Best Live Webcam in Amsterdam - Dam Square

LIVE streaming WebCam Dam Amsterdam in HDTV kwaliteit met Pan/Tilt/Zoom en weergave op iPhone, iPad en android telefoons.

This is really fabulous; especially today on Queen's Day. This is a view of Dam Square; but the camera moves every few seconds to give a different view of this huge Square, and close up shots down the main street.

Enjoy!

Koninginnenacht, Queen's Night (Before Queens Day)

Festivities for Queens Day really start tonight; Koninginnenacht!!

There will be parties all over the city from around 7pm this evening; Amstelved, Leidseplein, Heinekenplein, Museumplein, Olympisch Stadion, Rembrandtplein, Vondelpark......EVERYWHERE!!

Be careful; all of the trams and timings are re-routed. And there are no trams going via Central Station.

Vintage Amsterdam in 1978. Vrijmarkt

It's my birthday tomorrow; so here's a little video take the same year that I was born..........the glorious sites of Amsterdam in luscious grainy video tape and more bad haircuts and flared trousers than you could possibly count.


Enjoy!

Where to eat in Amsterdam - MAOZ FALAFEL

I love love love these places. We actually had our 1st falafel on the day we arrived. We had no idea where we were going and as a result ended up walking around in circles on the outskirts for hours.......I could have happily eaten a scabbed horse that had been dead 6 weeks.

Fortunately we came across this............................

I wasn't sure whether it was the aforementioned partial starvation, or whether this was actually REALLY GOOD.... but fortunately it turned out to be the latter. I must have eaten here at least once every other day. 

You can get one of these; the traditional falafel, which is like a pita bread filled with 4 falafels and your choice of salad for about €5.50. The are REALLY filling and taste amazing. Plus, because you can choose your own salad, you're not eating the 'same thing' every time.  

More often I used to get just a salad box for €4.00 which again is really filling. You can fit a lot of salad into the box and you still get the 4 balls, just no pita bread.

Falafel balls are made from chick pea flour, deep fried, crunchy on the outside, meaty texture on the inside.

There is seating inside all of these places, although they are open so on a cold day it's a bit chilly. They don't have tea or coffee, but they do have cold drinks. This franchise is everywhere is Amsterdam and there are also quite a few independent places, all roughly similar prices and all very good.

Given that for a Kentuky Fried Chicken Box it's at least €8.00 per person, it's made from '12 secret herbs and spices' that taste amazing but make you want to throw up 10 minutes after eating....the falafel places are a healthy fast food alternative.

And now I'm hungry.

18th - 22nd April Sea of Tulips, Amsterdam Museum

This text has been taken from the I Amsterdam website

"The Amsterdam Museum courtyard blooms into life for one week in April as it becomes temporary home to an impressive 30,000 tulips. The 'Sea of Tulips' is part of a celebratory programme marking 400 years of diplomatic relations between Amsterdam and Turkey.


One of the first products to be exported from Turkey to the Netherlands, the flower first made an appearance at the end of the 16th century and was an instant hit. It continued to grow in popularity and 'tulip mania' hit the country in the seventeenth century as prices rose to exponential levels before the market crashed. 


In collaboration with the Keukenhof Gardens, the 'Sea of Tulips' will be placed on the Amsterdam Museum courtyard on 15 & 16 April. The tulip-filled courtyard will be open to the public for free from 18 to 22 April, 2012."

I think this sounds really beautiful. I loved the Amsterdam museum and the little courtyard was a lovely feature, quietly set in tranquility just off one of the main shopping streets. It's not a massive courtyard, so I can imagine this amount of tulips really be become a 'sea.

Is it worth getting the I amsterdam City Card?

In a word, yes.

I have already written about a couple of the places we visited; I will write about all of them.

But in a nutshell, over 72 hours we visited:
The Maritime Museum
Artis Zoo
Nemo
The Jewish Historical Museum
Rembrandt Museum
Van Gough Museum
The Eye Film Centre
Nieuwe Kerk
Amsterdam Museum
Foam Exhibition
Van Loon
Himlopen Huis Geeburick

In total we SAVED, THAT'S SAVED  €213.90 BETWEEN THE TWO OF US.

Meaning, if we had visited all of these places and paid full price, we would have paid over €100 each more. And that money saved does not include the amount with DIDN'T spend for 72 hours on all of the public transport.

Very Very Very worthwhile getting
http://vimeo.com/39939428

Hema Store Take Out Food

Look disgusting, nasty and immoral. Which, as in life, means it's amazingly wonderful; they are

Love Hema; cheapest place to get take out stuff, including really really nice sandwiches and coffee.

Foam Photo Exhibition Amsterdam

Another stop included on our IAmsterdam City Card was the Foam Amsterdam Photography Exhibition. 

I would definitely recommend this and would go back to spend more time. We saw the fantastic exhibition 'New York Times Magazine Photographs'

It was really impressive with an extensive section on 9/11...the effects in New York and in Afghanistan. 

There were also many brilliant photographs from behind the scenes at fashion shows; and portrait pieces of actors and artists featured in the New York Times.

We saw lots of stills that had been taken from movies and enhanced. But one of my favourite parts of the exhibition which I will try to find, was a selection of 'portrait short films' showing various well known actors in 60 second contemporary art pieces. Really fascinating, I think there were about 30 in total.

Another brilliant section was by Bertien van Manen - Let's Sit Down Before We go; pictures taken in Russia between 1991 and 2009 showing families in random day to day snaps. 

Foam Amsterdam is on Keizergracht 609, tram 16, 24 or 25

Steve Aoki 08-04-2012 Paradiso Amsterdam NL AMAZING!!!

We went to see Steve Aoki in Club Paradiso on Sunday night; just happened to see a poster a few days previously. I have been listened to No Beef by Steve Aoki and Afro Jack for the past few weeks, so I jumped at the chance to go although I didn't really know what to expect.





We queued up outside for about 10 minutes with dozens of other people as everyone made their way inside. We had bought the tickets and membership on line, printed them off, took them along, had them scanned and in we went. The bass coming out of the main area was incredible.

We waited for a while at the clockroom to put our coats away, but it was worth it. If you wanted to go up to either of the balconies and keep your stuff with you, you would still have plenty of room,

Drinks were a good price, €2.50 for a beer and the best bit of all .....water was free! It makes such a difference; a free glass of cold water any time you want, instead of paying €3.00 each time for a small mouthful, in a hot banging club when you're dancing.

Steve Aoki came on and was absolutely amazing; seriously, one of the best shows I have ever seen in my life. From the moment he came on everyone went mad. From the moment he started playing, I was blown away. Every track was incredible and there wasn't one person in the place who wasn't bouncing.

Paradiso is a great venue, nice staff, good prices (€15.00 for the show + 3.50 membership), good toilets, easy cloakrooms. It's actually an old church but has been an iconic music venue for years. This show was no exception in an enviable history. Steve threw cakes into the crowd, sprayed everyone with champagne several times, pushed an inflatable boat into the crowd and then jumped from the balcony ONTO the boat and went crowd surfing.

The best night I've had in Amsterdam and I would recommend ANYONE go and see him.

Paradiso is at stop Leidesplein and 2 minutes walk, just ask.

Amsterdam Museum

I'll be honest, when I get a City Pass for 2 or 3 days in any city, I do so for two reasons

Reason 1: to see as many places as possible and decide which establishments will be lucky enough to be graced with my presence and money in the future for an additional, more thorough visit. (My father's side)

Reason 2: to see how much 'money' I can make back by zooming around as many places as humanly possible in the allocated time; adding up what I WOULD have spent, had I paid full price compared to what I actually paid on average for each place through my magic pass. (My mother's side)


Let's concentrate on Reason 1. One place I would definitely recommend and would return to at full price would be the Amsterdam Museum.

The museum is actually called The Amsterdam Museum, which can be confusing because when you Google 'Amsterdam Museum', everything comes up from the Van Gough to the Sex Museum.


The Amsterdam Museum is located in the centre of town, a couple of minutes walk from Dam Square take trams 1, 2 or 5 and stop at SPUI.


Off the busy shopping street you find the entrance pictured above. The courtyard has several small pictures almost like little exhibitions that you don't need to pay to see. There is also a cafe with seating inside and out.

Just past the courtyard, on the left is the entrance to the Museum itself. You are taken through through the history of Amsterdam from its beginning as a small fishing area, through centuries of growth, settlers, war and prosperity through to today.


The visuals, exhibitions and audio sections are all very well put together. You get a leaflet when you go in that you can scan at several points around the museum. The videos in front of you then play through ear pieces in your language, giving a guide to that particular section.

Recommended, and very central, normal price is €10.00. You can get an additional audio tour for €4.00 if you want to take your time (which I would if going again) but if you don't want to spend that there is still plenty to see and hear without it.

Burgers in Amsterdam at IJ-Hallen Flea Market

On Saturday 7th April we went to the monthly Flea Market across the IJ on the other side of Amsterdam. 

We took the free boat to NDSM again and this time it was packed; there were plenty of tourists for Easter, but our boat seemed to be full of locals travelling there specifically for the market. 

There are 1500 stalls and it was €4.00 in each... the outside area was filled with stalls, all selling second hand goods. Clothes, shoes, books, antiques, furniture..basically everything you could possibly think of at a typical 'Car Boot Sale'

It was very cold, the first cold day we have had during our visit, so we were glad to find indoors was much warmer, larger and more comfortable with hundreds more stalls inside. Like any sale you have to be careful; some items were in terrible condition and for sale for a lot of money; for example, clothes that were well worn that you would pay £2 for in a charity shop in the UK were on sale for €25.00

But you could also get some amazing items, in all categories at great prices. And, ofcourse, there is the chance to negotiate. Arrays of vinyl available for those who like to collect from 1960's upwards. Prints, original art work and photographs; postcards, posters and unique woodwork pieces.

All of the sellers are individuals. They are not allowed to sell new things so, generally, each item will be of varying value to different people. It would certainly be a good place to kit out your home with funky looking vintage stuff.

 I also had the best burger in the world ever. This was €3.50, with the most amazing meat, FRIED ONIONS!!, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, mayonnaise and ketchup

(I'm going to start adopting the mayo / ketchup thing)

I have found that side-road food stalls are all generally very nice and very good value. Much better than many of the sit-in cafes offering the same thing for 3 times the price near the tourist areas.

Seriously; best burger I have ever had. It's not correct to say the meat is spicy, but it is seasoned amazingly.

I would go back to the market just for this alone.

 The market is monthly; usually the first weekend of the month but this is sometimes Saturday only, sometime Saturday and Sunday, you need to check at the time of your visit what the situation is. Take the GVB Free boat to NDSM port, get off the boat and walk right over some waste ground (basically follow everyone else) By the time we left at 4.00pm everything was starting to pack up. Well worth a visit.

3 Day Pass Amsterdam City Card

Today we got our 72 hour pass through I Amsterdam City Card

Brilliant; included entry to (or as I now like to refer to it to make me feel like I am getting something for nothing) gave us free entry into lots of museums, plus free city wide transport and a free canal cruise.

As we started very late in the day and only had a couple of hours before everything shut, I decided to logically do the one thing that we actually could have done until 8.00pm - the canal cruise.

Now, if I'd been smart, I would have done a museum first and then done this afterwards, because all the museums close at 5pm sharp. But I'm an idiot, so we only had 45 minutes left to see the whole of the Maritime Museum.

The museum has recently been refurbished and it was so impressive from the entrance; the ceiling is hard to photograph, but was the most beautiful iron work and glass structure I have ever seen.

This boat was fantastic; full size and you can go into all the different rooms on board; plus up on top and around the masts. There is a security guard there to make sure that no one tries to do a Jack Sparrow. I could have spent an hour on here alone, they have re-created everything so well...they slope of the floor makes you feel a little sea sick even though you're not moving. It's all very well done.

All of the displays in the various rooms were really 

clearly laid out; this was a large glass cabinet with several very large model ships. The museum is broken up into four areas; North South East and West. All easily accessible by wheelchair. 

Most of the exhibitions were interactive in some way or another. One of the most interesting parts was in a painting exhibit showing ships during battle. On a very very large touch screen in the middle of the room, you could zoom through a magnified version of one of the better known paintings. When you 'touched' on a certain area..the actual area on the real painting would be lit up and an explanation or interpretation of that part of the piece would be displayed.

To get to the Het Scheepvaartmuseum and VOC-schip Amsterdam, take the BUS number 22, 42 or 43 in the direction of MUIDERPOORTSTATION and get off at Kadijksplein. BE CAREFUL CROSSING THE ROAD.

Sophie - ooh (preview) Trouwamsterdam

We saw this guy, a young DJ called SOPHIE from Northampton at Trouwamsterdam the other night

More to follow; but he was fabulous

Across the River IJ to the IKantine

I took the free ferry again across the IJ to the Amsterdam North NDSM area.

10 seconds walk and you find this place, the IJ-kantine.

It was so posh and fancy looking inside, I approached the waiter with a kind of "excuse me, sorry for making the place look messy in my woolly hat and giant puffy brown coat, like some kind of lost farmer, but would you mind if I just had tea and didn't pay €100 for a sandwich"

 He was very nice; once I sat down and had a look around I realised that most of the people in there were only drinking and not eating; it seems to be a very popular place for people to have business meetings. On this side of the harbour there are a lot of offices and business places. And it's a really lovely setting.

And, more importantly it wasn't expensive. It was only €2.00 for tea, with a free chocolate mini egg

I was able to stay there for about an hour and a half, writing bits and checking the internet on my Itouch (free WIFI and no log in nonsense to worry about) I didn't seem to offend anyone while I was there. PLUS it's one of the few places I've been to where you don't get charged 50 cents to use the loo.

This is the map at the gangway to the boat, showing all of the various routes. Nothing takes more than 10 minutes though, so if you get on the wrong one (like I did) you can turn around and correct yourself quickly.

 This is by far the most bizarre thing I have seen in Amsterdam (I'm used to the vibrators in windows and smoke now)

At the 'back' of the restaurant, just a little further in land there is a small village....apartments made out of converted shipping containers. All brightly painted, and stacked 3 high. They are obviously small, but perfectly functional. Like a really artistic and high class shanty town.

I fear to think how cold they are in the winter.





This is the view from the side stairs out onto the Botel, the floating hotel which is available from €69.00 per night; I know a couple of people who have stayed there and they said it was fine. Certainly somewhere novel to stay