One thing about Amsterdam that is slightly unusual compared to most other great European cities, is that you can have a meaningful visit in only two days. You certainly won’t be able to do everything, but you’ll be able to check out many of the major sites and you’ll be able to leave knowing that you got a good feeling for the place. Pretty much everything visitors are really interested in is located in the compact city center, and as long as the weather is decent and you have good shoes you can probably do it all on foot as well.
If you are one of the many who are doing a quick Amsterdam trip either as a stand-alone weekend or as part of a longer tour of Europe, you’ll be happy to know that the major sites and activities are pretty easy to summarize. Throughout this site we discuss many topics in great depth, so there’s no shortage of possibilities if you’ve got more time on your hands, but if you want to know the major choices that can be conquered in 48 hours or so, you may find the suggestions below useful.
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The Netherlands holds its largest and oldest outdoor music festival of the year in late spring, and even though it’s not terribly close to Amsterdam itself, it’s fairly easy to reach and quite popular with both Amsterdammers and tourists to the capital. The event has been held annually since 1970, and until 2008 it had always been held on Pentecost/Whitsun weekend (7 weeks after Easter), but the early Easter in 2008 caused the event to shift back 3 weeks later.
The festival
Spread over 3 days (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday) the Pinkpop Festival features 3 stages running more or less concurrently. Some of the biggest names on the international touring scene mix with some Dutch stars and lesser-known acts in a lineup that rivals the other top music festivals in Europe. The event is broadcast live on Dutch TV if you can’t be one of the 60,000 or so people who attend over course of the long weekend.
Location
The Pinkpop Festival is held in the small Dutch town of Landgraaf, which is about 200 kilometers south of Amsterdam and very near the city of Heerlen, and also near the borders of Germany and Belgium.
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People who’ve traveled extensively before arriving in Amsterdam are well aware that learning at least a few phrases in the local language is at the very least the polite thing to do, and in many cases it’s critical to even performing basic tasks like buying things or checking into a hotel. That’s not actually the case in Amsterdam, but nevertheless I think this short video from the people at Geobeats is definitely worth your time. The host gives you the top 10 Dutch phrases you’ll need when visiting Amsterdam, and it’s nicely produced and very interesting, even though there really isn’t much reason to actually memorize them.
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If you’ve been keeping an eye on currency exchange rates in the last year or so you already know that the US Dollar has been getting clobbered lately. This makes visiting Europe crazy expensive for Americans this year, and it wasn’t too cheap last year or the year before either.
Amsterdam will always be a fun place to visit for a few days, but if you are in Europe you might want to think about heading across the Atlantic for a longer holiday this year because things there have never been cheaper for …
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If you are from Europe these will all be things you are well aware of, but for North Americans visiting Amsterdam for the first time, especially if you haven’t traveled extensively elsewhere in Europe, the topics of tipping and service are interesting. The culture of both things is very different from one side of the Atlantic to the other, and more than a few people get riled up needlessly because they don’t understand the other system.
Here’s the short version:
Tipping: A service charge that is the equivalent of a tip is already included in every price. This includes taxis, drinks, food, haircuts, carrying luggage, and everything else. So leaving no tip at all isn’t really insulting because tipping is optional through Europe. However, it’s most common, even among locals, to tip around 5% or so on many things. Typically you round up the bill. If your meal in a restaurant is €18.50, then you leave €20 or even €19. If your taxi ride is €10.20 you give them €11.
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If you’ve ever wondered where the expression “going Dutch” came from, the video below does an entertaining job in answering it. Sure, it’s a bit nerdy to care about ancient history like this, but if you are heading to Amsterdam it can’t really hurt to know some of this stuff.
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In a recent post I blasted Anne Frank as a “one trick pony” and said that it was disgraceful that the young author had rested on her laurels after writing a single book. I went on to take the world of literary criticism to task for fawning over a writer who seemed even more stubborn than J.D. Salinger in her refusal to write a follow-up. I now regret those remarks, and I apologize to the entire Frank family.
As embarrassing as it is now, my refusal to read The Diary of Anne Frank in the 5th grade was not popular with my teacher at the time either. I still firmly believe that reading another person’s diary is morally wrong, whether the school district insists upon it or not, but recent e-mails to me have made it clear that this is an exceptional case, so I’m now rethinking my policy.
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Over at BootsnAll they’ve just published an article full of money-saving tips for Europe travel, which should come in especially handy for Americans since our currency keeps edging toward being worthless against the now-mighty euro. When the euro debuted at just over $1.17 each things seemed about right, and then it marched down to about 82 US cents before starting to climb back up to the dizzying heights of around $1.55 where it stands as I write this.
I remember being in Europe when the euro was 87 cents, although it wasn’t actually in circulation yet. Those were good times for Americans, but now we are getting our ass kicked so we need to travel like cheapskates to even come close to keeping things affordable this year.
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BootsnAll recently published one of those “list stories” called 12 places to see really good-looking locals, and Amsterdam seems to be a glaring omission. The article is fairly interesting and most of the photos are nice, but you still have to wonder how a city known for attractive locals like Amsterdam was left off.
It appears that they picked most of the 12 cities by region. Copenhagen is on the list and so is Prague, and both of those certainly belong, but Stockholm was left off as well. I guess the …
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I recently got an e-mail question from someone wondering a few things to prepare for their first trip to Amsterdam. One question was to name my top 3 things to see on a first visit to Amsterdam. I think this is a pretty common question for many people, so I thought I’d expand the answer just a bit here.
Take a canal tour as early in your trip as you can
Unlike nearly every other European city (except for its brother-in-canals Venice) Amsterdam has no good city bus tours. It’s not really obvious just from looking at an Amsterdam map, but those streets that go along the canals in the city center are really small in addition to being almost completely residential. That puts half the city off limits to big buses, and the other half is mixed with a few busy streets and a few that are off limits to everything but trams and/or bikes.
The good news is that many different companies offer a similar 1-hour canal tour that is the best way of getting the lay of the land quickly. There are some that do hop-on/hop-off with stops near Leidseplein, Museumplein, the Heineken Brewery, and other attractions, but the quickest way for most people is just walk either straight out of Centraal Station, or just to your right out the door, and you’ll find several companies offering these tours so you can often walk up and be underway just a few minutes later. You can get more information here about the Amsterdam canal cruises. They are also the best first thing to do on a 5+ hour layover at Schiphol, and more information can be found on the Amsterdam Layover Guide.
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