Amsterdam short break

My husband and recently went on a short break to Amsterdam. It was literally only the second time in 22 years as parents that we’ve been away on our own together. (Coincidentally, the first time was also Amsterdam to celebrate our 40th birthdays. We turn 50 this year!)

We were originally going to go to Amsterdam in 202o. My daughter’s year 9 trip to Disneyland Paris coincided with my son’s rugby tour to South Africa. So it seemed like too good an opportunity to miss and we booked for Amsterdam. Needless to say, the Disneyland Paris trip didn’t happen and nor did the rugby tour or the trip to Amsterdam. We took our refund for the flights and our Airbnb credit and didn’t really think about it again.

Until my daughter had a year 12 trip to Iceland – her only residential trip since year 6. So we booked Amsterdam again!

We flew from Heathrow, which literally took about 35 minutes. Although the flight was delayed by an hour – most of which we were sat on the plane on the tarmac. We were on the tarmac longer than we were in the air. Then it’s a very easy 20 minute train journey to Amsterdam Central station.

We stayed in an Airbnb houseboat. Amsterdam is a series of canals and most of them have houseboats, with people living on them and increasingly being used as Airbnbs. I’ll be honest, I was underwhelmed by it at first. It didn’t seem quite like the pictures or the glowing reviews. It was TINY. It felt smaller than our bedroom at home (which isn’t big). The whole houseboat would have made an OK size home, but it was divided into three – the owner had just over a third of it and had created two Airbnbs out of the remainder. He must be making a fortune!

To be fair, it had a very big and very comfortable bed. This had lots of storage underneath it. There was a tiny kitchen corner with a fridge, kettle, coffee machine, toaster, microwave, the smallest kitchen sink you’ve ever seen and literally two bowls, two plates and two sets of cutlery. There was the smallest dining table with two chairs in front of the window. The window was huge – the length of the boat and half of it would open right out. When we opened it, we had visitors, mainly moorhens, but also two adult swans and seven large cygnets. They literally put their beaks inside the boat!

Then there was a wet room shower room. I’m not good with wet rooms. I always seem to spread the water further than it’s supposed to spread. But it drained very well. We ‘ve all come to expect luxury toiletries with Airbnbs, haven’t we? This had half a bottle of supermarket shower gel, which I suspect may have been left over from a previous guest. Luckily a previous guest had also remained logged into Netflix. We don’t have Netflix at home, but I really wanted to see the Lewis Capaldi documentary, so we got to watch that!

Having previously visited Amsterdam twice before, there wasn’t a lot of the tourist stuff we ‘needed’ to do. We were just happy to wander round the canals and take in the beauty of it all and the relaxed atmosphere. (We did briefly wander into the ‘party’ area of the city – complete with scantily clad women looking bored in windows – but we soon left. It wasn’t for us.)

We hired bikes and had a good cycle all around the city and around Vondelpark, which is the most wonderful park – absolutely full of runners and cyclists. We had a run there too, because we run everywhere we go. I loved being on the bike, but it was also terrifying. Because the residents cycle EVERYWHERE, the place is permanently packed with these very skilled, very fast cyclists, who never bother to indicate. There are women cycling along with two kids on their bike, going really fast, while also texting. Most of the time I was on the bike, I was muttering swear words to myself, because it can be hard to navigate if you don’t know what you’re doing.

I also went to the Rijksmuseum, which is the one big tourist attraction I hadn’t previously been to. I always enjoy an art gallery and it was interesting to see these large, dramatic paintings from the 1500 and 1600s, which are very different to what I usually like to look at. My husband was less cultured and decided to go to the Heineken Experience, which he enjoyed.

If you’ve never been to Amsterdam, I would definitely recommend it for a city break. It really is a beautiful place and easy to avoid the party side of it if you don’t want to be part of that. It’s not a cheap city. Eating out and generally buying stuff  is more expensive than home. But it was a lovely break and a much-needed chance to recharge our batteries. Maybe we will go again when we’re 60! And, with my daughter due to go to university in just over a year, no doubt we will be having a lot more holidays without the kids in the near future.