Amsterdam is the capital and largest city of the Netherlands. As of 2024, it had a population of 933,680 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the urban area and 2,480,394 in the metropolitan area.

To get to Amsterdam we too the Eurostar from Kings Cross in London, if I remember correctly, it was almost a four-hour journey. The Eurostar passed through an underwater tunnel to get to Europe and then we passed through Belgium to get to the Netherlands.

After arriving at Amsterdam, Veer Centraal we took a metro train to the outskirts of the city to the hotel where we checked in at the Holiday Inn Express.

The hotel was walking distance away from the metro and near to the Johan Cruijff Arena, which is the Ajax FC football them home stadium.

After checking in we took to the street to explore taking the metro back to the City Central.

The day we spent there the weather wasn’t appealing but we still manage to move around admiring the leaning buildings.

Walking down the Damrak road there were a lot of the leaning building along the waterfront.

Then we took a turn and went down an alley named Warmoesstraat, another turn and we ended up in another alley, with windows with red lights.

Don’t think I need to explain what those are, I was just told no pictures, what I can say is there where a lot of sex shops.

After getting my eyes filled, we moved onto one of the canals, and I got why they called it the city of bikes.

We then came up to a little park, where there were a who lot of bikes parked or discarded.

What caught me off guard is tiny cars, one person vehicles that could fit on the pavement because they were so small.

The weather took a turn for the worst, which made us found a little pub De Koffieschenkerij and had a pint and relaxed a bit.

We were supposed to spend two days, but due to the weather we decided the next day to explore Rotterdam instead.

You can see more photos of Amsterdam here.