room in a 4 of 5 star hotel for € 66 per night + taxes, with the possibility to choose 1, 2 or 3 nights. The list of hotels in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, … was quite long but we chose the Mercure hotel near Amsterdam Airport (the only hotel in Amsterdam on the list). A room here would normally cost about twice the price we’re paying for it. We made the reservation about 3 weeks ago and had no problem getting a room, even though the voucher mentioned limited availability.

As for transportation, we’ll drive there by car. As I said, it’s only a 3 hours’ drive and my boyfriend and I both have a company car, which we can use for free. We’ll have to pay about € 15 per day to park the car at the hotel (so € 45 total) and we’ll take the bus to the city center, which is about 7km from the hotel. There’s a bus stop right across the street from the hotel, so that should be easy.

For information about the city, sights and restaurants, I’ve been checking out the city’s website Iamsterdam. These are the things we definitely want to do:

• walk around in the historic center and along the canals

• visit the Rijksmuseum, the Anne Frank House, the Hermitage and the Amsterdam Diamond Museum because my boyfriend loooooves diamonds (watching them, not buying them, unfortunately…)

• a cruise on the canals, visit the Museum of the Canals and the Canal House Museums

• some typical Dutch stuff, like visiting a place where they make clogs or something like that

All I have left to do is find a map and check out if - with the things we want to see - it would be interesting to take the 'I Amsterdam' card.

I haven’t made a luggage list yet (anyone who knows me well probably won’t believe this, only 3 days before leaving and no luggage list!!!), because up untill now I’m refusing to believe the weather forecast, according to which it’s going to be raining the whole 3 days with maximum temperatures of about 17°C… So please, everybody, thumbs up for some sun!!

Please share your tips about visits, foods, etc. with me in the comments. I already got a tip about a tapas restaurant that looks really good and I’m quite sure we’ll try it, but all other tips are welcome too!

Want to know how it was? Come back in a few days, I’ll tell you all about it!

#Tips #Planning #Citytrip #Netherlands #Amsterdam