Amsterdam

After a drive of about two and a half hours by car, we arrived in Amsterdam around 9:30 in the morning. Right up front: Parking in Amsterdam is really not cheap. We paid over 50€ for a day ticket, even though we parked a bit further outside the city. Nonetheless, I find the car journey there very relaxed.

Actually, a day or at least a weekend is enough to get a good impression of the city and see quite a bit. In my opinion, everything looks relatively similar there. If you want to see a lot and learn something about the history of Amsterdam, I can only recommend a canal cruise, which can be booked for as little as 14.50€ for an hour, for example right at the central station, which incidentally is much better maintained than those in Germany. Of course, you can also drive your own boat through the canals, but the price is significantly higher. During our canal cruise, we were told a lot about the city, some of it going back far into history, like the 15th or 17th century. We also saw some sights, like the 7 bridges, which I didn't know about before.

Throughout the city, there are cafes along the canals or in the alleys, as well as small and large stores, making the city ideal for shopping or general shopping. What is also nice is the mixture of old and new. There is still a lot of very old things there, like old towers or buildings that have been preserved, but also newer buildings. Additionally, there are of course several museums and plenty of art. Apart from the fact that we learned during our canal cruise that there are more bicycles than residents in Amsterdam, which is also very clearly noticeable. Bicycles should simply be treated like cars in the city, as they always have the right of way there, or just drive and there are also clearly more of them than cars.

All in all, I must say that I somehow imagined Amsterdam to be more colorful. I thought the houses would have more or less different colors, which, as you can see in the pictures, was not really the case. But on the internet, everything always looks different and more edited.

As with almost any other city trip, I recommend going to Amsterdam when it's 18 degrees rather than 30. Unfortunately, we did the latter, and it was really exhausting to walk around there all the time. Along the way, we stumbled upon a CSD in the city and walked with them for a few minutes, creating an amazing atmosphere. In general, these are apparently quite big there. Everywhere in the city, you could see rainbow flags or Pride advertisements.

For anyone who particularly likes old cities, museums, churches, or artistic culture with a few canals around them, Amsterdam is definitely worth a look. But even otherwise, a day trip or weekend trip there is worth it.