the canal boats are a city tour from the water and the Museum Boat circulates and stops at key museums and the Anne Frank House. Check the Amsterdam Tourist Information (VVV) web site for tours - there are many that go by bike like ones by Mac Bike.

http://www.amsterdam.info/tips/touristoffice/

The office sells a set of self-guided walking tours for various areas of central Amsterdam.

Perfect, Pal. Thank you.

Amsterdam can easily be used as a base to visit other towns in the Netherlands. In 1971 we used Amsterdam as a base and visited the museums in The Hague and Haarlem.>

Could substitute 2015 and still be most valid - IMD often gives good advice like far above but his/her/its egotistic drivel often distracts from it - better off without his sage advice if we must take his nonsense as well IMO.

IMD, the advice is always welcome. It's the editorializing that is unnecessary and takes a lot of pleasure out of it for me.

We were in Amsterdam the year before last primarily to see the Van Gogh museum and loved the other museums as well. I wish I had seen the DC exhibition that you mentioned which was I think about his replications.

Two side notes about Amsterdam that I'll throw out just for the heck of it. We visited the museums relentlessly for three days and started to feel the need for a break and made a side trip to Zaansee Schans to see the windmills. It was an amazing experience to see working windmills which are such an important aspect of Dutch history. If you feel the need for an outdoor break (and the tulips are not in bloom) I would recommend this to you. If the tulips are in bloom then I would make a different suggestion.

Secondly, as you know, Amsterdam is a bicycle city. We've always walked or taken public transportation on our travels but with much trepidation we decided to give the bicycles a go. We ended up keeping the bikes for three days and everyday marveled at how quickly we could get to almost any part of the city. It was great fun.

Oh, the Dutch speak English better than I do.

Think about Rembrandt's house as well. We thought it was very well done and it had exhibits about how he actually made his paints and also how he made etchings. I generally prefer 19th century art but after Amsterdam and seeing the old masters I gained a new appreciation for Dutch genre paintings.

Thanks, prmbrown., I'm saving all info. The replications exhibit was at the Phillips also in D.C. and a lovely, intimate (although enlarged) gallery that was once a home. Have you visited D.C. yet?

<<Amsterdam can easily be used as a base to visit other towns in the Netherlands. In 1971 we used Amsterdam as a base and visited the museums in The Hague and Haarlem

How is this remotely outdated advice?! Does IMD think places get *more* difficult to get to over time?

TDude - I agree with those who said Amsterdam is easy to do solo. Write a trip report when you return!

The funny thing about your rant is that if I had said that one can commute from Amsterdam to cities like the Hague to visit the Mauritshuis, you would not have been able to express your horror at what you find to be an outdated advice. Yet it would have been based on the same experience, updated, but unstated, by our travels to other cities this past year. In other words, train travel between cities in the Netherlands has remained as convenient as it was 40+ years ago.

IMD - The advice was accurate despite how old it was. That is the point.

I have a whole library of guidebooks that I have picked up at used bookstores. Many of them are 10 to 15 years old and I still use the maps. In paris, The Louvre, Notre Dame, the Orsay and the Eiffel Tower are not going to relocate!

Someone needs to participate that badly that need to cite a 1971 trip?>

I hate those personal attacks like IMD so so often makes - he/she/it indeed was banned from the Lounge if you can believe that - it takes a lot to have that happen.

Sounds like one who likes to hear himself pontificate, which he does do extremely well and also gives very sage advice - just if he/she/it did not act like a school bully jerk so much.

In this case I'd throw the baby out with the bath water.

the advice about hopping from Amsterdam easily to other places in small Holland is just as good in 2015 as 50 years ago IMO.

Much ado bout nothing and that often seems to be IDM's goal.

I took the Trans-Siberian Railway in 1975 all the way to the Pacific and the other day I commented on a thread asking questions about it saying that IME the scenery was blah - thousands of miles of scrub brush redolent of Michigan's U P wasteland - I'm sure that scenery is just about the same now as it was then.

Same with michael's post. Just as valid now as in 1971.

TDudette,

To go back to the topic at hand. The Netherland travel card (I forget the official name) is not useful for train travel because of its minimum 20€ requirement for that tye of travel, but it is very useful for local inner city travel as it is valid for all public transport within any city. Look at my trip report from last year, where I write about it; click on my name to find it.

LOL, Pal and thanks, Michael. Philly, I have saved all our guides.

"In Amsterdam there are lots of great museums: Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum, Rembrandts House, Stedelijk (modern art)Anne Frank house, as well as several canal side museums."

This is nonsense. These mid-level at best. There are no top level museums or anything else in Amsterdam. It is certainly on the lower rung of European capitals, interest-wise. (It probably ranks just below Brussels only ahead of Dublin). It's worth a visit, I suppose, but only after you've been to just about everyplace else.

ambo - 99% of folks who vehemently disagree with you - I think you have really only scratched the surface of Amsterdam and really show you no absolutely nothing about it - I think you statement is #1 meant to be flamboyant more than anything else.

Has anyone first-hand experience at Hotel Jan Luyken, please?

(Well, ambo, I'm rather mid-level myself. Along with quite a few million who think van Gogh is not.)

Interesting...go to profile, check out (R)ambo's other whining rants...and you'll soon learn that even as a newbie, he is fast moving up the Fodors ladder to the post of #1 contrarian/whiner/ranter. You may even get a good chuckle out of it. Fodorites, meet "Bah Humbug" personified.

anyone who believes the absurdities ambo says about Amsterdam knows he is just blowing smoke for the fun of it - no one else would concur with that driveling nonsense.

Has anyone first-hand experience at Hotel Jan Luyken, please?