Following our successful trip to Iceland and London last year, as immortalized in this thread, we have decided to venture across the pond again in March.
To recap, the adventures include myself, my beloved, and our two girls now 9 and 12. This trip will include Amsterdam and Paris, and the flights are already booked. We are looking at 3 nights in Amsterdam and I’ve reserved the DoubleTree Centraal. Given that we have a red-eye flight arriving at 7 am, a hotel seemed the best choice. Following Amsterdam, we are taking the Thalys train to Paris for a week before flying home from CDG.
Paris is a bigger question. This will be the 7th trip to for the grownups, but effectively the first for the kiddies - big daughter was 14 months old on her previous trip. My preference is for an apartment, but I understand that there is a hard crackdown on Airbnb type rentals in 2018.
Any ideas on where to stay? Also looking for suggestions on things to do in Amsterdam. I was there for a few days more than 25 years ago.
Look into Citizen Hotel. You’d need two rooms. They have only king size beds. They have one at Shipole and downtown AMS. Right at at Charles DeGaulle. Anne Frank’s house is a must see in AMS. Steer clear of the Red light district. Eat some great Indonesian food there.
Things to do in Amsterdam, from a resident in the Netherlands:
-Take a boat tour of the canals. It takes one hour, and worth it in my opinion.
-Check out the royal palace in Dam square.
-Visit the Rijksmuseum.
-Visit the Van Gogh museum.
-Check out one of the diamond-cutting ateliers that allow for tours of their facilities. Can be rather cool, if you are lucky and they happen to be working with suitably impressive stones.
-Go to Waterlooplein, where you have the City Hall and Opera House, sharing one complex. Inside the City Hall there are three plexiglas columns that show the current water level at the North Sea and the IJsselmeer, as well as the maximum height of the Great Flood of 1953. A rather sobering sight, especially when you look down and see the big bronze rivet that marks “height zero” for surveying purposes in the Netherlands. If you are somewhere in NL and you see a negative “NAP height”, that is not by reference to the sea level, but to that particular marker, which already is below sea level.
-In Waterlooplein you will see a very inconspicuous line marked with dark bricks in the pavement. It marks the contour of a home for Jewish orphans that was destroyed in WWII. All the children in that house were taken by the Nazis and they were killed to the last one in the camps, along with their caretakers and teachers, who never left them alone and accompanied them to the end.
-As previously said, Anne Frank’s House is a must.
There are plenty of other things, but those are the “must-see”, in my opinion. If you have any questions or requests, PM me and I will do my best to answer you!
Apart from just being a generally cool thing to do, it gives a glimpse of the sheer amount of engineering ingenuity that, over many centuries, allows the city to exist.
Amsterdam’s just great anyway, the best city I’ve ever been to for just wandering about
Be aware the line for the Anne Frank house is long, and a near constant target for pickpockets. Both Amsterdam and Paris, in general, have a much higher pickpocket incidence rate than comparably sized US cities.
Visit “De Zaanse Schans”. It is eight working historic windmills about 30 mins from Amsterdam. The windmills can be toured (explored) and make for about as Dutch an experience as you can get. Budget half a day.
About halfway between Amsterdam and Paris is Brugge in Belgium. It would mean a less direct train ride, but worth a visit.
A week in Paris is three days too long. I understand this opinion to not be universally held, but I have come by it honestly and from oft repeated personal experience.
In Paris, my family stayed in this B&B, which I would thoroughly recommend as having the friendliest most helpful owner you could possibly wish for. Depending on if you’re going for the B&B type experience or the hotel experience of course- we tend to be budget travellers.
If you’ve been to Paris I guess you don’t really need sightseeing recommends, right? Our kids thoroughly enjoyed doing the standard set - Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame etc etc.
Totally second the canal tour recommendation for Amsterdam - it was awesome. Also , IME much much lighter on the scam artists, which are one feature of Paris I could definitely do without
Be prepared for rain in Amsterdam. It rained almost every day I was there. Three nights is far too short a time, especially as your first day may be difficult; I would suggest splitting the trip five and five. As for recommendations, I heartily agree with every suggestion so far and will just add that there’s a very interesting naval museum. De Zaanse Schans is absolutely fascinating: one of the windmills powers a whole lumber mill.
If you have 10 days in total I would add in another city. Paris and Amsterdam are great, no doubt. I’ve been to both many times and thoroughly enjoyed it but three day for each is plenty. The train and cheap flight connections in Europe mean you can easily get to somewhere like Munich quickly and cheaply.
If forced to choose in Amsterdam I’d take the Van Gogh Museum over Anne Frank’s house andbuy tickets online and in advance for the former and the (long) line can be skipped.
