This has been my most disorganized series of trip reports ever. I started with my review of the new 767-300 full flat seats. Next the Holiday Inn Express hotel we stayed at near the Schiphol airport (AMS). Then jumped to a quick report of the island visit in Sweden. Just yesterday Lisa had a review of her solo trip home. This summer has been crazy. But let’s get to the trip itself.
We landed and after collecting luggage went & picked up a 2 day I Am Amsterdam card (5 Euros off if you show your KLM Flying Blue card – yet one more reason to have one). This gave us unlimited trolley rides and entrance to so many museums that there was no way to see them all in 2 days. Also discounts on many other attractions. Is it a great deal? If you do enough yes, if not, you are just getting it for convenience.
[youtube width=”300″ height=”250″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRFLZ07QxS0
After a train ride from Schiphol to the central train station we decided to just amble about a bit to find a place for lunch.
Found one near to the center of town with a nice view and had a quick bite and planned out the day.
The first thing we decided to do, since it was such a sunny and nice day, was take a canal tour as we really wanted to and it was free on the card anyway.
[youtube width=”300″ height=”250″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8ZSSulTJeI
The tour was really fun but I struggled to stay awake for the whole trip after landing just a few hours before. Well, that and the warm sun and a full belly, but I enjoyed both the trip and the nap!
After this the next thing we really wanted to see was the Anne Frank house. It was impressive to see.
So much of Europe is history and OLD history. This is recent history and was moving.
Much less moving was another little museum just about across from where we were. The Tulip museum is free on the IAM Amsterdam card and please never go. It is a little shop with a joke display. We were in and out fast. We popped in to a few more museums on the card then called it a day and headed back on the train to Schiphol as we could take the hotel shuttle for free from AMS to the hotel, but not the other way around.
Day two, after a nice breakfast free at the hotel, was a bit cloudy and rainy. We splurged to take the hotel shuttle back to AMS to catch the train downtown rather than walk to the stop from the hotel. We went to the Van Gogh museum first and then to a few more and really did enjoy the day despite the weather conditions (we were inside most of the time anyway).
Then we went to one more place I really wanted to go and I was assured NOT to end up with SkunkyBeer!
Yep, the Heineken Brewery. This place is HUGE and is tourist friendly and inviting.
If you like beer then this place is really neat and we got a discount with the IAM Amsterdam card 🙂
The tour is educational more than authentic watching live brewing.
You see a ton of the old bits they used back in the day to brew.
And they even had a stall for me should have wanted to stay for a while (no mean jokes here loyal readers 😉 )
Who does not like a tour that serves beer as part of the tour anyway right! Finally it was time to head back to the hotel and pack for our trip to Sweden the next day going all the way from Gothenburg to the island, that does take a while.
How did we do this trip? I booked this last year when I had NO status at all (those were 2 hard months). The neat thing about Delta Skymiles tickets is once you make it to Platinum Medallion or higher, even if you booked when you were not, let’s you change them all you want for free. I had booked my normal crazy routes to get low level seats and had several schedule changes to make the trip just about perfect. The only part I used my Diamond status for was to change my outbound city from AZO or Kalamazoo that I had first booked to SBN or South Bend. Without DM status I would have had to fly from AZO to stay low level. The hotel was points and free night cert so my only costs for this trip for transportation was 100,000 Skymiles each for business class seats on Delta & KLM and tax (about $150 each) and the cost for the shuttle from the hotel (15 Euros). Not bad for a two day stopover in Amsterdam on my way to Sweden. – René
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