If you ever get a chance to travel without your kids for a long weekend, I recommend you try Amsterdam. My husband and I just came back from our trip; it’s about a 6 hour flight to Amsterdam and 7 hours back (if you’re thinking of driving to Cape Cod or Vermont this flight is a real piece of cake)
When we had our kids, both my husband and I thought it would be a long time before we would get to travel to Europe, because everyone told us you need two weeks for those kinds of trips. But what we’ve learned is that if you pick one city in Europe it makes a perfect destination for a long weekend both cost and value wise.
We were able to see all of what Amsterdam has to offer, including all the museums and a canal tour in just two days, and for our third day, we visited the nearby city of Den Haag (http://www.denhaag.com/default.asp?id=DOORWAYNEWS-uk). Since everybody speaks perfect English, this made it so much easier for us to travel around and ask for directions. Amsterdam also has a great transportation system, which made getting around really simple.
We were there during the white nights, (http://www.europestring.com/white-nights-in-europe/) which means two things: 1 the sun doesn’t go down until about 10pm, which allows for taking full advantage of the weekend and 2 all the young people are completely dressed in white, which gives the whole city a unique look.
There are tons of small private hotels in Amsterdam and we stayed at http://www.fita.nl/ in the museum district, operated by a husband and wife who had ton of great info. For example, they were able to get us advanced tickets to most museums at no additional costs, so we didn’t have to wait in line. And for the museums they didn’t have tickets for, they told us when to visit in order to avoid the long lines. So we wasted no time on our trip.
It is so peaceful and quiet in the city during the weekend, it really feels that the whole city is resting. You do hear the occasional blaring music but mostly in the center and closer to the evening hours. So even though we walked a lot we really felt rested.
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