Amsterdam - Part One - The Journey There

 I figured it was time for a little break away. Though to be brutally honest, I feel like that all the time! But me and James had a long weekend booked off, and we decided that we now felt comfortable enough to leave the country. That's right, we were heading abroad! We didn't want to go far, and we only had a long weekend, so we decided to go to Amsterdam! And it was so brilliantly easy, which is what we like. We started on the train to London, except ours was cancelled and we were shoehorned onto the next one and arrived late. This was not the easy part. I swear the British railway system is falling apart. Anyway, we decided to spend an afternoon & evening in London.

We were staying in Crowne Plaza which was nice, and we walked down to Exmouth market, where we had dinner at Coin Laundry (@coinlaundry.co.uk). The food was so delicious, and it had this really fun laid back late night cafe kind of feel it to it, and I would go back there again happily. We had a gorgeous bottle of wine between us, and then accidentally, another, before paying up and heading back to the hotel.

There's this really beautifully Italian style church tower just down the street, as well as what I can only describe as the greatest name for a barber shop ever thought up.

I mean come on, Barber Streisand? Just incredible. I love it, and it kept me chuckling as we walked back. 

Eurostar was super easy, we headed over to St Pancras early in the morning, I'd brought a book, and after going through security it was just a case of sitting reading a book with a coffee until the train was ready to depart. Hilariously, the second I sat down on the train, my eyes started streaming, and a cold developed out of nowhere. Don't worry, I tested for covid and it was negative. What bloody rotten luck! Anyway, I was nose deep in my book the whole way, and before long we were in Amsterdam Centraal. And what a beautiful station it was!

We were staying at Corendon Hotel marriott.com/corendon (don't forget to check a couple of different websites, you may find it cheaper!), not far from the Henk Sneevlietweg metro station. The name of the station was exactly how my sneezes sounded. Anyway, we dropped off the suitcase we were sharing, James had a shower, I had a half an hour nap to try and sleep the cold off, before we headed back out again. It was a literal 5 minute walk from the metro station, past about a thousand bikes parked up. The hotel was clean, nicely decorated and ok value wise. There was a restaurant and a pool/sauna area, but I felt too ill for that the whole time.

We headed back into the city centre for a little wander about and to get a feel for the place, but I couldn't stay out too long due to feeling like death warmed up. Why is it I only ever get ill when on holiday? It's not fair!

One of the churches near the train station. We seemed to be walking about as massive loads of coach tours were turning up!

One of the beautiful canals, that weave their way through the city, providing beautiful views everywhere you look!

The rain clouds started to appear, so we kept walking ahead of them to avoid being soaked, which is the last thing you want to happen when literally under the weather!

In my mind I had been wondering whether Amsterdam was actually like how you imagine it, with canals and bikes everywhere. Yes it was exactly how I imagined! All it needed was more tulips, but being September there wasn't many still in flower!

And here we were, back where we started with the gorgeous clock tower of the church. By now I was really not feeling well, so we caught the metro back to the hotel. I went to bed, and James went down to the hotel restaurant for some dinner. I was that ill I wasn't hungry. That's how you know I was really ill!

Talking of the metro, it's very easy to get about in Amsterdam, there's a comprehensive tram network, boosted by a useful but slightly confusing metro system. The lines are numbered between 50 and 54, and once you realised they all doubled up on each other (aside from the 52 which just sort of cuts through the middle) it made it a lot easier. But why number them starting so high? What's wrong with just line 1, 2, 3 etc? Anyway, other than that it was all very easy to use and to get around. That's what good public transport is designed to do!