Exploring Amsterdam

My adult son and I just came back from Amsterdam April 2025. It was a friendly , exciting, interesting, beautiful, and easy to navigate city.

We stayed at Hotel V Nesplain. It was a great find! Close to everything including the subway and trams, but on a quiet side street. Our room was large and well-appointed, with lovely blackout curtains, super comfy beds, and ample pillows of varying firmness. Some rooms even have bathtubs. Each room had a fridge, standing fan, kettle, coffee machine with free coffee, tea and hot chocolate, and free bottled water. We had bathrobes and slippers, nice toiletries, and daily cleaning. Rooms can accommodate 1-4 people.

Places to eat near the hotel were plentiful, from chain restaurants to bistros and champagne bars. Dinner was typically $60-90 euros including an alcoholic beverage and appetizer.

The subway was super easy to use: simply tap a credit card with tap capabilities to enter the subway or tram, and tap out. Each tram also had an agent in a booth to sell an access card if your card didn't work.

Bicycles were everywhere and could be a hazard to pedestrians. While rarely on sidewalks, where sidewalks weren't present the cyclists had little regard for pedestrians so one had to be very alert when crossing roads or walking down narrow streets.

Amsterdam is a very quiet city with fewer cars than most cities. It is low crime but there are pickpockets near museums and other tourist areas. I felt safe as a woman there except very early in the morning when there were people sleeping in the streets and no one else was around.

The red light district was far tamer (from the outside) than I imagined. Many, many shops with personal 'aids', sexy clothing, and such were openly advertising their wares, but no nudity. There were viewing booths with entertainment workers sitting in them, but there was no nudity.

Walking is tiring as the streets and sidewalks are mostly cobblestones and they are hard on the feet and legs after all day. However, many cafes have seating outside, and it's easy to take a quick break over a coffee, a stroopwafel, or little bars. Taxis are available but not readily so. Uber also operates in Amsterdam. Schiphol Airport is huge and it's a very long walk from check-in to international gates. But it's a lovely airport and efficient with a lot of shops to make last minute purchases before returning home.

Omnipresent in the downtown core are cannabis shops and coffee shops that serve weed and not always coffee. Coffee-shop = weed Cafe = coffee

For tourists, two things must be booked as soon as tickets become available: Anne Frank House and Van Gogh Museum. We used Viator exclusively and other than one cancelled tour cancelled weeks in advance, we had zero issues.

Our tours:

1. Anne Frank Walking Tour - was excellent and educational.
2. Day Trip out of the city - we saw windmills, gouda cheese making, wooden shoe making, and gorgeous little towns. Quite touristy but enjoyable. Capped off with an obligatory canal cruise.
3. Small group tour of Rijksmuseum - Rembrandt and other Dutch Masters, with a very good art historian that helped us understand the pieces and culture surrounding them. Really good but very adult-paced.
4. Red light District Tour - we didn't add the coffee shop experience but it was a good tour that was mostly not about the red light district.
5. Food and Culture Tour with Roman - This was excellent and a wonderful tour to do the first day as it provided an excellent introduction to the city, both historically and culturally. The guide was amazing: charming and friendly, with a ton of information. He kept the kids in the group involved as well. We tasted cheese, bitterballen, fried cod fish and herring, apple pie, stroopwaffles, the best french fries and other things - all great portions and at an unhurried but steady pace. Perfectly executed.
6. We also toured the Dutch Resistance Museum - highly recommend this with short movies, artifacts and a very comprehensive discussion of how Dutch citizens reacted to the Nazi invasion and events of WW2.

There are wonderful bookstores in Amsterdam - selling both English and Dutch language books. Popular foods on restaurant menus are caesar salad, thin crust pizza, pasta, stews, french fries, hamburgers, and a lot of waffles and pancakes. Good coffee is easy to find.

Water is rarely free even at restaurants, and many washrooms cost 1 euro or 50 cents, but often cards were accepted at the lavatories. Many places did not accept cash - even restaurants. Credit cards widely accepted. Tips are not expected, but welcomed at table service restaurants, with 5-10% typical.