48 hours in Amsterdam

Almost a year ago a Brazilian friend told me he was coming to Europe for two weeks. Of course I HAD to see him again! We had to agree when and where we would meet up, and Amsterdam best fit the bill. I had visited Amsterdam twice before, but still I wasn’t grown tired of it. When I left for Amsterdam on Friday morning we barely had any plans. By the time we left on Saturday evening we had done so many things!

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Walking around Amsterdam

Of course we had to walk around the city, with its cute canals, lovely houses and cozy streets. I always love walking around cities whenever I’m traveling, and with Amsterdam it’s no different, but it’s so worth it.
Our hostel was a meeting point to go to the Free Walking Tour meeting point. This was super useful because otherwise we would have just walked aroun randomly in the city, but now we also learned something. Usually these tours are super entertaining because that’s how they get their tips, and I’ve never been disappointed in one. In the middle of the tour you could buy tickets for some things at a cheaper price, super useful!

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Heineken Experience

During the walking tour you could buy cheaper tickets for Heineken Experience, an interactive tour in the first Heineken factory. It could have been the average brewery tour, but it certainly wasn’t! It’s not only about the beer and how they make it, but also about for example the sports they sponsor. And there’s a ton of things to do around that, for example a “who serves the best beer” contest.

A’dam Lookout

The last time I went to Amsterdam was a couple of years ago, and A’dam Lookout didn’t exist yet then. But now I definitely see why everyone loves visiting it! The views at the top were super cool, the bar could have been super fun if there would have been more spaces to sit, and on top of that (pun intended) you could swing in the highest swing of Europe! I didn’t do that last one, even though it looked amazing: I just couldn’t get past my fear of heights.

By the way, they took away the Iamsterdam sign in front of the Rijksmuseum and placed it nearby A’dam Lookout. Don’t get fooled by all of the old post cards still showing the sign in front of the Rijksmuseum. 😉

Eating ‘kroketten’ out of a vending machine wall

This might sound super weird, but it’s so typical Dutch. And to be honest it’s quite good and something different as well! 😀 You can choose your freshly prepared fried snacks like you would choose a can of soda. You can find several Febo’s in Amsterdam, perfect for a quick snack.

What else can you do in Amsterdam?

There are quite some other things we did during these 48 hours; eating, shopping, visiting places, …
But there are some things I did another time I visited Amsterdam, which are definitely worth a visit as well:

• Anne Frank house: everyone should visit this at least once in their life.
• Rijksmuseum and/or Van Gogh museum: be prepared to spend a lot of time in these museums though!
• Find the Picasso at Vondelpark: you can spend a whole lot of time in this park, but you can make it even more fun by having a contest to see who first spots the Picasso.
• The food stalls at the Foodhallen: go eat something from one/some of the 21 stands.
• Have some delicious pancakes: the pancakes in Amsterdam are always high on my to eat list. This time they just were replaced with a lot of the fried snacks instead, oops!

48 hours in Amsterdam is definitely not long enough, but enough to see the most imporant things. If you plan a bit better than we did, you can do a lot of the above things, and even more! 😀

Have you ever been to Amsterdam?

xo Noor