Badger's smokes & beers tour part 1 - Amsterdam

[SkunkBadger]

I've not been on this forum v long as i only joined up before i went out there, so thought i would post up (what was intended to be a brief) travelogue as thanks for the helpful info i found on here beforehand. Last time i went to Amsterdam was in the early 90s - needless to say recollections from that trip are somewhat hazy & faded!

Anyway, we flew out of E. Midlands Sat 21st Mar middayish, FlyBe £100 return (booked couple weeks in advance). Flights were fine, both ways on an old turbo prop plane.

Stayed at the Hotel Alexander nr the Vondelpark area - worked out about £45 a night each for a twin room, so bit pricy i guess, but nice hotel, nothing fancy, but just far enough out the way to be a bit quieter, yet close enough to the main drags. Nice garden out the back to have a late night smoke in, & late morning / early aft coffee & watch / listen to the resident parakeets in the garden.

Soon as we’d checked in strolled up the Overtoom, which seemed pretty much a locals area, We wandered past the Blue Lagoon & Kashmir Lounge - the Kash was packed with peeps just queuing up at the counter, & we really just wanted to sit down & have a smoke, the Blue Lagoon looked mainly locals with a pool table, so we wound up going in Coffeeshop 96 - picked up some G13 Haze for 10e/g. We were the only white guys in there, but that didn’t seem to bother them so didn’t bother us - friendly enough & nice smoke. Soundtrack: Reggae, all the way.

Then mooched to a bar called Gollem’s Proeflokaal round the corner, had a massive glass of Tripel Karmeliet on draft, & a massive plate of smoked fish - delicious & not expensive. It got really busy though as there was a jazz band on, so we hit the road & headed for the centre - few more bars & smokes, can’t recall where, before calling it a night.

Sun we walked down to the Brouwerij 't IJ, a micro brewery pub based in a windmill, on Funkenade down in the east corner of the city centre - amazing place & great beer, highly recommended but it only opens 2-8pm though. From there we took in the Ajax v Den Haag match - amazing stadium, not a great game, & weird atmosphere as no away fans - but amazing experience nonetheless.

We headed back in to the centre, & stumbled upon the Dolphins - fancied some hash so picked up a g of squidgy sticky Afghan Black for 12e - good late night smoke to compliment the G13 which was a nice daytime smoke. Sat there for a while & rolled up a sausage, v chilled place, peeps just sat around playing cards and stuff. Soundtrack: can’t remember, bit of everything i think, v chilled. Got bit peckish so went for a steak in a random Brazilian restaurant - bit pricy again but top steak - they were watching the Real Madrid v Barca game on TV so let us just sit there as long as we wanted.

Mon found a cracking little bar / cafe De Saloon nr the hotel for brunch & wound up staying for a couple hrs drinking their home brewed IPA - Lost Identity - nice spot, good food & beer, & not so pricy too. From there we headed down towards the Grey Area - again was packed peeps queuing out the door - smelt great though. Found another place nearby where we could actually get in the door & sit down, which was called Coffeeshop Freedom i think - it was Free...something anyway. Bought a g of Amnesia Haze for 12e - this was my least fav out the 3 we sampled, v heavy spaced stone - guess it’s in the name. Recall they had some Kush (OG & something else) on for 14e though. Soundtrack: banging euro house.

That was about it for Amsterdam, got the 6pm train to Maastricht direct, bout 2&half hrs to the other side of the country on a double decker train, 25e each way - which worked out about £18. Pretty good compared to UK. All in all great wkend, i’ll continue the Maastricht guide prob on another thread - although it didn’t involve coffeeshops, more bars & other touristy stuff, so will post if anyone’s interested?

Chill well.

[ZoZo420]

Thanks for sharing!

[Willjay]

thanks for sharing, and being that I'm a arm chair traveler, I'll read about your adventures

[Lamont]

nice little write up, thanks for taking the time!

[gapie]

coolz

[mattyp]

good stuff

[SkunkBadger]

Thanks everyone.

I've posted up Part 2 - Maastricht, if anyone's interested.

Cheers & chill well.