A trip to Amsterdam to celebrate Harry passing his exams. That was the plan, and honestly, it delivered. We’ve been on the road 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’m not even going to try and spell it).
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 I thought was pretty reasonable. The key thing with this one is the location. It’s about a 25-minute walk to the free ferry, which runs every six minutes and drops you right at the back of Central Station. Walk out the front and you’re at the top of the Dam. Every other site people recommended involves a tram, a bus, or cycling in, which is fine, but we’re here 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’s 24/7 security, a cafe and coffee shop on site, an Elson cassette point dotted around, loads of recycling bins, and six toilet cubicles that stay open all night even when they close the main sanitary block between midnight and six. The pitches for bigger motorhomes are limited, maybe half a dozen or ten large ones, so book ahead if you’re 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’s fair to say, a football shirt person. We spent a fair chunk of both days browsing retro shirt shops. Some of those vintage tops are going for €200, which had us backing away fairly sharpish, but we found a couple of Germany shirts in Primark that’ll do nicely for the game in Cologne on Sunday. He looked the part, I’ll give him that.
The free ferry is genuinely one of the best things about visiting Amsterdam by motorhome. Every six minutes, completely free, and it 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’d brought with us can’t 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, about half an hour inside, and worth it. We walked the Leidseplein and the Damrak. We spotted a Harry’s bar and absolutely had to go in, salami piccante pizza and a couple of their own brews. Harry gave it 9.5 out of 10, I’d say that’s fair. We had a poke around the FEBO wall, which if you’ve never come across it is a Dutch fast food vending machine built into a wall, hot snacks behind little doors, very old school, very good. And we cooked a full English on the second morning 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’ll be honest, is probably one of my favourite cities in Europe. It’s between this and Istanbul for me, maybe Berlin in the mix too. Harry said he’d definitely come back, and coming from a lad who spent half the trip glued to football shirt shops, that’s high praise.
Next up we’re heading to Cologne to meet our friend Alan and watch the game, then Bruges before we wrap the trip. We’ve still got two days left in this adventure and the motorhome is still sitting at 75% water after four days and daily showers, which I’m quietly very 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’ll see you on the next one.
Watch the full video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWYuIAcaNjk