Amsterdam, the Venice of Northern Europe?

When to go to Amsterdam if not over Easter when the tulips bloom and the spring sun starts to appear? Well, the spring sun was mostly absent but the tulips were in full bloom and the Rendahls had packed their raincoats. In this post we do all the things tourists do in the city, marvelling at crooked houses, eating cheese and riding a canal boat. If you want to read about when we visited the beautiful Keukenhof park, you can read here And if you think Amsterdam's culinary scene is all about bitterballen and fries, read about our visit to Michelin-starred restaurant de Silveren Spiegel here.

Rosalia's Menagerie

We always spend a little extra time looking for nice accommodation and we also try to stay away from the big hotel chains. Sure, it's convenient with chains, you know what you get and there are always discounts at Ica, Coop or the hotels' own loyalty programmes. However, it's a bit boring and then you also risk missing gems like this one, Rosalia's Menagerie. It is actually a small super cosy cocktail bar that serves great drinks but also has some rooms. It was therefore obvious to start our arrival in Amsterdam with a drink.

After the welcome drink, we balanced the narrow stairs up to our room. Note the word "drink" in singular, you shouldn't have any more on your first night in this city if you don't want to risk breaking your neck on the narrow and steep stairs that are more like ladders up to the upper floors of the houses. Gee, orthopaedics must be a lucrative profession in this town, someone has to take care of all the tourists' missteps.

Well, we managed to get both up and down the stairs several times and we had a great time at Rosalias. Although the hotel is located above a bar in the middle of the old town, it is surprisingly quiet, we chose a room with a window facing the courtyard even though the rooms were slightly smaller than those facing the street.

In the morning we were treated to a fantastic breakfast of yoghurt, homemade granola, fruit and croissants. Our own chef was also ready to serve us everything we could wish for.

House of Rituals

Amsterdam's number one spa brand is Rituals and of course there is a flagship store here. Three floors of cream, Henrik may not have cheered, but kindly followed me when I wanted to enter the store and botanise. In the store there is not only cream but they also have a spa and a so-called Mind Oasis, a kind of "Oasis of the Senses" where you can book various treatments that, through a mix of innovation and ancient wisdom, are said to be able to help you de-stress in everyday life. Fuzzy as it gets, but pretty fun anyway. Below you can also see a picture of me testing a wheel that will spin out some kind of wisdom for me. I think everyone can see how my back radiates a certain scepticism towards this wheel. 🙂

Sceptical or not, of course we came out of the shop, a big bag of spa products richer and a penny poorer. Had we had more time in town, it would definitely have been an option to have a treatment or have lunch in their Asian restaurant which looked very nice. Now we moved on to the next tourist thing, the canal boat.

Canal boat

It is almost a must to go on a canal tour when you are in Amsterdam. There are lots of companies that offer tours of all kinds, regular canal tour, "boat and booze", "boat and cheese" and so on. We chose a regular tour with the company Flagship which had quite nice boats. Two guides were on the boat and they took turns telling us some exciting facts and nice anecdotes about the various canal houses we passed along the way. Among other things, we learned that the property tax was once based on the width of the houses, hence they are so narrow. You can see a picture of Amsterdam's narrowest house above, almost hidden behind a lamppost. The canals are also full of houseboats, some barely seaworthy, but still ridiculously expensive the few times they are on the market. All in all, the tour took an hour and you got a good overview of the city. We also passed Amsterdam's only curved canal house which turned out to be a museum so we decided to go there the next day.

Bartolotti House

You might expect to find a house named Bartolotti in Italy but the story behind this name is apparently that the merchant who would inherit his wealthy relative had to take the name Bartolotti according to a condition in the will. An easy choice you can assume when you see this beautiful rococo castle that is now a museum. For an old house, it is almost an interactive museum, you can open the small doors in the cabinets, dance on the ballroom floors and you are offered coffee in the kitchen.

House Bartolotti is owned by a foundation that has taken on some 80 houses around the Netherlands to preserve and showcase them to the world. The foundation has really done a fantastic job of showcasing the old house. We spent about an hour walking around and listening to stories about the history of the house and the merchants who had lived there. Definitely worth a visit!

Cheese tasting at Old Amsterdam

If you have plenty of time, you should of course go out into the countryside or look for a farmers market to eat domestic products. However, we did not have that time and I had read somewhere before we left that even the commercial and touristy cheese shops that Amsterdam is crawling with had good cheese. We'll have to try it, we thought, and went into the Old Amsterdam Cheese Store. We just missed the last tasting of the day but must have looked particularly cheese hungry because we got our own tasting at the end of the day. It was so nice to have a cheese expert all to ourselves who guided us through lots of cheese and even managed to lure Henrik into some goat cheese, something he really doesn't like. Unclear if it was the well-filled glasses with matching wine or the subsequent whiskey that did it. 🙂 By the way, apparently whisky and well-aged Gouda is a great combo, at least if you don't, like me, get a little green in the face just from the smell of whisky.

Anne Frank House

Something that we unfortunately did not have time for this trip to Amsterdam was Anne Frank's home. Surely no one has missed this story that we all had to read about in school. However, we had underestimated what a huge tourist magnet this is and therefore did not book tickets far in advance. The tickets are released at the museum's website once a week for the next six weeks and then you have to be quick to book your entry. However, we took a walk past the residence and the neighbouring museum to take a few pictures.

After a couple of fantastic days in Amsterdam, it was now time to head home again. We will definitely return here and to the rest of the Netherlands again. Although we had packed days, we did not have time to do everything we wanted to do, and this city has so much more to offer than just coffee shops and the Red Light District, something that Amsterdam is perhaps otherwise best known for. Our tip is to skip the shabby exploitation of other people and instead experience everything beautiful and wonderful that Amsterdam has to offer. Eat well, drink well and enjoy this cosy little city.