Orange orange

The following post is about Amsterdam where I was during May, I had already been there some years ago during a trip to Belgium so we took advantage and went to Amsterdam since the train journey from Brussels in short, but I hardly saw anything, so I wanted to go back.

Amsterdam is known for being a cosmopolitan city, for its Red Light District, its canals, its coffee shops, its tulips and its nightlife. If you've ever thought about going to Amsterdam, I'm sure that you have looked up some information before going, so here I am going to take the opportunity to tell you another couple of things that we did whilst there.

I flew with the company "Iberia"; I haven't flown with them in some time since I became completely obsessed with RyanAir. I caught the flight from Barajas.

Amsterdam airport is quite good, there are a number of shops and places to eat.

We stayed in the "Rembrandt Square Hotel" in Rembrandtplein 24, which is found in a very central square where the tram goes through. In the square, there are different bars and at night there is quite a good atmosphere. Before going, we read a comment from a guest who stayed there and said that they heard a lot of noise from their room during the night, although in all honesty, we didn't hear anything.

The hotel was quite clean, the room was nice but there was no bathroom, only a sink - the restroom and the shower were shared. The price included breakfast, quite a varied breakfast and it was served in the bar next door.

Not long after arriving, we saw that the hotel offered discount cards so you can take part in some activities. I like these kinds of cards because they help you get to know what sort of activities you can do without having to search online. We saw that there was the Heineken experience and it was quite close (Stadhouderskade 78) so the same afternoon, not long after arriving, we settled ourselves in and went to take part in the Heineken experience.

The Heineken experience consists of a tour around the factory-museum. They tell you about the origins of Heineken right up to the fermentation process of the beer. The tour was quite fast, you can take an endless amount of photos, there are games such as pouring virtual pints, the possibility to play "Rock, Paper, Scissors" on your smartphone against other visitors in order to win free gadgets in the shop, a DJ deck to learn the first steps, goals to take penalty kicks - it really was entertaining.

They also took us to a cinema room where we saw the different adversts publicised by Heineken during the last few years.

We also went into a room with a cinema screen and a stage which you had to get on; on the screen they would play a video about a man who was doing a beer tour and if, for example, he fell in the beer, beer would come out of the ceiling and the stage would start moving.

During the tour, we also did a tasting session of the beer which of course is practical and you get to drink the beers, the theory for others; ). During the tour, they give you an electric bracelet which three buttons appear on; each button relates to a beer, the first is a beer which is in the tasting, the other two are beers which you drink at the bar at the end of the tour. We arrived at the bar some minutes before closing so we had to hurry and drink the beers quickly.

At the end of the tour, there is a really cool shop where you can buy beer glasses and record something on the glass, this is the most successful thing that I had seen, we also did that hehe, then there is also all types of clothing, bags...

The tour costs 17€ per person (I think there is a discount if you buy the tickets online). I had to go back to look at the price because I already can't remember. Without a doubt, I would recommend it. Since I had seen the price, I'll tell you that the opening hours are from 11:00 until 19:30 everyday and from 10:30 until 21:00 on Fridays and Sundays in June, July and August.

Another experience that I recommend it going to the Anne Frank Museum, the museum is found in the house of Anne Frank where together with her family, she had to sadly live in hiding out of fear. The museum makes you cringe, but it's good to see the errors of the past with your own eyes so they are never committed again. So if you want to get to know a little more about her story, I advise that you go pay a visit to the museum which is located on Prinsengracht Street 263-267.

The entrance fee is 9€ but with a student card it costs 4. 50€ and the opening hours are from 9:00 to 19:00 or 21:00 on Saturdays.

It always happens to me as well as with the same person when I go travelling that we got lost around the streets of Amsterdam, something which is normal because we don't like stopping to look at a map. Furthermore, we are catching a glimpse of getting lost, since when you get away from the touristy centre, you can see what it's really like to live in this city. On this occasion, we ended up on a street full of peculiar shops.

Another place which I usually always go to is found in the old part of the city - it's the Hard Rock Cafe, the one in Amsterdam is surrounded by canals and boats so it has its charm. Being that we went in May, the weather was quite nice so we got to enjoy the terrace. We ate some hamburgers with fries and because we had got one of the discount cards that I told you about before, we got a free ice cream served in an enormous cup.

Another experience which I would advise you to take advantage of is to go on a boat ride, for us it was pretty impromptu - we had already seen the whole city and we didn't know what to do, so when we saw the boat we didn't think about it twice. Because it was hot, the breeze that came with being on the canals was very pleasant.

Another one of the discount cards we saw was one for the ice bar where you have a drink and they put on a movie. As I had already been to the one in Helsinki, we didn't go to the one in Amsterdam.

To eat, out of the places that we went to, I would recommend these 2 places "El Rancho" and "Wagamamas".

El Rancho is an Argentinian grill where they serve all kinds of grilled meats. There is more than one in the city, we went to the one which was very close to Rembrandt Square. Without a doubt, if you find one of these restaurants, I would recommend that you eat there. We ate beautifully grilled meat and the price was good too.

Wagamamas is a Japanese restaurant, it was the first time that I had been to one. We chose it because it was very close to our hotel and it caught our attention due to its style, so we decided to eat there. We didn't eat too much, it was a light dinner. On one plate, they brought us different types of sushi (a rice and salmon roll, prawn and salad). We enjoyed it but we were useless with the chopsticks - my god, that's what delayed us from being able to eat.