It's now been a few weeks since I returned from this beautiful country, and I want to share my impressions and talk a bit about what I liked, what I disliked, and how I feel about it overall.
Over the 12 days I spent there, I visited the following places:
I had the opportunity to visit the Rijksmuseum and saw some of the world's most valuable and renowned art live - timeless pieces from Van Gogh, Vermeer, and of course Rembrandt's infamous "Night Watch". I walked through Vondelpark and Beatrixpark, I ate some phenomenal local food at the legendary Albert Cuyp market, and I strolled through the botanical garden. It also goes without saying, but the food was next-level. Warm, fresh stroopwafels, fresh new herring, kibbeling, bitterballen, stamppot, fries and various other delicacies (including the indescribably delicious duck rilette that @Varallo recommended!) - you can rarely go wrong with any of these, it seems.
While I loved a lot about Amsterdam, I quite disliked one thing that I'm sure most of the locals will agree with me on - it is very overcrowded. Mind you, I went technically before the tourist season usually starts, and there already were throngs of tourists clogging most main streets. The result of this is twofold - not only is physical space very limited and navigating the streets becomes a whole ordeal on its own, but the same streets were also quite dirty and littered with things that were accidentally dropped, as well as things that were, unfortunately, deliberately thrown on the ground.
Because of the spatial challenges this city has in its central area, I assume cleaning those streets isn't something the municipality can afford to do in an effective way without making the already difficult traffic even worse, so the only cleaning happens overnight, but that's clearly not enough.
Naturally, the prices in Amsterdam are quite high for most things, but that is to be expected. My AirBnB was about 450 EUR for 3 nights.
The second location represented one of the coolest experiences I had in the NL. Hoge Veluwe is, as far as I'm aware, the largest and most popular national park this country has, and it is truly spectacular. I didn't have enough luck to spot any large wildlife, but I did spend the whole day riding one of the free white bicycles the park offers to everyone, and I thoroughly enjoyed that despite the heatwave. I can scarcely remember ever being as tired as I was at the end of this day, but in a good way. 100% recommend a visit to this park to anyone going to the NL.
Zutphen, Utrecht and Delft were almost equally charming and lovely in all respects. The sense of gesellig is even stronger in those cities than it is in Amsterdam, and somehow the amount of flowers on the streets is even higher. They were also considerably cleaner and calmer than Amsterdam, which is expected.
Gouda was on my itinerary because I'm a self-proclaimed and utterly shameless cheese addict. I absolutely adore it, and where better to taste some of the world's finest cheese than precisely there. After embarrassing myself a bit by telling the cheese vendor "I want to taste your finest Gouda", and getting rightfully corrected that "gouda" is not a specific cheese recipe, but instead refers to the technology AND shape of the cheese, I finally got my hands on some of their finest, most aged cheese, and to call it divine would be a major understatement. I have never tasted better cheese in my life.
The famous cheese market in Gouda is open only for a few hours, and only on a Thursday, so I planned my entire trip in such a way that my visit to Gouda would fall on a Thursday, and it was a good decision for sure. On top of the great cheese, Gouda is, in my mind, the perfect example of how a quaint, cozy little Dutch town should feel. It's beautiful, calm, and insanely rich with history. Definitely one of the highlights of my trip.
The only somewhat disappointing location from the whole trip was Rotterdam. I went with expectations to see some interesting architecture and a bigger, more "modern" city, and while the modern part fully applied, the energy of this city is not something that appeals to me much. It is, as advertised, very industrial and feels like a large western factory city. Enormous shiny buildings rise all around you, and you see all the typical western store chains and fastfood venues everywhere. While there were some cool things to see, such as the cube houses, the Euromast, and the interesting-looking Erasmus bridge, Rotterdam lacked virtually all of the charm and quaintness of the other places I'd been. It lacked the gesellig and the cozy, colorful atmosphere. It felt incredibly busy, noisy and quite polluted, both in terms of the air (because of the vastly higher number of motor vehicles compared to other cities), and the ground you're walking on. The only nice park I managed to find there was Het Park, the rest were not that pleasant.
As someone that is from Europe (albeit from the more non-European part of it), the Netherlands didn't show me anything outlandish or vastly different from what I've seen in other countries on this continent, but what it did show me is very cool people, amazing laws regarding substance use, and a very cozy, different way of life than most big EU cities. It is a country that has been "earned" from the water. It has its peculiarities, and it has its rules, and if I were to ask myself the question whether I would want to live there or not, I would definitely respond positively (except in Rotterdam!).
Thank you if you read so far. Now to treat you, here are some photos for your enjoyment (I haven't tried to organize them much because there's nearly 500 of them, so I've just picked some I liked more than others):
Over the 12 days I spent there, I visited the following places:
- Amsterdam
- Hoge Veluwe National Park
- Zutphen
- Utrecht
- Rotterdam
- Gouda
- Delft
I had the opportunity to visit the Rijksmuseum and saw some of the world's most valuable and renowned art live - timeless pieces from Van Gogh, Vermeer, and of course Rembrandt's infamous "Night Watch". I walked through Vondelpark and Beatrixpark, I ate some phenomenal local food at the legendary Albert Cuyp market, and I strolled through the botanical garden. It also goes without saying, but the food was next-level. Warm, fresh stroopwafels, fresh new herring, kibbeling, bitterballen, stamppot, fries and various other delicacies (including the indescribably delicious duck rilette that @Varallo recommended!) - you can rarely go wrong with any of these, it seems.
While I loved a lot about Amsterdam, I quite disliked one thing that I'm sure most of the locals will agree with me on - it is very overcrowded. Mind you, I went technically before the tourist season usually starts, and there already were throngs of tourists clogging most main streets. The result of this is twofold - not only is physical space very limited and navigating the streets becomes a whole ordeal on its own, but the same streets were also quite dirty and littered with things that were accidentally dropped, as well as things that were, unfortunately, deliberately thrown on the ground.
Because of the spatial challenges this city has in its central area, I assume cleaning those streets isn't something the municipality can afford to do in an effective way without making the already difficult traffic even worse, so the only cleaning happens overnight, but that's clearly not enough.
Naturally, the prices in Amsterdam are quite high for most things, but that is to be expected. My AirBnB was about 450 EUR for 3 nights.
The second location represented one of the coolest experiences I had in the NL. Hoge Veluwe is, as far as I'm aware, the largest and most popular national park this country has, and it is truly spectacular. I didn't have enough luck to spot any large wildlife, but I did spend the whole day riding one of the free white bicycles the park offers to everyone, and I thoroughly enjoyed that despite the heatwave. I can scarcely remember ever being as tired as I was at the end of this day, but in a good way. 100% recommend a visit to this park to anyone going to the NL.
Zutphen, Utrecht and Delft were almost equally charming and lovely in all respects. The sense of gesellig is even stronger in those cities than it is in Amsterdam, and somehow the amount of flowers on the streets is even higher. They were also considerably cleaner and calmer than Amsterdam, which is expected.
Gouda was on my itinerary because I'm a self-proclaimed and utterly shameless cheese addict. I absolutely adore it, and where better to taste some of the world's finest cheese than precisely there. After embarrassing myself a bit by telling the cheese vendor "I want to taste your finest Gouda", and getting rightfully corrected that "gouda" is not a specific cheese recipe, but instead refers to the technology AND shape of the cheese, I finally got my hands on some of their finest, most aged cheese, and to call it divine would be a major understatement. I have never tasted better cheese in my life.
The famous cheese market in Gouda is open only for a few hours, and only on a Thursday, so I planned my entire trip in such a way that my visit to Gouda would fall on a Thursday, and it was a good decision for sure. On top of the great cheese, Gouda is, in my mind, the perfect example of how a quaint, cozy little Dutch town should feel. It's beautiful, calm, and insanely rich with history. Definitely one of the highlights of my trip.
The only somewhat disappointing location from the whole trip was Rotterdam. I went with expectations to see some interesting architecture and a bigger, more "modern" city, and while the modern part fully applied, the energy of this city is not something that appeals to me much. It is, as advertised, very industrial and feels like a large western factory city. Enormous shiny buildings rise all around you, and you see all the typical western store chains and fastfood venues everywhere. While there were some cool things to see, such as the cube houses, the Euromast, and the interesting-looking Erasmus bridge, Rotterdam lacked virtually all of the charm and quaintness of the other places I'd been. It lacked the gesellig and the cozy, colorful atmosphere. It felt incredibly busy, noisy and quite polluted, both in terms of the air (because of the vastly higher number of motor vehicles compared to other cities), and the ground you're walking on. The only nice park I managed to find there was Het Park, the rest were not that pleasant.
As someone that is from Europe (albeit from the more non-European part of it), the Netherlands didn't show me anything outlandish or vastly different from what I've seen in other countries on this continent, but what it did show me is very cool people, amazing laws regarding substance use, and a very cozy, different way of life than most big EU cities. It is a country that has been "earned" from the water. It has its peculiarities, and it has its rules, and if I were to ask myself the question whether I would want to live there or not, I would definitely respond positively (except in Rotterdam!).
Thank you if you read so far. Now to treat you, here are some photos for your enjoyment (I haven't tried to organize them much because there's nearly 500 of them, so I've just picked some I liked more than others):
