A COUPLE OF DAYS IN AMSTERDAM.

A couple of weeks ago me & my sister, Daisy (@florencemayvintage) spent a couple of days in Amsterdam! It was something we'd been wanting to do this autumn/winter and I feel like we definitely picked the right time to go, the whole atmosphere made it feel like winter was just around the corner and it felt very magical being there at this time of year. We had visited before just for a day so we were really excited to go back and explore some more!

We had an early flight out of London Stansted which meant getting up at 3am *cries* but it meant we got to Amsterdam just after 9am (it only takes a 40 minute flight for us to get there!) so we could make the most of the first day. It's so easy to get from the airport to the city center, just a twenty minute train ride and from there we pretty much just walked everywhere. We had a few hours before it was time for us to check into our Airbnb so we had a second breakfast in Starbucks (always essential I think when you've been up since 3am!!) and just had a wander around the area of our Airbnb.

Our Airbnb was the LOVLIEST little place just off of the canals in one of the traditional crooked Amsterdam houses, it was such a perfect space for us to chill out as well as it being super aesthetic, it was so nice to stay somewhere that felt very authentic. I'd definitely recommend it as a place to stay so I'll link it here!

The rest of the day we spent wandering the canals, popping in and out of shops and taking lots of pictures. We found a vintage shop Daisy had looked up before we went and hunted down the American Book Center. I had been recommended by so many people to visit and I'm so glad I did, there was the best selection of books and it was the nicest place to wander around (as most bookshops are!) That evening was so beautiful, we were walking the canals at dusk and the light reflecting on the houses and then reflecting on the water was so breathtaking it's hard to capture with pictures how atmospheric it was.

Day two we got up and went to the coolest coffee shop right around the corner from our Airbnb called Back to Black where we had coffee and cake for breakfast and then made our way to the Museumplein where we found the ice skating rink outside of the Rijksmuseum which we weren't expecting to see but it made everything look so wintery and festive! We sat for a while and watched the ice skating and then made our way to the Van Gogh Museum.

We had booked tickets with jump the queue passes so we went straight in, I'd honestly recommend trying to get these kind of tickets for any attraction you know you want to go to while you're travelling as they are SO easy to use and means you don't waste any time waiting in line, I partically like using Tiqets (not sponsored I just love them!!)

The Van Gogh museum was such an amazing thing to experience, he is without a doubt my favourite artist so to get the chance to see so much of his art in a museum dedicated to him made me very emotional. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around soaking it all in and of course we spent time in the gift shop and had an amazing lunch in the cafe there.

By the time we dragged ourselves away from the museum in was starting to get dark which meant is was time to head to towards the station so we could get to the airport for our flight home. We tried to make the most of our last hour and slowly walked the canals and streets (although it was Friday evening by this point and was getting really busy) and we had a last coffee before hopping on the train back towards the airport.

Our trip was a pretty much the most perfect couple of days, just enough time to take in the city and to explore some new places. If you haven't been to Amsterdam and get the chance to go I 100% recommend visiting (especially in the autumn/winter), its worth it just for the beautiful architecture, the cool and quirky cafes and shops and the atmosphere of the city.

I hope you enjoyed reading this little travel post, I can't wait to share more of our adventures with you next year! As always, thank you for reading! If you've been on any trips/holidays this year I'd love to hear all about them in the comments so feel free to share!

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