We have now arrived at my final post about our pre-Christmas tour of Europe!
The last city Claudio and I visited was Amsterdam, a place neither of us had ever been to, but which I'd wanted to visit for years. Our journey there from Bruges was quite exciting - we first took a train to Ghent, and then one to Antwerp, which is one of the most beautiful train stations I've ever been to.
It would have been nice to see the outside of the train station and also to have a coffee in that very posh looking café. But we didn't have much time there before it was time to get on our last train and cross the border into the Netherlands!
The journey was longer than we expected (the train had to stop for a while just outside of Antwerp) but quite enjoyable. We passed through a large proportion of the country on our way to the capital, and saw some interesting sights, including an amazing mosque in Rotterdam and plenty of windmills. I just had to take a (very bad!) picture of one of them through the train window!
It was nice to get to see these sights on our journey, as we were only going to be in Amsterdam for a short while as part of our multi-destination trip through Europe, and we didn't have the chance to visit other regions in the country. Though of course, if we come back to the Netherlands in the future, I'd definitely like to explore more outside of Amsterdam.
Arriving at Amsterdam Centraal station was actually one of the parts of the trip I was most looking forward to. I'd seen pictures of it on the internet, and it's such a grand and beautiful building. But what I wasn't expecting was for the views outside the station to be so incredible. As soon as you exit, you're greeted by the sight of those famous canals and lots of tall Dutch houses. It was definitely a "wow" moment! (I had thought that the harbourside in Bristol was somewhat reminiscent of photos and videos I'd seen of Amsterdam, but it turns out it really can't be compared to the real life version!)
After grabbing some pizza nearby, we took the train over to Amsterdam Sloterdijk in the west of the city, which is where our hotel was located. This area of the city is really modern and futuristic, with every type of public transport you can think of, and a huge parking lot filled entirely with bicycles!
We stayed in an aparthotel, Hotel2Stay, which was very spacious, comfy and cosy. Its location also meant that it was great value compared to hotels in the historic centre.
On our first evening in the Netherlands, we took a little trip out to the city of Zaandam rather than heading back into the centre of Amsterdam. It's a really pretty place that's definitely worth a visit!
The next morning, we had tickets booked for the Rijksmuseum, and so we took a tram from literally just outside the hotel right up to the museum's entrance. I always enjoy travelling by tram, as you get to see a lot of the city along the way.
The Rijksmuseum was one of the places I was most excited about visiting, both because of the famous Dutch paintings inside the museum, and because of the beautiful building that houses the museum. During the pandemic and also last autumn, my parents and I watched a lot of the detective series Van der Valk, which is set in Amsterdam. It was always interesting to see the different locations across the city where various scenes took place, and the Rijksmuseum was definitely one of the places that caught my attention the most.
I'm glad to say that our visit there did not disappoint! It was very special to see paintings by Van Gogh, Vermeer, and Rembrandt, including the famous The Night Watch, as well as countless other interesting works of art and historical artefacts. What made it even better was that, unlike the Louvre, it wasn't packed out with tourists taking selfies for Instagram, so the overall experience was a lot more pleasant. And the building is also very beautiful to see in real life.
Another great thing about the Rijksmuseum is its café! It's such an elegant setting and all the waitresses and waiters wear posh outfits. We ordered brownies and hot chocolates, and while Claudio wasn't keen on the amount of dried fruit in the brownies, the hot chocolate was one of the best I've had in my life. I loved how the whipped cream came on a little plate!
Having taken in a large amount of art (and a large amount of sugar!), we left the museum and began to make our way up towards Dam Square. In doing so, we passed by lots of very attractive bridges, canals and houses.
We also took the opportunity to visit the Begijnhof, which felt very tranquil compared to the rest of the bustling city. We saw two lovely cats playing in a window there!
Our next stop was Dam Square to see the Royal Palace. To be honest, I've seen more beautiful and impressive palaces in my lifetime, but it was still nice to see.
One of the things I really wanted to do in Amsterdam was to take a boat trip around the canals. So we spent the next hour cruising around the city, seeing various examples of its interesting architecture. Because the boat was enclosed, it didn't give us the best opportunity to take photos, but it was really nice to be out of the wind and the rain! I'd definitely recommend a boat tour as a fun way of seeing this city, which is entirely built around water.
By this point in the day, we'd done a lot of sightseeing and visiting beautiful places, so we decided to experience a different side of Amsterdam. Of course, one of the main reasons many people come to Amsterdam (particularly British tourists, embarrassingly enough) is to make the most of the legal marijuana (and also the Red Light District). And although marijuana definitely was not one of our main reasons for coming, we figured that if we were going to try it, Amsterdam was the best place to do so. So we found a coffeeshop (the name for the places where they sell cannabis) and bought a joint.
I had never smoked marijuana previously, but I had tried a sweetie with it in during a night out in
Malta (where it's also legal). I was a bit nervous about the effect that it would have on me, but surprisingly, it just made me feel slightly drunk, but had nowhere near as strong an effect as alcohol usually has on me.
However, it unfortunately had a stronger effect on Claudio. A few minutes afterwards, he started feeling weird, and so we went to get some food to try to mitigate it. But almost as soon as we started eating our burgers, he found he couldn't eat anymore. He went extremely pale and said that he felt like he could fall asleep at any moment.
I managed to get him to the train station and back to the hotel, where he immediately fell asleep. I was wondering whether I should call for medical attention, but I hoped that it was something he would be able to just sleep off.
Fortunately, an hour or two later, he woke up feeling completely normal. Apparently, during the episode he'd believed he was going to die, and had had other paranoid thoughts about me getting kidnapped and about our train being blown up. (It's safe to say I don't think that we'll be smoking any more joints any time soon!)
As Claudio was feeling normal again, we decided to go back out into the centre for the evening to go and see the Red Light District. It definitely wasn't the area we were most interested in seeing in the city, but as it was our first time in Amsterdam, we felt we should visit it anyway. It's fair to say we found it quite sleazy, but at least we can say we went!
We finished off our evening in Amsterdam looking out across Waalseilandgracht at the Grand Hotel Amrâth and the Sea Palace Chinese restaurant, which looked quite spectacular all lit up.
Overall, I had a great time exploring Amsterdam - it was a dream come true to see the traditional architecture and to visit the Rijksmuseum. I also really liked how modern and efficient certain aspects of the city were, such as the public transport.
For Claudio, I think Amsterdam was never going to be as amazing as Paris (maybe we did our trip in the wrong order!), and the marijuana episode, plus the chaos we experienced at Schiphol Airport the next morning left a bit of a bad impression. All the same, he also enjoyed these couple of days we spent discovering a new country.
To sum up, the week we had travelling through Europe, and especially Paris, was such a special and memorable trip. We'd both been through some difficult patches leading up to December, and I think we both really needed this time together, away from work, just exploring some beautiful places and enjoying life. And of course, getting engaged made it all so much more special!
It was a perfect way to round off a year that had been amazing at times but also very challenging for both of us. Going into 2024, there are still challenges ahead, but now that we're together again, I'm feeling a lot more positive than I was a couple of months ago. Hopefully, some more stability and certainty (as well as more adventures!) are on the horizon for us in the near future!
