5 days Amsterdam Study Trip

Hello,

In January 2018, I went on a study trip to Amsterdam for 5 days. Despite it being winter, the weather was good and we were mostly spared from rain and below freezing temperatures. I organized the whole thing with 2 buddies for our two courses. In the end, 37 out of 42 people joined.

Amsterdam is a great city. The atmosphere is really nice and the canals are impressive. We drove from Heidenheim on Friday afternoon and arrived at the hotel at 2:00 am on Saturday. On Saturday morning, we started exploring right away and took a free walking tour. It gave us a general overview of the city with historical information and was a great way to get to know the city a bit. After that, we immediately joined the alternative walking tour. This tour focused on drugs, street art, and the housing situation in Amsterdam and was led by a student. It was really great, our guide gave us many great tips. We also walked in the opposite direction from the main square in Amsterdam (Dam) to get a bigger overview. For lunch, we ate at Haesje Claes. This cozy restaurant offers Dutch food. It's a bit pricey, but the quality was really great! In the evening, we went out and explored the city.

Sunday was also dedicated to sightseeing. In advance, we bought a "Rock the City" ticket. For €25, it included admission to the ADAM Lookout, the Heineken Experience, and a boat ride from one attraction to the other. We started with the lookout tower in beautiful sunny weather. Public transportation in Amsterdam is great, you can reach everywhere relatively cheaply by tram. We took a free ferry to the ADAM Lookout and enjoyed the beautiful weather there. The view was really amazing! After that, we took the boat to do the brewery tour at Heineken. Unfortunately, the tour was a bit crowded and self-guided. I enjoyed the tours in Boston much more. There are some fun attractions along the way that are really fun. For example, there is an entire floor dedicated to rugby and football, as Heineken is a partial sponsor there. But the highlight of the tour was the end. You come out in a bar where you get 2 free beers. The bar itself looked really cool, like a cellar, modernly lit (of course in green) and with loud music. A really cool bar! It's definitely worth a visit, but you can't go there without doing the tour first. In the evening, we went to an Australian sports bar to watch football. Unfortunately, I can't recommend it. The service wasn't great and the food was nothing special.

Monday was the first "official" program point - a harbor tour. Unfortunately, it was not in the container terminal but in another area. Since we all had little sleep, the relaxed boat ride was quite nice. For lunch, we had Indonesian food at Kantjil & De Tijger. It was really tasty and high-quality. Highly recommended. The price was reasonable. In the afternoon, we had free time, which we spent walking through the city center and buying souvenirs. Then we went to the Amsterdam Dungeon. Since there were 12 of us, we got a group discount. It was really fun. In a smaller group, in my opinion, it's not worth it. Since the weather wasn't great and we all had little sleep, we all slept for another 1-2 hours before heading out again in the evening. This time we went to an Italian restaurant, Ristorante Il Primo. It wasn't like in Italy, but it was still good! The prices were also great! Then we went to an après-ski bar for a nightcap, but we were the only guests. But since we all wanted to go to bed early, it wasn't a problem. Still, it was almost 2 am when I went to bed.

Tuesday morning, we went to the car terminal of the company Koopman. This is where the first "disadvantage" of our S-Bahn day pass became apparent. The terminal was so far outside the city that the bus there was not included in the price. Too bad, but it still only cost 1-2€. The tour itself was great, the company was really well-organized and structured! For lunch, we had fries. With truffle mayo! They were seriously the best fries I've ever had. And all for only about €7. I really recommend trying fries in Amsterdam! After that, we went to a chocolate shop. The chocolate in Amsterdam was really good too!

Afterwards, we visited the Rijksmuseum. I had read before that it is one of the best museums in Amsterdam. It's mainly an art museum, and despite my limited interest in this topic, it was worth it. I liked that the cloakroom was free, so we could leave our thick winter jackets there. We only had 2.5 hours until closing time and unfortunately, we didn't manage to see everything. But we did see about 90% of it. In the evening, we had dinner with our teachers at a brewery. De Prael Brewery offers about 10 different beers at reasonable prices. In terms of food, they offer "only" 4-5 different dishes, but they were all really great. Since we were a large group, I had the opportunity to see all the dishes. Everyone was really impressed with their food. I had a really good fish with tagliatelle. In terms of price, it was about €13, which was really good for the quality and quantity. After dinner, we ended the evening at a karaoke bar :)

Wednesday was unfortunately already time to go home. But first, we did a behind-the-scenes tour at Schipol Airport. Save yourself the trouble! It's better to do it in Frankfurt or Munich, that's more worth it! I was really disappointed. At such a big airport, there weren't even any videos in English - that's really unfortunate. Then we just had to drive home and boom, 5 days in Amsterdam were over.

We stayed at Hotel van Gogh. The location was really great, it was only a minute to the tram and close to the Van Gogh Museum and Rijksmuseum. The hotel itself has a hostel and a hotel section. The hostel part was... well, okay. The drains smelled, the space was very small, and the windows didn't work so well. The shower was great and the beds were fine. The breakfast buffet was also very good. Overall, it was average.

All in all, it was a really great trip! Amsterdam is a fantastic city and definitely worth recommending! It's definitely worth a visit even for a long weekend! It's funny that about half of the city smells like weed. Somehow very amusing. There are also hundreds of coffee shops that rarely sell coffee.

I hope you enjoyed reading

Franz

P.S.: I still have a recommendation list from our guide, I can send it to you if you want. Just leave a comment or message me :)