Amsterdam Day trips

[Carol28]

We will be disembarking on a Friday and flying out on Saturday.  We will be staying at the Hilton that is attached to the airport.  We would like to take a train from the hotel to a place to visit outside of Amsterdam ( as we will have visited Amsterdam prior to the cruise.) We hope to take a train from the airport station somewhere.  Where should we go?  We probably don't want to have too long a day trip, 6 hours roundtrip would be good. We do need to visit a place where we don't need a car and is easy to walk around.

Thank you!

[Harters]

Leiden and Den Haag immediately spring to mind as very walkable, and interesting cities.  On a smaller scale and closer to Amsterdam, Edam (home to the cheese) and the adjacent town of Volendam will give you a better flavour of the Netherlands. 

[MeHeartCruising]

I did a day trip to Delft and back and enjoyed it quite a bit.  A great little town to walk around and explore.

[edinburgher]

We visited Marken and Volendam and had a  not-quite-full-day out.  We used public transport which wasn't difficult to use but there will also be tours. It was a very enjoyable day.

 

Both are very touristy but you will be tourists will you not, as were we.

 

Another time we stopped off  for dinner and to explore Leiden on our way back to Amsterdam from Keukenhof Gardens.

 

And one half day excursion for us was to Zaanse Schans, again touristy but interesting, and again by using public transport.

 

You could begin your research by internet searching something like "side trips from Amsterdam" or similar, or research some of the suggestions already give on this thread to learn what you could see and do in each.And during the course of   your research,  do look at sites such as Tripadvisor for images and info to help you decide. Even simply googling the individual names will bring up much info for them all and probably images too.

Edited August 27, 2023 by edinburgher

[cruiseaholic78]

1 hour ago, MeHeartCruising said:

I did a day trip to Delft and back and enjoyed it quite a bit.  A great little town to walk around and explore.

Another vite for Delft, its like a smaller version of Amsterdam with canals and beautiful old buildings, its also just a short hop from Amsterdam.

By the way you should be able to pay for the train now with your credit card, one each though.

[oakridger]

I'm going to Haarlam the last week in May 2024.  Do any of you fellow CCers have any suggestions for there?

 

~Nancy

[edinburgher]

1 hour ago, oakridger said:

I'm going to Haarlam the last week in May 2024.  Do any of you fellow CCers have any suggestions for there?

Reading your post jogged my memory and I had posted in #4 above that we visited Leiden on the way back to Amsterdam from Keukenhof, but it was in fact Haarlem we visited as it was on the trainline we were to use.

 

It is quite an attractice university town/city to wander for a time and we were lucky to catch a free organ recital in the Cathedral. Between that and dinner before the return to Amsterdam, we had only a short time to explore, but there should be much info to be found online, including on Tripadvisor.

[bikeboy999]

On 8/30/2023 at 3:18 AM, oakridger said:

I'm going to Haarlam the last week in May 2024.  Do any of you fellow CCers have any suggestions for there?

 

~Nancy

Hi, about 10 years ago my wife and I went to see Corrie Ten Boom's museum. Sort of the opposite of Anne Frank, they hid the jews away from ***.  https://www.corrietenboom.com/en/home

[love2crews.]

As many other have said, Delft is a great place.  We painted our very own Delft plates, there.  Terrific experience.

 

I'd also HIGHLY suggest Giethoorn.  It's truly a fairytale village.

 

You can read more on my live thread.  I have tour providers and everything you'd want to know. 🙂 

 

 

[ontheweb]

The Keukenhof Gardens are spectacular. You can easily spend pretty much an entire day there.

[renebfl]

We decided to spend the day in Haarlem . We will take a taxi cab to there when we get off the ship and we made a reservation at Haarlem hotel in that town. The next morning we will go to the airport. 

[Scottishclover]

3 hours ago, renebfl said:

We decided to spend the day in Haarlem . We will take a taxi cab to there when we get off the ship and we made a reservation at Haarlem hotel in that town. The next morning we will go to the airport. 

Great choice - the town is very charming. We stayed there pre- cruise a few years ago rather than stay in Amsterdam and absolutely loved it. There’s so many nice boutiques, cafes and restaurants and a few museums too. The church on the main square was very impressive too.