Lost in Amsterdam

Due to unexpected events I find myself on the way to Amsterdam during the working week, with no plans whatsoever.

Does any duder have any recommendation? Anybody wants to grab a beer?

Amsterdam is a great town. Stay safe and have fun!

Rent a bike

Amsterdam is one of my favourite cities on the planet. The Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh museum are both world-class and definitely worth exploring. Not in the same day though, because the Rijksmuseum especially is a full-day or even a two day affair.

Taking the free ferry to the north side of town is a neat way to see different part of the city and some of the suburban houses over there are quite picturesque. The parks are a huge attraction for me, but I doubt there's any snow over there yet so they might just be a bit damp and cold this time of year.

If you like a dingy old-world pub, then definitely check out De Pilsener Club and/or In de Wildeman. They are by no means the only great bars in Amsterdam, but they're the ones I find myself coming back to every time I spend time in the city.

I'm not sure if the Dappermarkt near Oosterpark is open this time of year, but during summer it's a good place to grab a cheap bite to eat. There are street markets over in De Pijp as well.

Don't buy drugs from the street, stamp your ticket when exiting the tram and check if your coffee shop allows smoking tobacco indoors.

There's great steak in the city centre

I mean it's Amsterdam so you should probably snort as much dust and smoke as much weed as humanly possible without killing yourself.

It's been a while since you've visited Amsterdam I guess? :)
Nowadays you buy something called a 'OV chipcard' from the ticket machines on trainstations. It looks like a thick credit card and you can use it on trains, busses, metro and tram. Just be sure to check-in when entering and when leaving to check-out. If you don't check in you can get fined and if you don't check out the system will eat your money. The system kind of sucks and it's damn expensive as well.
In the case of busses and trams you can also still pay cash on entering by the way.

@dussck: I meant the electronic chip card things. Check-out may be a better verb than stamp, but I'm still so used to that lingo. The last time I visited was in June and it was the first time I bought the 24-hour Amsterdam & Region ticket. It was a pretty good deal since I was only doing a 15 hour layover.

I hear the Grasshopper is a pretty good bar.

Avoid station/museum square(unless you're going to Rijks), De Wallen and Kalver street. Unless you want to walk through tourist hell and what tourists think "Amsterdam" is. A lot of the busier parts of Amsterdam have become this weird little bubble of "sex drugs, amsterdam whooo!!!!!" that just feels fucking weird and gross. Mind you, I'm saying this as a Dutchie and the last time I was there was about 2 years ago (I'd much rather go to Leiden or Delft/The Hague but that's also more because I live nearer to those cities).

• Go have a beer at Hanneke's Boom ('Boom' means tree in Dutch btw). It's very near the Central Station, it's on the water and you have an amazing view over the Science Museum: (check out more pictures at their FB)

• If you're already near the Central Station, you could check out the recently opened Adam Tower, (take the ferry behind the station over the water) which offers a really cool view over the city. It has a swing at the top that allows you to swing over the side of the building. It's crazy, its dumb, it could be fun...? Also, the elevator ride to the top is pretty wild.

• The center of town, de Dam, is reeeeally touristy, but if it's your first time you should probably have a look. It's got the royal palace, as well as some good shopping.

• We got this thing called 'Amsterdam Light Festival' now, which is really cool- a bunch of artists made these fantastic light sculptures that are placed alongside the canals all over the city. You can buy a ticket for a boat ride that will take you past all these sculptures. I haven't been yet but a couple of my friends and family been on it and say it's amazing.

• If you're the clubbing type, we got those too. The big concert venues in the center are Paradiso and De Melkweg (the Milky Way), good assortment of international bands and djs. If you're more into house / techno, check out De School (which is basically trying to be Amsterdam's answer to Berlins Berghain), de Marktkantine or a new club called Claire which is a bit more friendly.
• If you decide to rent a bike and you're not used to travelling this way, be prepared for a pretty hectic experience especially in the center of town. Amsterdam has been getting more and more popular over the years so there are certain parts in the center that are not very novice bikerider friendly. Just be careful. :)

I was there for the first time as an adult this past august. As long as you're vaguely comfortable doing it, I would agree that you should definitely get a bike. Public transit is fine, but biking is fast, safe and a lot of fun. Certainly much better than in most American cities.

As for things to do, eat as much bitterballen as possible. The Van Gogh museum is can't miss. Brauwerie t'Ij is a neat place to get a drink. It's a pretty terrific brewery located in a windmill (how Dutch!). Maybe a bit touristy, but you are a tourist, after all.

Edit: And seriously, when walking, keep your head on a swivel. It is very easy to get distracted and step into a bike lane. I saw plenty of tourists, as well as my girlfriend do it.

@isomeri: If not from the streets, where do I buy drugs from?

@ghost_cat: coffee shops.

Amsterdam is a great place to visit and a midweek is probably the best choice. It's pretty busy with tourists all year long.

There's already a ton of great suggestions so not much to add. If you want to see Rogue One, there's an Imax next to Amsterdam Bijlmer (8mins by train from Central), which may be a nice thing to do if you're tired of the travelling.

If Amsterdam is proving a bit too much, or if you want to see a bit of more of the country, the Netherlands is dense and everything is closer than you probably think.

Rotterdam is about 50mins by train and lost all its historic buildings at the start of WW2, and instead is sort of a continual view of 60 years of modern architecture. There's a lot of cool things to see, and it starts when you arrive at the excellent train station and the square it's on.

Utrecht is 30mins by train from Amsterdam, and looks a lot like Amsterdam except about 80% less tourists. It has a giant university for the size of the city, is growing rapidly.

Oh wow guys, I wasn't expecting such a response!!

I already rented a bike, parked it in the city center and I'm just enjoying the street life for today. Tomorrow I'll probably go to Van Gogh's. Going to check some of the bars you guys said for sure! I'll also go to Leiden for a day, I've got a friend who lives there.

I'm mostly on my own, so while I could see some live band, I probably won't be clubbing. Drugs are as easy to get here as they are in Barcelona, so that would be a waste of the little time I've got. I might join a pub crawl, though.

Thank you all. :)

I've been loads Centrum is a really good area to stay, not too far out of town lots of bars coffee shops right near the museum district. If you want cheap and cheerful the Hans Brinker hostel is one of my favourite places to stay. It claims to have a standard of accommodation on a par with a minimum security prison but is very well located, dirt cheap, retains the hippy vibe and has a bar on site. The red light district is a mixed bag, rowdy hen-dos and stag-nights but if you've never been you should check it out. The bulldog, in the heart of the red light, is one of the few places that let you drink beer and smoke weed (which is technically illegal). Grasshopper is overpriced.

Get a kebab, a beer, and a cookie at 4am and consume them in some central plaza. That's still my favorite memory of that town.

Also, go see the Anne Frank House.

@catlicker: Check out the Melkweg and Heineken Music Hall. I go there probably twice every month for concerts. They usually have pretty great stuff lined up. If you end up buying weed, make sure to smoke it in the coffeeshop itself. It's technically illegal to do it in a public place (outside with lots of people around) and some hotels have a policy that prohibits you from doing it in their rooms, though if you're a tourist cops often leave you with a warning if they catch you doing it outside. Heck, they even give locals warnings most of the time. Fines are not that common though it can happen, especially if a cop is having a bad day.

@isomeri: Both The Pilsener Club (hosted by an unfit Dwayne Johnson lookalike) and In de Wildeman (in which I am right now) are special places, I can see why you keep coming back to them.

@squrler: The look of the science museum is bonkers! I found out that you can climb the roof to have a great view of this flat city. Also, I plan on biking around the light artsie shenanigans this evening, thanks for telling me.

@berniesbc: Brauwerie t'Ij. Got it. I'll make sure to go there, I'm sure It'll be better than "the Heineken experience" that's advertised everywhere. Van Gogh's museum was a blast, although the longer I stayed there the more crowded it got.

@zevvion: I checked the program and except for Against me! all the rest of the bands seemed Dutch... Not sure if going in blind is a good idea. I ended up visiting the coffee shop I went to when I was 18, and it's still the same crummy hole it was back then.

@squrler: They took that last installation to Durham the last time that festival was here. One of the few I could see from my office when it was on.

Amsterdam is amazing city! Lucky you! I'm going to visit Amsterdam next month. My good friend advised me where to stay in Amsterdam for free here https://swap-house.com/host/netherlands/amsterdam/. I think it's a great way to save money for entertainments and to get to know more about people in Netherlands. Hope it will be unforgettable trip.

I'm taking my first trip to Amsterdam in the spring and will be keeping all of these recommendations in mind.