A trip to Amsterdam to celebrate Harry passing his exams was the plan, and honestly, it delivered. We had been on the road for about four days at this point, having left the UK, stopped in Antwerp, and spent a night in Rotterdam, before rolling into Amsterdam for two nights on a premium pitch at Camping Venbosch (or something like that; I am not even going to attempt the spelling).
Getting In and Getting Around
The campsite came in at €123 for two nights, including electric and water on the pitch, which for the centre of Amsterdam struck me as pretty reasonable. The key thing with this one is the location. It is about a 25-minute walk to the free ferry, which runs every six minutes and drops you right at the back of Central Station, and from the front entrance you are at the top of the Dam. Every other site people recommended involves a tram, a bus, or cycling in, which is fine, but we were there to walk. And walk we did: 22,900 steps on day one, just over 20,000 on day two. I felt every single one of them by the end.
The campsite itself has plenty to recommend it. There is 24-hour security, a cafe and coffee shop on site, an Elson cassette point dotted around, plenty of recycling bins, and six toilet cubicles that stay open all night even when the main sanitary block closes between midnight and six. The pitches for bigger motorhomes are limited, perhaps half a dozen or ten large ones, so book ahead if you are bringing something our size. We paid a little extra for the oversized premium pitch, and it was worth it.
Amsterdam on Foot
Harry is, it is fair to say, a football shirt enthusiast. We spent a fair chunk of both days browsing retro shirt shops. Some of those vintage tops were going for €200, which had us backing away fairly sharply, but we found a couple of Germany shirts in Primark that would do nicely for the game in Cologne on Sunday. He looked the part, I will give him that.
The free ferry is genuinely one of the best things about visiting Amsterdam by motorhome. It runs every six minutes, completely free, and takes you straight across to Central Station. We used it four times across the two days and it never let us down. We also discovered that the scooters we had brought with us cannot legally be used in the Netherlands without registration and insurance, so they stayed at the van. Harry did have a little spin around the campsite on his, just to get it out of his system.
We visited the marijuana museum, €10 each, which took about half an hour and was worth it. We walked the Leidseplein and the Damrak. We spotted a bar called Harry’s and absolutely had to go in, for a salami piccante pizza and a couple of their own brews. Harry gave it 9.5 out of 10, and I would say that is fair. We also had a poke around the FEBO wall, which, if you have never come across it, is a Dutch fast food vending machine built into a wall: hot snacks behind little doors, very old school, and very good. And on the second morning we cooked a full English outside the van on the Brunner, which came out reasonably well considering we had no black pudding, no mushrooms, and the egg situation was, let’s say, creative.
The Verdict
Amsterdam, I will be honest, is probably one of my favourite cities in Europe. It is between this and Istanbul for me, with Berlin perhaps in the mix too. Harry said he would definitely come back, and coming from a lad who spent half the trip glued to football shirt shops, that is high praise.
Next up we are heading to Cologne to meet our friend Alan and watch the game, then on to Bruges before we wrap up the trip. We still have two days left in this adventure, and the motorhome is still sitting at 75% water after four days and daily showers, which I am quietly rather pleased about.
If you want to see the full Amsterdam leg, including the ferry, the campsite tour, and Chef Harry doing his best with a camping stove, the video is up now. Give it a thumbs up if you enjoyed it, and we will see you on the next one.
Watch the full video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWYuIAcaNjk