One of the many benefits of doing my Masters in the UK was the geographical proximity I had to the rest of Europe.
Between the ending of the MBA spring term and the beginning of my 10 week internship in Grimsby, I had a window of 10 days to take a much needed break. My first thought was to go for a solo trip to Glenfinnan in Scotland to see the infamous bridge where a lot of the train sequences in the Harry Potter movies were shot. But during my research, Google presented me with an ad for a ridiculously low fare flight to Brussels from London. The flight fare from London to Brussels was a lot cheaper than the train fare from Manchester to Glenfinnan. Also the travel time to Glenfinnan was nearly 9 hours! So the offer to visit Brussels seemed to be great to save both time and money.
I then proceeded to see what I could do in Brussels and that led me to an irresistible travel plan from Brussels to Amsterdam. I’ve always wanted to visit Amsterdam, especially after reading The Fault in Our Stars.
There was a direct bus from Brussels to Amsterdam and the duration of the journey was 5 hours. So I decided to take the night bus as it would then avoid the need to book accommodation in Brussels. Also, the flight from Amsterdam back to London was wallet friendly. The caveat was that I had to take the flight departing at 3pm, which would only give me 5 hours to explore the city. But the idea of visiting two European cities in about 24 hours seemed exciting.
And so, the plan to visit Amsterdam for half a day was born!
I was waiting at the Brussels train station at around 11pm for the bus to arrive. The bus station was a floor below the train station. And as soon as I boarded the bus I dozed off as I had an adventurous day in Brussels.
The bus dropped us off near the airport. Which meant that I now had to catch a train from the airport train station to the Centrum (Amsterdam’s city centre). Although Amsterdam has several beautiful districts, I decided to visit the Centrum for my trip as I was pressed for time.
From the Centrum railway station, I headed on over to a cafe nearby for some necessary travel fuel a.k.a coffee and Stroopwafels. If there’s a food item that I love more than a home cooked biryani, it’s Stroopwafels. There are two ways to eat Stroopwafels, one is the normal way and the other is to eat it like a psychopath. The psychopath method of eating a Stroopwafel is to eat it directly from the bag. And the normal way to eat it is to keep it on the rim of the cup or mug of your warm beverage and allow the heat from the beverage to melt the caramel inside.
I don’t recall the name of this cafe, but it had a beautiful outdoor sitting area and was overlooking the city centre with trams and bicycles zooming by. Also a lot of tourists were just dragging their trolley bags around and stopping for selfie sessions.
After spending a decent 30 to 40 minutes at the cafe to recuperate from my arduous morning trip from Brussels to Amsterdam, I then proceeded to move out to see the canals. The walk to get to the canal from the cafe was scenic! I loved the colour scheme of the city, it was brown and orange. Most of the housing structures were brown and grey with a surprising splash of orange and red just to keep you captivated. And the contrast of these colours against the cobbled streets. Oh I thought I was trapped in Van Gogh’s project.
Google Maps estimated that it would take me about 20 minutes to get to the canals from the cafe. But I did stop a lot to appreciate the sites along the way and so it took about an hour to get to the canals. And the canals were stunning to say the least. The low slightly curved bridges with cobblestones, several boats docked on both sides, tall and lush green trees and the brown and grey housing structures at the back, also the canal cruises running back and forth. All of these elements came together to create an inimitable vibe! Absolutely stunning.
It was hard to negotiate myself from moving away from the canals as I remember spending an hour and half just standing on one of the bridges and watching the canal cruises go by. I had good music to keep company and add a dash of flavour to the already stunning views. I did want to experience the canal cruise but since I was on a budget I decided to skip it.
And of course I did stop by a bouquet store to have a closer look at the symbol of Netherlands, tulips and I managed to see black tulips! An interesting fact is that although tulips are synonymous with the Netherlands, they never originated there. Tulips are said to have been cultivated by the gardeners in the Ottoman empire in Central Asia. And my easter break in Turkey pretty much corroborates this as I found myself surrounded by tulips in multiple tourist spots there.
Time surely flew and I had to board the train back to the Amsterdam International Airport. How I wish I could just go back in time and savour the 5 hours spent in the beautiful Centrum of Amsterdam.