A penny for the street organ.
Poffertjes: a favourite meal.
The Netherlands is likely one of the best countries in the world to visit with children. I mean, where else do you get raisin buns for breakfast and bread with chocolate sprinkles for lunch? And pannekoeken (crepes with syrup) are often considered dinner… There are so many special facilities and attractions for kids, that it is hard to select just a few.
It starts at the airport: for the best views of planes taking off and landing, visit the Panorama Terrace. There are also playgrounds and family washrooms throughout this attractive airport, even a library!
Once in the country, there are restaurants everywhere with elaborate playgrounds. It is very common to find special children’s menu’s. Attractions are too numerous to mention in one article (for instance the ‘Efteling’). There are many tropical swimming pools. You can take strollers on busses and trains.
A public park in Amsterdam.
The Dutch LIVE on their bicycles.
Getting around Amsterdam, or indeed the whole country, can be overwhelming when you first arrive. Did you know that the city has the same number people as it has bicycles? That’s almost 900,000 bicycles! It's fun to sit back and watch the Dutch as they maneuver traffic, traffic lights, speeding trams and hordes of pedestrians all while carrying children, instruments, groceries, and dogs on their bike AND texting! But if you rent a bike as a tourist, check out the website below, in Resources, to familiarize yourself with the rules.
Rather than jumping on a bike right away, it's a good idea to get a sense of the layout of the city's spiderweb-shaped centre by jumping on a boat. Taking a canal cruise will give you a feel for the water, the narrow roads (no railing along those canals!), the tall houses and the history of this world heritage site. I learned all sorts of interesting facts, such as word origins, historic facts about trade and taxes and politics, as well as useful information on where to eat and which museums to visit. There are different companies to choose from and their cruises are slightly different. We used this one: http://www.amsterdamcanalcruises.nl and enjoyed the personal headsets and the tour of not just the inner city canals but also across the busy river IJ and past the Scheepvaart Museum which chronicles the history of the shipping industry and exploration era, complete with a huge ship to explore.
Canal Cruises offer views, maps and headsets in different languages.
Because we had our extended family with us, we rented a house rather than a hotel room or hostel. The house had typical narrow staircases up three floors and offered 3 bedrooms and a kitchen, allowing us to make our own meals. A blue AH is the symbol for Albert Heyn, one of the largest supermarket chains in The Netherlands. They usually offer fresh bakings as well as many ready made meals. So lunch and supper were easy.
To get around Amsterdam, and the entire country, the smartest thing to do - if you are going to be there for a few days or longer - is to immediately get an OV Chip card. OV means public transit: https://www.ov-chipkaart.nl/home-1.htm. If you will be traveling throughout the country, be sure to read this: http://www.amsterdamtips.com/tips/ov-chipkaart.php You can travel anywhere on then generic OV Chip card but need a personalized one to rent bikes at train stations. You can buy the card right at the airport. The train leaves from the lower level.
Initially you have to pay 7.50 euros to obtain the card. Then you use it like a debit card by putting money on it and paying for all public transit: trams, busses, trains and more. You can no longer buy a ticket on the train. You can even pay for rental bikes using this card at train stations.
Living statues and pigeons are a great attraction in A’dam.
Another smart thing to do is to plan your travel by using this website: http://m.9292.nl/en (Notice that these websites are in English!!) Here you enter your starting point, your desired destination, date and time of travel and voila! The site presents you with all options and easiest ways of getting there. If a schedule in Holland says that the train will depart at 10:32 AM you can pretty well bet on it to depart at 10:32 and not a minute later. Rome2Rio is another great transit app that works around the world.
If you will spend more than a day in Amsterdam, you might want to invest in a museum card: http://www.amsterdam.info/museums/museumkaart/
This will allow you unlimited, and faster, entrance into many museums including the fabulous Rijksmuseum with its Rembrandt paintings where you can spend more than a day; also the Van Gogh museum, Anne Frank House and many more.
Amsterdam has Artis, a history, well established zoo in the heart of the city.
Playground in the zoo!
We chose to visit a larger zoo called Ouwehands Dierenpark. Ouwehands has roomy pathways through various sections of the zoo, each with a specific theme like ‘jungle’ or ‘bears’. Almost every section has an extensive playground so that you are not just walking from one animal to the next but kids can climb, swing and slide everywhere. In fact, the zoo includes one of Europe’s largest indoor playgrounds, complete with a pirate ship, sand and water park. A small train takes you around a portion of the zoo - all at no additional cost. When you arrive at the zoo you can rent, for a small fee, a wagon to pull the kids in all day. (Or have them pull you later in the day!).
We also visited a park we remembered fondly from the past: Apenheul. This primate park features monkeys and primates of all shapes and sizes. The unique feature is that the smaller monkeys are not in cages but loose throughout the park.They might sit on your shoulder or swing from branches just inches away.
However, this time around the park was incredibly crowded, making it difficult to even walk on the paths and to see animals. This was due to the fact that holiday time in The Netherlands is very concentrated. Most people get a specific time of the summer during which they can go on their annual holidays. Two of the three regions overlapped during August so 2/3 of the country still had school holidays and were making the most of the last warm summer days. You can always check school calendars online.
A major attraction for kids in The Netherlands is Madurodam: a miniature country. Built to scale, this ‘city’ features replicas of well known Dutch buildings and scenes, roads, trains, even a ‘working’ airport. You can hear a street organ and see lights inside houses. You can’t touch, in this ‘eyes only’ attraction, but when our own kids were around 9 years old, they absolutely loved it and it was definitely worth a visit.
Across The Netherlands you can rent bikes everywhere: at hotels, at train stations (with a personal OV Chip card) and, of course, at bicycle repair shops. You can rent bicycles with a child’s seat on the handlebars and/or on the luggage carrier behind you so that you can ride with two children on your bike. But you can also rent a bike trailer in which the kids can sit. Or, best of all, you can rent a ‘bakfiets’ in which the children sit in a wooden container in front of you, in seatbelts:
https://bakfietshuren.wordpress.com. Train stations (NS) even rent bicycles that can be returned to a station in a different city. Check out resources below.
Overnight accommodations can also be exciting for children. We stayed in one resort, a park with cottages close to the beach in Noordwijkerhout. They are part of this chain: http://soleil.topparken.nl/en/
The bungalow had everything we needed, complete with dishes and bed linens, a fridge and dishwasher. Outside we had our own lawn with lawn furniture. The restaurant had both an indoor and outdoor playground. And the resort had an indoor swimming pool with waterslide, included in the price of staying overnight. When we ordered a children’s menu, the kids also receive their choice of gift ( in our case felt markers and a pirate gun with gold coins).
And if you would like a totally different experiences, with or without kids, for accommodations, check out De Vreemde Vogel (The Strange Bird) hotel. Not far from Amsterdam you sleep here in a real airplane, or in a firetruck, or in a bird house! Almost a shame to go to sleep in a place like that!
So, what's keeping you? If you are looking for a multifaceted place to visit - by yourself or with (grand)kids - this country below sea level has lots to offer.
BOOKS
RESOURCES:
https://www.schiphol.nl/en/at-schiphol/collection/travelling-with-kids
http://www.ouwehand.nl/english
http://www.black-bikes.com/nl/bikes/bakfiets-huren-amsterdam/
https://www.ns.nl/en/door-to-door/ov-fiets
https://www.devreemdevogel.nl/en/outdoor-hotel/
https://www.dutchamsterdam.nl/68-amsterdam-city-of-bikes