My First Trip to Amsterdam

I arrived in Amsterdam, Netherlands on the morning of June 4th and began exploring in the afternoon. This was not my first time in Amsterdam, but it was the first time that I was able to get out of the airport and explore the city. However, I was only here for about five days because I was mainly here to go on a cruise. Nonetheless, I still did as much as possible.

I did not do much on the day I arrived. After resting for a couple of hours, I started to explore the city. I just walked around a little bit on the first day, but I still saw a lot of nice places around Amsterdam, such as the Central Train Station, some beautiful churches and the famous canals. I especially enjoyed simply walking down the historical city streets.

On my second day in Amsterdam, I did some more exploring and went on a canal cruise, viewed the city from a different perspective and visited the famous "Rijksmuseum," which features a variety of Dutch art and history in beautiful galleries. I also visited "Artis," one of the oldest zoos in the world, which first opened in 1838. Artis is both a zoo and botanical garden and I thought that it was nice, but it is quite small and I would not consider this to be one of my favorites.

On my third day in Amsterdam, I did some more exploring around the city and took a free water taxi from the central train station to the land directly across the river. Once arriving, the first place that I visited was the "This Is Holland" experience. This is just an attraction that has a similar ride system as Disney's "Soarin' Around the World," except this ride takes you around various locations in the Netherlands. The ride itself was just a couple of minutes, but the whole experience is about 15 to 20 minutes because you go through two interactive show-rooms prior to boarding the ride. Because of this, I enjoyed the whole experience and I would definitely recommend it to anyone visiting Amsterdam and I'd love to go here again when I return.

The next place that I visited on this day was the A'DAM Lookout, which is a relatively new tower with a nice observation deck that overlooks the city. The observation deck also has an attraction that swings over the edge of the building, which I did end up trying out. This was a short, but fun attraction that gives great views of the Amsterdam harbor.

The next day, I boarded a cruise to Iceland that returned to Amsterdam on June 19th and I still had a day left to explore the city. The first place that I visited once I got off the ship was the "Zaanse Schans" famous windmill village. This place was very peaceful and I enjoyed walking around all of the small buildings and windmills. I also got to see a demonstration of how wooden clogs are made and I thought that it was pretty interesting. I would definitely love to go back and spend some more time in this village in the future.

After leaving the "Zaanse Schans," the weather was much better, so I spent some time walking around the city. I didn't see much other than some canals and nice buildings, but it was still very much enjoyable. I then ended the afternoon with a visit to the famous Anne Frank House, which was a very interesting and informative experience. I thought that it was really cool just to see where such an important historical event occurred and how people lived during this time. Because of the authenticity of this experience, no photos or videos were allowed throughout the house, but I do have a picture of the front of the building that can be found at the end of the slideshow below (it's the building on the left with a white camera in between the second and third floor).

Overall, my time in Amsterdam was very eventful and I had a lot of fun. I experienced a lot of great things that this beautiful city has to offer and I can't wait to go back and explore more of Amsterdam in the future.