Amsterdam Summer Trip Report
 

A few notes from our trip to Amsterdam in the Summer of 2024. Enjoy!

Max Brown Hotel, Canal District
Excellent location, boutique hotel with true boutique feel to it, next to a canal. It's not big and the stairs are very narrow but the location was perfect. I think we had room 404 which was an upstairs canal view. It's in between the really busy touristy area, and the less crowded neighborhood sections (which we preferred.) The breakfast is only okay - fine to do once or if you are rushing out and need to grab a quick bite, but otherwise not worth the money. We would return here, or a similar place along the canal.

Recommend:

• Pure Boats Tour: The Ultimate Canal Cruise 14+. this one is pricier but worth it! We did the 4:00 happy hour and the food/drinks were great.
• Anne Frank Tour: To get a preferred time you'll need to sign up on a Tuesday, six-weeks in advance at 10:00am their time. The tickets go quickly.
• Hidden Church in the Attic self-guided tour - a really unique piece of history.
• De Haven van Texel restaurant. Along a canal, great split pea soup (the small was enough for a meal). Reservations help, but there was space to just walk in too.
• Cafe Sonneveld restaurant- authentic and cheerful, good food. Need reservations.
• Albert Cuyp Market - get your stroopwafels here plus fish and the most delicious Turkish flatbread.
• Hemelse Modder - this was recommended and we liked it, but would approach it differently next time. It took way too long - 2.5 hours for 3 courses, which I think is their vibe, but after walking 20K steps that day we were just famished and the wait was frustrating. Reservations needed.

Favorite itinerary day:
10:45 Anne Frank Tour
Lunch - savory pancakes
4:00 Pure Boats tour
6:30 Sonneveld

We also did the windmills in Zaanse Schans, which was fine but if I were to do it again, I would bypass this and instead go to another local town (like Haarlem) where it would be safer to rent bikes and spend a day there. If we had more days, we would also do the museums.

That's great that you were at Haven van Texel. That area of Zeedijk was where Texel islanders had their Amsterdam base. At Nieuwendijk on the western part of the harbour front, the area still known as Ramskooi was the power base of the Terschelling islanders. Wapen van Texel exclusively serves beer from Texel too. A great piece of Amsterdam history.