Amsterdam and surrounds
 

My wife and I will me traveling to Amsterdam at the end of April. We are spending 7 nights. We plan on Doing 3 or 4 day trips out of the city (Bulb district,Keukenhof Gardens - Marken, Volendam, Alkmaar,Zaandam,-Delft). My plan is to rent a car for each of these daytrips or consecutively. We have driven in many different countries and seem to navigate fairly well. Is getting in and out of Amsterdam a difficult and time consuming task, or would we wiser to use public transportation with much less mobility? Another option would be to stay 3 nights outside of the city. I have many more questions to follow.

Avoid rush-hours, because traffic sometimes comes to an almost standstill around the cities.
If you drive during weekends it will be better.
Why not stay 2 nights around Leiden/Delft and do the bulbdistrict/Keukenhof and Delft from there?
For Marken,Volendam, Zaandam etc. you can stay in Amsterdam.
Be prepared for high parkingfees in Amsterdam city-centre, maybe even if it is a hotelparking.
Better find a hotel just outside of the city or maybe Zaandam.
Also April 29 will be the celebration of Queen's birthday. Traffic within Amsterdam that day will be almost impossible!!!

There are several car rental offices on Overtoom, near the Leidseplein. These are just a few blocks from one of the major ring road highways. We chose one of these offices to minimize intracity driving.

Thnaks. This may be a good suggestion. We are staying at the Ambassade and doesn't seem to be that far (on a small map). Do you know how far this may be? The Ambassade is on 341 Herengracht. I also read a suggestion to rent bikes and take them on the trains to my destinations. Thoughts?

Amsterdam, though ironically it has relatively thru thoroughfares for vehicles in its inner city has been surprisingly easy to drive in - probably because many people take the superb public transport system or ride bikes on the city's amazing bike path network, and the city discourages vehicles in the inner city by steep parking fees - well over $20 a day at least. If you get a hotel on the south side of town near Vondel Park it's easy access to the ring autoroutes, which can be however mobbed at rush hours. But Amsterdam is a surprisingly small city in its inner preceints.