After spending the week on the campsite (read about this here) we spent the weekend (Friday to Monday) in Amsterdam, where we could stay with friends, who recently moved there. We had a great time, walking around many kilometers, sightseeing, eating and experiencing a little bit of the nightlife and coffeeshop culture.

Parking the Van

The weekend started with us being a little bit stressed out because we weren’t sure where to park our van. Parking in the center of Amsterdam is quite hard to find and expensive if you have/want to avoid parking garages and don’t have a parking permit. The P+R system sounded quite good, but at the same time also confusing, and some had bad ratings. We were lucky to find a little gem, a little P+R outside of Amsterdam (just check google maps to find places like this, they are near the stations) and our van parked there safely for the whole weekend. Other campers seemed to even have camped there. The train to the city center was also inexpensive and not too long, so we were happy to start our city trip.

In Amsterdam

Exploring the city by foot worked really well for us, but we were also lucky with the weather as it was already very summer-y. We visited the Rijksmuseum Monday morning (monday morning is a good time for that!). Most of the weekend, we just let our friends guide us. We enjoyed the district Jordaan and 9 Straatjes as well as some parks and walking through the city center.

De Zotte was a nice pub for beer and food (I think we also spotted some vegan options). After that, we went to The Waterhole where we enjoyed some live music.

Places to eat vegan

I really enjoy exploring vegan food spots, so here are our favorite places we visited:

I was really surprised to find that a lot of vegan food in the supermarket is cheaper in the Netherlands than in Germany (like vegan milk, ice cream, meat alternatives, tempeh, …).

See you again soon Amsterdam!