Amsterdam New Years Eve 2016
It was a short walk along the impressive Centraal Station to the Doubletree Hotel. After a quick check-in we went out to explore. We stopped at a nearby cafe for a quick snack. The food was tasty and plentiful, and reasonably priced.
We had decided to do the hop on/off bus on New Year's Eve, unfortunately the weather was poor, not wet, but freezing fog, as you can see from the photographs, unfortunate, though we weren't going to let it spoil our visit.
We wandered the streets taking in all the sights and attractions Amsterdam has to offer. On New Year's Eve we made moves to get out early and be on the first river cruise, we cruised the canals until we reached the museum quarter. The queues were very long to get into any of the museums, even for those who had pre-booked, so we just wandered the area taking in the atmosphere, found a cafe with a great atmosphere and food just off the square, to where we decamped to get warm more than anything else.
After lunch, we had a walk back to the canal boat stop to rejoin the tour. It seemed to be getting colder making the way back to the hotel, and definitely time for a nap!
We had booked a table at a nearby Japanese restaurant for our New Year's Eve dinner. On the walk to the restaurant we noticed how quiet the streets were, in the absence of an organized display we wondered how the evening would pan out. After dinner we made our way back to the hotel and the skylounge bar, to which we had VIP access as staying at the hotel, and more importantly on the same floor as the bar.
We soon discovered why the lack of organized display, it seemed from our rooftop vantage point that fireworks were going off all over the city, making a fine spectacle. It lasted long into the night.
On New Year's Day, we took the bus tour, to see the city from a different aspect, we didn't hop off as the tour takes around 2 hours, and we had to make our way back to the airport for early afternoon flights.
We visited Amsterdam for a specific reason, and weren't disappointed. The weather could have been better, but that did not spoil the mood of the people or our visit.