Amsterdam travel tips and stories. Vacations ideas, cruises spa and resorts

Today there’re more intoxicating reasons to visit Amsterdam, than its popular coffee shops or its red-light district. Amsterdam is angling to become Europe’s creative capital. If you are on vacation there, the first thing to do is to rent a bike. This way you can avoided expensive taxi rides and feel like a local from the start. Don’t worry you won’t lost, because there’re bike paths everywhere. A nice spot to find a good bike is Orangebike.

The next best thing to do, connected friends in town is hiring a few. The company Like-a-Local connects tourists with friendly locals who will invite into their homes and cook a dinner for you. Such dinners are not only fun, but they’re great deal, with prices ranging from 23 to 35 euros, including a lot of wines.

The famous night club Jimmy Woo’s may be good times if you’re 22, but anyone older might feel like a chaperone. The club has an over-the-top Asian restaurant with ostrich wallpaper and mirrored tables, three cocktail bars with spectacular lighting and cool dance floor that vibrates.

The Lloyd Hotel has a perfect location: it is located in the heart of Amsterdam with direct public transport connections and access to every part of the city. The hotel also has its own spacious parking garage. There’s also a lot of space in front of the hotel if you’re interested in getting there by boat.

The hotel structure is a true showcase for Dutch architecture and design. Each room in the hotel offer a different experience. A lot of Dutch Designers (Claudy Jongstra, Hella Jongerius, De Bazel, Marcel Wanders, Richard Hutten,) have been created some of the furniture elements.

The hotel has a restaurant – called Snel (best translated as “brisk”) – a recording studio, a nomadic library and some rooms with a kitchen for the use of those hotel guests who prefer to cook for their own visitors. Eating and drinking in Lloyd Hotel is about good ingredients and a simple way of treating them

The hotel is sitted on the Prins Hendrikkade in the city centre at only 500 m from Central Station and 1100 m from Dam Square.The place is in the historic heart of Amsterdam bordering on canals and within walking distance to the best sights. The Schiphol Airport is just 19 km away.

There’re 164 rooms and visitors are greeted with a magnificent hall and stairway crowned with a globe of the world and details that represent a highpoint in early 20th century architecture as well as a glorious tribute to sea commerce.

Every room offers all up to date comforts and is equipped with every conceivable modern facility, including complimentary wireless internet access and free minibar. Facilities include the Seven Seas restaurant, with wooden floors and stained glass as well as a bar-lounge and a wellness centre with fitness. swimming pool, sauna, Turkish steam bath and whirlpool.

For special occasions, business dinners and private events, it is possible to arrange a private dinner. All the private dining rooms are special and the dishes and menus can be adapted to suit the personal wishes of the guests. It is also possible to dine during a relaxing boat trip around the canals of Amsterdam.

Hydra Pier Water Pavilion is a structure built as a pavilion for Haarlemmermeer’s Floriade exhibition in 2002 – a massive, once-a-decade Dutch horticultural fair in Amsterdam. The building actually floating onto a lake and it’s in this reclaimed area below sea level. One interesting feature, which really amused visitors is the water continuously flowing over the roof and walls of the building, beneath which the structural-glass construction dematerializes.

This is the kind of digital architecture that wins awards, as indeed it has. Technically, the use of the curved, laminated glass with sufficient strength to support the water on the roof without heavy mullions was an engineering breakthrough, and essential to the dematerialization theme. But the brief was to create a permanent work of architecture, and in that respect a visitor to the pavilion today can only be disappointed.

To get there follow these instructions. It is located in Haarlemmermeer, which is a small town just next to the southwest corner of Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport. The Hydra Pavilion is on the northwest side of the Floriade lake, itself to the northwest edge of Haarlemmermeer.

To get there by car or taxi from Schiphol Airport, take the A4 towards the southwest, and turn right onto the N201 through Haarlemmermeer. On the far side of town, where this road is called Kruisweg, turn right onto the N205 (Drie Merenweg).

Lute Suites is located just on the coast of the river Amstel in Ouderkerk ann de Amstel, and it is 15 minutes by car from Schiphol Airport and 20 minutes by car from Amsterdam City center.

This hostel is mixing of a hotel and a restaurant with very stylish and fresh design. The resulting complex is seven freestanding structures: three-level gabled cottages, each with kitchen and living room, all facing the Amstel River. Everything in the Lute Suites is design by the hand of Marcel Wanders.

The Lute Restaurant is top-class restaurant with lounge bar, and outside terrace with lounge bar. Breakfast will be delivered to the front door of your Suite on request.

In every room you can find separate living room, work-space, bedroom and bathroom, hairdryer and La Prairie goodies in room bathrobes and slippers, international direct dial phone, wireless internet access, LCD screens, DVD/CD player and Complimentary DVD’s, radio and TV, air conditionin, in-suite safe, kitchenette with free use of tea and coffee, espresso machine, dishwasher, microwave, hot plate and kitchen accessories, wine cabinet with an assortment of wines and champagnes.