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Some cities you visit. Amsterdam is a city you fall into — slowly, helplessly, and with very little desire to climb back out. I had been putting this trip off for years, telling myself I’d go “when the timing was right,” which is, of course, the lie we tell ourselves about all the places we love most and are somehow afraid to finally see.
I went in April. Three days of cycling along canals that gleam like hammered silver in the afternoon light, of wandering through neighbourhoods so achingly beautiful they feel almost fictional, of eating things I will be dreaming about for months. Three days is not enough for Amsterdam. It never will be. But it is enough to fall completely in love — and that, I think, was always the point.
This is everything I did, where I stayed, and why you should go immediately.
AMSTERDAM — 3 Days
Where to Stay
Given its name, I shouldn’t have been surprised by the lobby of NH Collection Amsterdam Flower Market… but I still was! It is almost as if the garden has bloomed out of the floating Flower Market and right into the lobby to regale us with myriad colours and nature’s most intricate floral designs.
The building was originally constructed for the 1928 Olympic Games and sits across from the Munt Tower and Rembrandt Square with its vibrant nightlife, restaurants and cafes. The hotel’s own ground floor cafe, Ter Marsch & Co Amsterdam is a spritzy dash of vibrant hues in keeping with the theme.
The NH Hotels tradition of a Welcome Corner in the lobby continues here. Guests can help themselves to light refreshments of fruit-infused water, candy and fresh fruit at no cost. It’s one of those small, simple touches that you will remember long after you leave.
The real star of my Superior Room with view and balcony was the view from high atop — the kind that stops you mid-sentence and makes you forget what you were going to say. It was mesmerising to be in Amsterdam looking upon its bustling squares, tower and canals. I would recommend it ahead of even a suite!
Sleep came easy, partly because Amsterdam is an intrepid explorer’s delight but mainly for the plush bed, made even better paired with their pillow menu. I was surprised to find such a conveniently located base for my city explorations; the NH Collection Amsterdam Flower Market is easy to recommend if you want a hotel that’s close to every transport option from bicycle to car to boat!
What to Do & See
The Anne Frank House
There is no preparing yourself for the Anne Frank House. You can know the story entirely — the diary, the years in hiding, the heartbreaking end — and it will still stop you completely when you step inside and understand, in your bones, that this is real. That this actually happened. That behind this very bookcase, in these very rooms, a family lived in silence and fear for 761 days.
The secret annex is preserved exactly as it was found after the war. There are no artworks, no reconstructed furniture — Otto Frank chose to leave it empty, and that emptiness is the most powerful thing about it. Allow at least 90 minutes, and go in a quiet, open frame of mind.
Book well in advance — tickets are released on Tuesdays for visits six weeks later, and they sell out within hours. This is not an exaggeration. Plan accordingly.
The Rijksmuseum & Van Gogh Museum
Amsterdam is home to two of the finest art museums in the world, and they sit approximately 500 metres apart near Museumplein — meaning you can, with enough stamina and snacks, do both in a single day. Give each at least two hours to do it properly.
The Rijksmuseum is the kind of institution that makes you feel both very culturally enriched and very aware of how much you don’t know. Its collection of Dutch Golden Age masterpieces — Rembrandt’s The Night Watch, Vermeer’s The Milkmaid, room after room of naval paintings and domestic scenes and still lifes rendered with an almost incomprehensible level of craft — is simply extraordinary. The building itself, a neo-Gothic palace of soaring arches and painted ceilings, is half the experience. Book tickets online.
The Van Gogh Museum, right next door, is one of those rare museum experiences that transcends art appreciation and becomes something more like a conversation with a person. The collection traces his entire artistic life chronologically — from the dark, textured early works to the explosive colour of Arles — and by the end, you understand him in a way that no biography quite achieves. It is moving in a way I didn’t anticipate. Give yourself time here.
The Jordaan & De Negen Straatjes (The Nine Streets)
If you asked me to describe the Amsterdam of everyone’s imagination — the postcards, the Instagram posts, the movie establishing shots — I would describe the Jordaan. Narrow canals crossed by arched bridges trailing with ivy, rows of gabled canal houses in warm brick, bicycles propped against iron railings, window boxes spilling over with geraniums. Walking through it feels like walking through a painting that happens to also contain excellent coffee.
Winding through the heart of the Jordaan are De Negen Straatjes — nine short streets connecting the main canal rings, each lined with independent boutiques, vintage shops, antique dealers, and the sort of café that makes you want to cancel your return flight. Browse without agenda. Buy something you didn’t need. Have a coffee at a pavement table and watch the cyclists negotiate the bridges. This is what Amsterdam does best: the gentle, lovely pleasure of simply being in it.
A Canal Cruise
Amsterdam has more canals than Venice. More bridges than Paris. And the best way to understand why the Dutch are so extravagantly proud of their capital city is to see it from the water — the canal belt stretching away in every direction, the 17th-century gabled houses reflecting in the water, the houseboats drifting quietly at their moorings.
There are many canal cruise operators to choose from — I went with Flagship Amsterdam,, rated Tripadvisor’s number one day cruise in the world, and opted for their Luxury Boat Canal Cruise departing from the Anne Frank House. I did this on my very first day in the city, and looking back, it was one of the best decisions I made. Before you’ve had a chance to find your feet, the 1-hour cruise gives you an effortless lay of the land — gliding through Amsterdam’s legendary canal belt while the tour guide brings the city to life with stories and snippets of history that make everything you see suddenly click into place.
By the time I stepped off the boat, I already had a mental map of the city and a list of places I wanted to go back to on foot. It’s the kind of experience that sets the tone for the rest of your trip in the best possible way. The 100% electric boat is quiet and smooth, the views of the golden-age gabled houses and arched bridges are stunning from the water, and the whole thing feels far more special than your average tourist activity. Tickets start from €19.40 per person — book directly on their website.
Day trip to Zaanse Schans and Zaandam
Set aside one day for a trip to Zaanse Schans and Zaandam — one of the most rewarding and least complicated day trips you can do from the city.
Zaanse Schans is the Dutch countryside at its most picture-perfect: a living open-air museum of working windmills, traditional wooden houses painted in the characteristic dark green that the region is known for, and craft workshops where you can watch wooden clogs being carved and cheese being made the old-fashioned way.
It sounds touristy, and it is — but in the best possible sense, because what you’re seeing is genuinely preserved and genuinely beautiful, especially on a crisp morning with the windmills turning against a wide Dutch sky. Don’t rush this one — a good 3 hours will see you through it properly.
Just a short train ride away, the town of Zaandam is worth a wander for its striking Inntel Hotel alone — a remarkable building that stacks dozens of traditional Dutch houses on top of each other in a way that shouldn’t work but absolutely does. You won’t need more than 2 to 3 hours here — just enough time to take it all in.
Amsterdam → Zaanse Schans
The easiest way is by train from Amsterdam Centraal. Take a Sprinter towards Zaandijk Zaanse Schans — the journey takes just 17 minutes. From the station, it’s roughly a 10–15 minute walk to the village, and crossing the bridge gives you a panoramic view of the entire windmill village before you step inside.
Zaanse Schans → Zaandam
The best way is by train from Zaandijk Zaanse Schans station to Zaandam — services run every 30 minutes and the journey takes just 6 minutes.
Visit the tulip fields
If you’re visiting Amsterdam between late March and mid-May, seeing the tulip fields in bloom is a non-negotiable — and booking a guided tour is by far the best way to do it. I went with the tour to The Tulip Barn in Lisse on GetYourGuide, and it was one of the highlights of the entire trip. The tour takes you out of the city and into the Dutch countryside, where endless rows of tulips in every conceivable colour stretch as far as the eye can see — vivid reds, electric yellows, deep purples, and soft pinks laid out in broad stripes across the flat Dutch landscape!
With 2.5 million blooming tulips spread across its fields, it’s the kind of place that makes you want to put your phone down and just take it all in. Walk among the blooms, snap your dream photo, then retreat to the cosy greenhouse café for coffee and a snack while surrounded by flowers on all sides. It’s also wonderfully family-friendly, with a tractor racetrack, tulip playground, and bouncing castle keeping the little ones very happily occupied. I paid S$56 for this experience.
The bus ride from Amsterdam takes about an hour, with the meeting point at This is Holland — and once you arrive at The Tulip Barn, you’ll have a generous 2 hours to explore at your own pace. The tour weaves in fascinating stories about the history of the tulip in Holland and how the farmers grow and cultivate them. Book early, as tours during peak tulip season sell out weeks in advance, and check the season dates carefully.
Red Light District
No trip to Amsterdam is complete without at least a walk through the Red Light District — and it’s worth going with an open mind and leaving the judgement at the door. De Wallen, as it’s known locally, is one of the oldest parts of the city, and beneath its reputation lies a neighbourhood of genuine historic beauty — narrow medieval lanes, centuries-old canal houses, and some of the most atmospheric streets in all of Amsterdam.
Yes, the neon-lit windows are there, and yes, it is exactly what you’ve heard — but what surprises most first-time visitors is how unremarkable it all feels once you’re actually walking through it. It’s busy, it’s colourful, and it’s unapologetically itself. Go at night for the full atmosphere, stick to the main streets, be respectful — photography of the windows is strictly prohibited and taken seriously — and take a moment to appreciate that you’re walking through a part of Amsterdam that has looked more or less the same for the better part of 600 years. It’s not for everyone, but as a slice of the city’s complex, fascinating, and utterly unique character, it’s hard to beat.
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Eating & Drinking
Let’s be clear about something: eating in Amsterdam is a serious, glorious business, and the city will reward you richly for approaching it with the proper enthusiasm.
Breakfast means one thing: a warm stroopwafel from a market stall, where the caramel centre melts slightly under the heat of a freshly poured coffee, and life briefly achieves a kind of perfection. The Noordermarkt on Saturday mornings and the Albert Cuyp Market in De Pijp are the best places to find them fresh. The Albert Cuyp is, in fact, the largest outdoor street market in the Netherlands, and a genuinely excellent way to eat your way through a Dutch afternoon: kibbeling (battered fried cod, served with tartare sauce and utterly addictive), haring (raw herring with onion and gherkins — eat it the Dutch way, tilting the fish above your head), and fresh stroopwafels from the stands along the middle of the market.
For lunch, find a brown café — a bruine kroeg, the dark, wood-panelled Dutch pub that has been serving bitterballen (deep-fried beef croquettes with mustard, the definitive Dutch bar snack) and local beer since before anyone reading this was born. Order bitterballen, a glass of Heineken poured the correct Dutch way with exactly 2cm of foam, and watch Amsterdam carry on outside.
For dinner, De Kas is a non-negotiable: a 1926 greenhouse in Frankendael Park where they grow much of what they serve in the attached kitchen garden, and the seasonal menu changes almost daily. It is farm-to-table in its purest, most beautiful form, and the setting — all glass and light and trailing greenery — makes it one of the most extraordinary dining experiences in the city. Reserve well in advance.
For something more casual but equally memorable, Brouwerij ‘t IJ is a craft brewery built inside a functioning windmill at the foot of a 19th-century turreted building near Artis Zoo. Order a tasting flight of their house beers, find a table on the terrace, and spend an evening that feels distinctly, irreducibly Amsterdam.
On your way out of any grocery shop or bakery, grab a slice of Dutch apple pie — thick, spiced, and served warm with a great deal of cream. It is considerably better than any version you have had anywhere else, and this is not up for debate.
There is a particular kind of happiness that Amsterdam produces — unhurried, sensory, deeply human. It lives in the sound of a canal boat engine echoing off the brick, in the specific quality of northern light on water, in a warm stroopwafel eaten on a market square with nowhere pressing to be. Three days is enough to fall completely in love with this city. It is never, ever enough to feel finished. You will leave already planning your return.
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