Travel date - 18/02/2014
This week I visited one of the most fascinating cities I have ever been to, Amsterdam.
The city itself is larger than I expected, not to mention the small cobbled side streets that are everywhere you look. Me and my University friends took a day trip to Amsterdam, we caught the ferry from Hull and travelled to Rotterdam which was 12 hours!! (you can get a flight in 1 hour)
We then got a coach from Rotterdam to Amsterdam which took at least 2 hours, leaving us with only 6 hours to spare in the city itself.
http://www.poferries.com/tourist/miniCruiseJourneyDetails.html?monthyear=022014&minicruiseID=1216&route=hu
We booked a £19 trip before we got to Amsterdam which you can buy from the ferry. This included a canal boat ride, access on the 'hop on and off' city tour bus and a free entry into a diamond 'emporium'.
This helped us a lot because we didn't end up wasting the day trying to locate everywhere.
I'd definitely recommend a canal boat trip, just because you get to see a lot of the city and the buildings along the canal are so beautiful.
You get to learn about the history of Amsterdam through headphones which they provide.
Ours wasn't the most luxurious ride but it definitely gave us chance to see more of the city as we weren't there very long.
Our main goal was to visit the Anne Frank museum, but unfortunately there were huge queue's
that literally went on for miles, if we had enough time we definitely would of waited. So instead we decided it was time for a bite to eat. We went to a Café just next door to the house Anne lived in! The Cafe's website - http://lunchcafedialoog.com/
I chose a cheese, ham and tomato grilled sandwich and I washed it down with an Arizona Tea!
I also kept the Arizona bottle as I think its such a lovely bottle ha ha!
My sandwich was delicious and I was then ready to carry on exploring...
There is so much to explore in Amsterdam and half the time you can't quite believe your eyes..
Not only can you legally smoke Marijuana in the local 'Coffee Shops' but you can also purchase other drugs such as Hallucinate Magic Mushrooms. The Coffee Shops offer you drugs but also only serve hot drinks and not alcohol. It honestly makes you just want to research more into why this kind of stuff is legal. Apparently Amsterdam pride themselves on embracing the fact people are into prostitution, soft drugs and pornography. They say its only human!
We managed to squeeze in a visit to the Red Light District before catching the coach back to the ferry, well, when we eventually found it through all those alleys.
It's literally mad, you can't believe its real. I've heard about it from people but you just don't think it exists until you see it with your own eyes. Apparently it doesn't come alive until around 11pm so we weren't really in with the full action. But we still saw females standing in the window half naked and knocking at the window every time a man walked past.
I think its a shame women have to do that to themselves, but I'm pretty open minded and if that's how they want to live their life that is completely up to them. The females usually work for themselves and rent a room from the person who owns the entire building.
I'd love to experience it at night, not in that way, but just out of curiosity. It really does fascinate me!
There are strictly no photographs of the women as you can imagine, but I managed to snap a couple of pictures before we caught the coach. There are also live sex shows and lots of sex shops!
I'm so happy I got to see some of what Amsterdam had to offer, but I definitely want to go back so I can explore the city even more. I had a lovely time with my friends too.
Its given me a new outlook on life and I really want to save my money and see more places!!
The world truly is your oyster.
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Lauren xx
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