To finish out our two-week European trip back in September, we spent a short amount of time in both Amsterdam and Bruges. We had two nights in each city, and really only about a day and a half total with each one. We probably could have used a little more time in Amsterdam, but Bruges we were able to max out with the time we had.
Although they were very short visits, I'm glad we squeezed them in during our trip. Amsterdam was pretty unique compared to other cities I've visited, and I was obsessed with their bike culture. When I was in college, biking was my main source of transportation in Philadelphia and I loved it. I wish more American cities could be closer to the biking level of Amsterdam. Their bike lanes are bigger than the sidewalks and they have their own traffic lights. It was fascinating.
Being able to rent bikes while we were there meant we were able to see more of the city in our short amount of time, so that was great. We did a hour day rate for our rentals and just kept them overnight.
On our second morning we rode across town to our breakfast place, and it was so cool to be part of the morning bike commute with all of the locals even though I'm sure they got annoyed with us a few times for being newbs.
In Amsterdam we did our only real museum visit of our trip, which was to the Van Gogh museum. It worked out perfectly because it was pouring rain while we were in there and had cleared up by the time we left. I'm so glad we did it. Other than that, our only other non-eating adventures in Amsterdam were biking around and then walking through the Red Light District like the tourists we were. We also visited a cute little shop with a lot of plants, called Wildernis. Bruges was also great, but surprisingly was the most expensive city on our trip.
