Amsterdam & Copenhagen Travel Guide
A couple of years ago, my friend Kim and I realized that while we both love traveling—and in particular, traveling to Europe, we had somehow never been together. Almost immediately we began scheming up a trip for the first available date that fit into our calendars and landed on the spring of 2019.
When we got down to figuring out exactly where we should go, we knew we wanted somewhere that neither of us had been before, and also ideally somewhere that was known for being particularly special in the springtime. I don’t remember exactly how it came about, but one of us stumbled on photos of Holland’s magical tulip fields and we knew that was it.
“Tulip Trip” was born. 🌷
Kim found us crazy cheap flights (under $500 roundtrip!) from NYC to Amsterdam for the end of April so we started there. We went back and forth on whether or not to do Belgium too, or maybe even Paris, but Copenhagen had been high up on both of our lists, so we decided that Amsterdam & Copenhagen would be our priorities.
When Kim and I were doing some trip planning during one of our Girl’s Weekends last winter, our friend Jocelyn started getting a serious case of FOMO. “Well…why don’t you just come too?” we said, and before she realized what was happening, Jocelyn was booking her flight (I actually grabbed her wallet and took out her credit card for her, that’s what friends are for) and we were planning our first ever Girl’s Week—abroad.
We covered a lot of ground on our 9-day jaunt, collecting a tall stack of metro cards, logging many bicycle miles through the tulip fields, hot-tubbing our way through Copenhagen Harbor, and drinking plenty of rosé (and fine, Heineken).
Here’s my Amsterdam & Copenhagen travel guide:
Amsterdam
I was expecting to like Amsterdam, but I absolutely loved Amsterdam—all 3 of us did. It is such a charming city that is easily walkable, and holy hell, I knew that it was one of the world’s most bike-friendly cities, but I have never seen so many bikes in my life—”look both ways before you cross the street” took on a whole new level of importance. We spent a few days exploring all the city has to offer: quirky architecture, picturesque canals, history, art, cats (on boats, nonetheless), and of course, stroopwafels. We also happened to be in town for King’s Day, one of Europe’s biggest street parties where over a million people take to the streets clad in bright orange, so yeah, that was definitely something to experience.
We started the trip with a private happy hour cruise through the canals, which was our splurge for Amsterdam and totally worth it. We ate some fancy snacks, drank some bubbly drinks, and took in the views of the city—and our uncomfortably attractive captain Reinhard. 😉
One of my favorite things that we did was a walking tour of the Red Light District where we learned all about the drug culture and sex industry in Amsterdam. It was fascinating. A few interesting facts I learned: Did you know that marijuana isn’t actually legal in Amsterdam? It’s just “tolerated” by the police. Crazy, right? And did you also know that because prostitution is legal there that each girl has a panic button in her room that she can use to alert the police if anything goes wrong? Our tour guide asked us how long we thought the average guy lasts with a sex worker and we all guessed somewhere between 5-15 minutes, but the answer well under a minute (I think it was something absurd like 16 seconds haha).
Anne Frank House: I realized before our trip that although I was familiar with her story, I had never actually read The Diary of Anne Frank. I finished the book right before we left and it made the museum experience all the more powerful to have everything so vivid in my mind. I don’t have the right words to describe the feeling of walking through the secret annex that Anne and her family lived in for over 2 years while they were hiding from the Nazis, but it was moving (to say the very least). At one point in the book Anne writes, “I wish to go on living even after my death,” and that she has. The museum has been open since 1960 and tickets sell out months in advance.
I’ll just go ahead and openly admit that we elected to skip the Van Gogh Museum and the Rembrandt House Museum in favor of the MOCO Musuem (which I have no regrets about). I appreciate the masters, but I love contemporary art, and MOCO had some excellent exhibits up featuring work by Banksy and Yayoi Kusama. My favorite thing pretty much ever though was the 3D Roy Lichtenstein room. So freaking cool.
Because I’m a cat lady, De Poezenboot, aka, The Cat Boat, was a must. This magic place is a floating cat sanctuary in Amsterdam’s canal belt for stray and abandoned cats and it was really fun to visit.
While we did eat some good meals, the food wasn’t particularly memorable in Amsterdam (our tour guide even admitted to us that traditional Dutch cuisine isn’t really a thing). I did enjoy the breakfast at Coffee and Coconuts though, and Bar Botanique had dreamy decor and great cocktails. I also remember having a great brunch at Bakers & Roasters.
Our Airbnb just so happened to be next to a famous stroopwafel truck and we certainly took advantage—having one fresh off the waffle iron was a treat.
Lisse & Keukenhof
Our number one objective of the entire trip was to see Holland’s famous tulip fields in bloom. We quickly found out that Keukenhof is pretty much “the” place to go, so we hopped on a bus and headed out to see the tulip splendor for ourselves.
This place was nuts. There were over 7 million tulips in bloom (no, literally, that’s what the brochure said) and in crazy varieties that I’ve never seen before. In addition to strolling around the gardens (where, on an unrelated note, I ate an incredible grapefruit ice cream), we also rented bikes and took a self-guided tour of the tulip fields in the town of Lisse. We were shooting to keep it pretty casual, but we somehow decided that riding all the way to the ocean would be a good idea (I think this was my bright idea, sorry girls), and we ended up riding over 15 miles, not only through tulips, but through hills, sand dunes, and intense wind. I don’t think we ever actually saw the water too, whoops.
It was maybe a little more than we bargained for, but the tulips fields were truly stunning to see in real life and one of those tourist things that’s actually worth it. The color blocking!
Copenhagen
I like to joke that my spirit-heritage is Scandinavian (I’m of Polish, Irish & Italian descent though). I’ve just always gravitated towards that region—the landscape, the culture, the people, everything. I’ve been to Iceland a few times, but this was my first time to mainland Scandinavia and I was psyched. I even read The Almost Nearly Perfect People to prepare, which I would recommend to anyone who is curious why the Nordic countries are always voted the happiest in the world.
Copenhagen was a short and inexpensive flight from Amsterdam, and while the cities have some similarities (there were tons of bikes here too), they felt distinctly different. We spent 3 days in the city and managed to fit a lot in. These were my favorite things:
Day 1
Lunch at Torvehallerne, a food hall where we enjoyed some Smørrebrød (a Danish open-faced sandwich with crazy toppings) and beer. It was a simple meal but probably one of my favorites of the trip. Shoutout to the woman working the food stand who prevented Jocelyn and I from unintentionally ordering the Danish version of O’Douls. 🍻
The Botanical Gardens (which had a butterfly garden too) were lovely and there is a nice park on the grounds that we all took a much-needed nap in.
Nyhavn is the postcard-looking area of the city with all of those cute, brightly-colored townhouses right on the water (you’ve 100% seen a photo before, I unfortunately didn’t get a great one). We spent some time exploring the area and also stopped by to see the Little Mermaid, a bronze sculpture that’s become the unofficial mascot of the city. It was…a bit underwhelming and reminded me of the first time I saw Plymouth Rock in real life. “Wait…that’s it?”
We were wandering around trying to figure out where to eat dinner when we remembered that our Airbnb host had left us a list of recommendations. Without really looking it up first, we ended up at Roxie, where we accidentally signed ourselves up for a stupidly expensive tasting menu that was luckily really great.
We ended the night at our Airbnb by drinking some Aquavit, a centuries-old Nordic Spirit that was the only thing that looked drinkable on the bar cart we were told we could help ourselves to. It was…let’s just say, different.
Days 2 & 3
Reffen, the largest street-food market in the city, was amazing. There were so many options for great food, shaved ice alcohol slushies, multiple breweries within walking distance, and great waterfront views. We spent a big chunk of the day here, also visiting 2 nearby breweries: Mikkeller and Broaden & Build.
Before we left I picked up an issue of Airbnb Magazine that had a feature on Copenhagen and one of my favorite things that we did on the trip was from the article: a floating hot tub excursion via Copenhot. I had no idea that a floating hot tub was even a thing, but it is, and it’s amazing. We rented what they call a “sailing hot tub” (complete with a hot tub captain) for a 1.5-hour cruise through the harbor and it was a trip highlight for sure. We even got to jump in the water after for a post-float Nordic plunge which felt amazing. I didn’t bring my nice camera out on the water so I only have a few mediocre iPhone pics, but definitely check out their website because it’s something to be seen for sure.
After the hot tub magic, we walked over to La Banchina, a tiny restaurant and wine bar where people just hang out on the docks overlooking the harbor and drink wine by the fire. I would be a regular here if I were a local, it was dreamy.
The next morning we had some hipster avocado toast at a super cute place called Café Atalier September (it’s apparently the city’s most photographed avocado toast, and yes, I took a photo too, but I’ll spare you). Then we walked around and did some shopping, because the #1 souvenir that I wanted to bring home with me was Danish ceramics. After going in a number of stores, we stumbled into Stilleben, and everyone went home with some sort of ceramic something—I’m only mad that I didn’t buy more. Everything in that store was beautiful, which is no surprise for a country known for being so design-savvy.
p.s. It’s probably worth mentioning that Copenhagen is a very expensive city. When we were at the airport I had some US dollars that I was looking to exchange for Danish Krone so I would have a little cash on me. When I handed the woman at the desk $70 dollars she looked at me with a worried expression and said, “That’s it? Are you sure?” “Yeah,” I said, not really understanding her concern, “Why?” She then pointed to the hot dog stand next to us and said, “See that hot dog? This will get you 3 of those.” Let’s just say, I was warned, and now you are too.
Outtakes & Mistakes
While it was a great trip overall, here’s a list of some things that weren’t-so-great for a little session of Instagram v. Reality. Que será, será…
I was sick the entire time. Not flu sick luckily, but some awful cold that made my flights completely miserable and had me blowing my nose and coughing like crazy. Jocelyn came down with it too, and while it certainly didn’t ruin the trip, it definitely put a damper on parts of it.
Our flight from New York had to make an unexpected landing in Boston before we crossed the Atlantic which delayed our arrival time in Amsterdam by a few hours. We ended up meeting up with Jocelyn at the airport (she was flying out of Logan but we weren’t supposed to see her until Amsterdam) because her flight was also delayed—but for a way longer time than ours. She ended up missing almost the entire first day but luckily arrived just in time for the canal cruise.
On our epic bike ride through the tulip fields, the keys to our Airbnb slipped out of Kim’s pocket and disappeared into the Dutch countryside. Our host was super nice about it though, telling us that “Anyone can lose keys in Amsterdam.”
The first Airbnb that we stayed at in Amsterdam had crazy steep stairs and poor Jocelyn slipped one morning and tumbled down half of them while Kim and I watched, frozen in panic. She escaped mostly without injury, but then…
After our Nordic plunge, she slipped on the dock and got a serious bruise that later got infected and still isn’t entirely healed…6 months later. She wins for most Trip Battle Wounds.
The last dinner of the trip was the actual worst meal I’ve ever had in my life. I ordered “asparagus with salmon,” and what I got was 4 bloated white stalks of flavorless boiled asparagus topped with a pile of raw salmon. It was so gross it was funny.
Oh, and I promise that Kim was on this trip too. She just wouldn’t let us take any photos of her. That’s her torso holding a glass on champagne in the first set of Amsterdam photos though.
