Another wonderful trip to Amsterdam, staying at the beautiful Tulipa B&B. Paula and Jan so welcoming and informative as always.
This was a girls’ weekend with eating, drinking and relaxing as the main aims and just a little bit of culture. After a late lunch on Friday afternoon and a stop for an enormous gin and tonic (they only serve enormous gin and tonics nowadays in Amsterdam), we headed for the Van Gogh Museum which is open until late every Friday night. There was a fascinating exhibition comparing the work of Van Gogh and Munsch, with many rarely seen paintings and many well known: we came across ‘The Scream’, in a near empty gallery and were able to linger there undisturbed. When we had seen enough we headed down to the bar in the shimmering new atrium where they were playing 80s music (another Friday night quirk) for another large gin and tonic- I really think Tate Modern should consider the Friday night bar/ music combo.
We went to the nearby ‘Seafood Bar’ for dinner which really was seafood heaven- mounds of shellfish and fish all at incredibly reasonable prices all washed down with a €16 bottle of Chardonnay!
On Saturday we hung out at flea markets and the farmers market on Noordermarkt where we shopped and ate street food: pumkin soup, oysters, Indonesian delicacies, the choice was endless. We moved on to the lanes of the Jordan, where we found such quirky and interesting shops all crammed together that it was impossible not to buy gifts-including handmade sweets made before our eyes at Pappabubble and the compulsory wedge of Old Amsterdam cheese. In the evening we headed to the Foodhallen in an old tram depot, recently converted into a cinema and food centre – a bit like an enclosed Covent Garden market full of food booths and the odd bar. This is really popular with the local Dutch as it is a bit off the tourist trail and the choice of food was amazing- we had the local ‘bitteballen’ with our gin and tonics and then branched out – the soft shell crab burger and the tandoori chicken wrap being amongst our favourites. Unsurprisingly we couldn’t manage breakfast on Sunday morning.
Such thanks to Tulipa’s Paula and Jan who suggested all the above venues, and which we would never have found without them. It seems Amsterdam nowadays, more than ever has the perfect something for everyone who visits, it just helps to have some insider knowledge.
by TMS