Let’s stop in Amsterdam! We’ve been talking about a Europe vacation for years and we finally did it! We didn’t plan this one for very long, it was more or less last minute. Nina and I were talking one day in March while I was traveling on a business trip and she said, “I want to go to Europe.” And my response was, OK, when?! We looked at the calendar and decided we could go in April so I got online and booked our flights to Barcelona, Spain, and returning flight from Venice, Italy. That’s all the planning we did when we booked our trip, we figured we’d take a little time and figure out where else we wanted to visit and book separate flights and train rides.
We really wanted to visit Switzerland and the Dolomites which is why we booked our return from Venice, but being springtime it was cold and snowy in the mountains of the Dolomites. So we decided to pass on the mountains this trip. So instead, we booked a flight from Barcelona to Paris, Paris to Rome, and then a bullet train from Rome to Venice.
First stop: Amsterdam
On the way to Barcelona, we had a layover in Amsterdam and when we booked our flights initially we decided to book the longest layover we could so that we could spend the day in Amsterdam. I’m glad we did! We landed in Amsterdam at around 7:30 am local time and we had 8.5 hrs to spend there.
Getting from the airport into Amsterdam was easy enough, we tossed our backpacks in a day locker and then went and jumped on a train for a 20 minute ride into the city. We spent some time walking Amsterdam, enjoying the smells.
Stopped at a coffee shop for a quick espresso. I didn’t even notice until I sat down with my coffee and I realized the guy sitting next to us was smoking a big fat joint: Amsterdam – Coffee Shops! I thought this place smelled a little funk. On the way out I noticed the huge weed bar, they had it all lol. The espresso was delicious 😉
It was morning time, so most of the cafe spots were yet to open and were still preparing their yummy treats for the day. Delicious smells everywhere. From there we set off walking in some direction. Amsterdam was such a nice place to walk around and the weather was super enjoyable. We headed to a cafe that Nina had found online somewhere and we had this sort of breakfast tuna panini thing. It was thin and delicious!
Stroopwafels
I really wanted a fresh stroopwafel so we headed to a nearby area that looked like it had a few stroopwafel shops. When we got there, the lines were long and they looked like the “super touristy” spots. So I quickly hopped on my phone and started looking for the best stroopwafels in Amsterdam and found the best place was in an outdoor market a few miles away so we started walking. They were worth the walk! Best stroopwafel I’ve ever had. They’re made to order, doesn’t get any better! Rudi’s is the place you want to go for a legit HOT Stroopwafel.
4 hours went by pretty quickly and it was time for us to get back to the airport. So we started walking back to the train station we came in on. We got a little confused at one point and took the wrong train in the wrong direction. Eventually got on the right one and we made it back to the airport. Getting back in was extremely smooth and fast.
Amsterdam’s Schipol Airport, easy in and out. Sort of.
I had read online previously that getting into the Schiphol Airport was a complete debacle and sometimes took 4+ hours. We made it in pretty quick and just had to locate where we left our backpacks. Everything looked different and was backwards and I thought the directions around this airport were difficult to follow. Maybe we were just tired lol. I hopped on my phone and use the “Find My” app to find our bags since my iPad had service and was in my backpack. It worked!
But, getting to our backpacks was a different story. We left them in a locker that was on the other side of a customs checkpoint. They told us we’d have to go all the way out of the airport and re-enter through a different door to get them. I looked at Nina and said, “Well, we missed our flights then. Oh well!” We’d have to get another flight to Barcelona because there was no way we’d make it.
We started walking and when we got to an exit door I stopped and said “Let’s NOT go out there.” I didn’t want to have to do all that again and miss our flight. Finally, we asked a security guy and he knew exactly what we were talking about. He showed us how to get there by going through a different customs checkpoint. We got our backpacks and then had to go through another customs checkpoint and then one more to get to the gate we needed to get to.
We made it
One stop in Amsterdam and we got 4 stamps on the passport. We made it! More to come, I’ll continue our Eurotrip story in the next post where we check in from Barcelona, Spain.
I definitely want to come back to the Netherlands in the future and spend some more time here.
