We found our hotel, the New West Inn, in the western suburbs. The hotel was quite spacious though, and they didn’t mind keeping our soya milk, ham and cheese in the fridge for us. There was a tram just five minutes from the hotel direct to the main area.

First day we took the tram to Anna Frank’s house, decided the queue was too long and went to the Van Gogh museum. It was amazing. It was very special seeing his Sunflowers painting. We then saw the Floating Flower Market, and Rembrandt’s house, stopping in various cheese shops for free samples. They have the best smoked goat’s cheese ever!

The day after we hired bicycles and rode all over the city. They cost around £10 for 4 hours. It was worth every penny. It was definitely a memorable day. By bicycle we visited the Eye Film Institute, on the ferry from Central Station (which is free and you can take you bicycle with you), then cycled to the Vondelpark where we stopped to have our lunch of falafels with veg in pitta bread, which was yummy! It’s a huge, very green park with lovely cycle lanes. We also found on one side of the park some free concerts going on, which seems to happen very often. We returned the bikes, took some photos of Anne Frank’s house and looked in the Tulip and Cheese museums, where we tried some more free samples.

Our final day was raining strongly on and off but we still managed to see the largest library in Europe, a working paternoster lift in the Grand Hotel Amrath (very well preserved), the De Gooyer Windmill, the Heineken brewery (we didn’t get in) and Ajax’s Amsterdam ArenA.

Amsterdam is definitely a very special place!