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