After going to Brussels, we carried on with our Europe journey and travelled to one of my favorite place in Europe, Amsterdam. Here how I spent 24 hours in Amsterdam.

Now we visited Amsterdam a few years ago when we did our first Europe trips and my first impression of it, was how it feels so much like a student campus. Visiting again, yup it still feels so much like a student campus.

What I mean is that the city felt very young and alive. Despite it actually bring a very old medieval city. None the less, Amsterdam is very much alive and vibrant with so much activities.

Last time we were here, I felt a little ill and just wanted to go home. I felt so ill in fact, I spent more time in bed at the hotel – then actually exploring the city. So while I did see the city and did a little bit of exploring, I didn’t really take it all in and properly got to know the city. So I made it my mission to properly explore and to get to know the city.

After 24 hours in Brussels, we went on a 4 hours’ train journey to Amsterdam, though we did briefly stop off at Rotterdam for a bite to eat. We eventually arrived in Amsterdam mid-afternoon.

This time, I wasn’t feel ill and had the energy to explore the city properly. So after we dumped our backpack at the hotel, we went exploring.

Amsterdam is a place where you can go from extreme to the next, one minute you’re walking down a shopping area, the next you’re in red light distract. Or one minutes in a busy pack square filled with people doing street arts, the next you’re walking down a narrow alley where there not a soul to be seen. Another example is, you are surrounded by bicycles –then next you’re nearly getting run over by the tram.

Now Amsterdam is famous for its narrow buildings and canals, and I think it does give the city a charm to it. So we ended up walking around these narrow building and old canals, taking in it very charms.

We also did walk through Magna Plaza shopping center, and the surrounding streets. This reminded me very much like walking through any shopping place in the UK. Especially as I saw a lot of UK high streets chains I’m familiar with. But it has to be said, we didn’t do any shopping.

Now you can’t go to Amsterdam, without seeing the red light district (mum if you reading this, click away now!). Ok so you can go to Amsterdam without seeing this little district. But while most people think this area is sleazy and unsafe. It completely untrue and isn’t the case. The red light district is nothing you haven’t seen before on some lads’ magazines, and this area is packed with police patrols on every corners. It should be noted that when we walked round, a lot of places in the red light district has shut down and it now filled with drunkenness and sex museums or theatre shows to see. It also filled with curious travelers like us, who are also trying to see what the red light district is all about.  Slowly this area will be no more as the Dutch government overturns their decision on legalizing prostitution.

To save money, we ate in. Meaning we got snacks from a supermarket and ate in our hotel room. Though in the morning, we did have a pancake breakfast.

After breakfast, we did some more walking around and visited a museum (more details are coming soon), not before we decided to carry on with our journey and head onto Hamburg, Germany.

That was our 24 hours in Amsterdam, but it wasn’t our only 24 hours in Amsterdam; as we did another 24 hours on our way home. More pictures of Amsterdam coming soon.