This time came back to Netherlands we spend most of the time with family, but we also like one day short trip or 2 days over night trip go somewhere to see my country.
Today, we are going to Amsterdam by train, we are actually starting enjoy train travel after Austria . We took the intercity train from Groningen to Amsterdam-Zuid station it only takes 2 hours. Lilia had booked a hotel just right next to the train station, when we got out of station it was only 2 mins walk to Qbic Hotel WTC Amsterdam, WTC as World Trade Center so hotel Building is part of a business center. The funny thing is, our hotel room window looked out on a Lunch area for the business people . Anyway our plan was just dropped our bag in the room than go to city don`t have time to check on people. We are here for Amsterdam Light Festival. By the way there was so many beautiful architecture building behind Amsterdam-zuid station.
The city center
We went on the metro to the center of Amsterdam soon we got out of the station it was crazy busy , WELCOME TO AMSTERDAM woo hoo…….. So many tourists. We walked around the city and realized that city smell only “weed ” haha…..we guess the fresh air probably only indoor of shops .The “Cofee shops”(in Netherlands are drug shops). We go to bar to drink coffee. Also there was a marijuana museum, sex shops, sex museum and of course the Red light district. Amsterdam is like a big circus for us, everything is over the top so many sex shops, coffee shops and red light district. There is nowhere else you can see families with prams walking through the red light district streets. Funny was, children were waving at hookers while they are waiting for costumers. The idea was to have hookers amongst the people to keep them save instead of having them hiding from the world, but now its become a famous attraction in Amsterdam. Guess that`s what Amsterdam about – tourist attractions .
We visited Dam Square, right next to it was The New Church. This is a 15th century church next to the Royal Palace. At that time the church had a exposition of The century of Juliana , she was our Queen. We went into church visited , it has a Lots of old memorabilia, was quit interesting to see about her life how she grown up surround by people.
Continue, we walked to Anne frank house. This is a about a Jewish girl that hid from the Nazie in the war. She hid behind a bookcase and documented a lot of information in her diary and this dairy got found. Now her story is known all around the world and the house became famous Museum. We thought we could go inside check out but it was very busy so we didn’t get in .
Amsterdam Light Festival
Amsterdam had a light festival on every December. So the whole city was covered in Christmas lights. As day slowly got dark (sunset around 4pm in the afternoon), Amsterdam got lighted up. It had a really nice feeling of the lights into the old buildings, was beautiful, also had that Christmas feeling.
We went out for dinner in a Amsterdam style pub. Lilia ordered a steak with pepper sauce and chips and I had spare ribs with chips, Damn they were so big and so good !
After that we continued walk, through the half city toward to Rijksmuseum, where they had more lights and a ice skating area. In ice skating ground has a Lots of people in it , also had a bars next it playing Dutch apres-ski music ,there it had a great feeling . After that we walked back to our hotel ( we did 35,000 steps today)
Rijksmuseum ,The museum of the Netherlands. 800 years of Dutch history, very famous in the world. It has famous paintings such as the Vermeer, Van Gogh and Rembrandt. We arrived around 10am. Checked in with our ticket. It looked really busy but they know how to control big crowds. The museum is massive and well organized. We are not really museum people but WOW… every room had impressive peaces of art. We started from the year 1100 all the way up to 2020. Back in those days you didn’t have photographers, of course paintings where the only way. The amount of detail in paintings it just amazing. Some of the painting like 3D, some of the art like “they” look at you. But not just Art ,the building itself has its own history every corner just beautiful art .
This museum was absolutely amazing. We spent 6 hours in the museum, we were very tired . But now we know why that people come from all around the world to Amsterdam, must to visit it.
check out Amsterdam https://www.iamsterdam.com/en
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