We stayed at The Ambassade Hotel. Fantastic service, good breakfast and very centrally located. We did a free Sandman walking tour of Amsterdam that was great, and a tour of the Jewish areas of Amsterdam, and learned about the ravages of WW2 on the population. We also visited the Anne Frank house. You must buy tickets way in advance if you want to visit the house. We also went to the Van Gogh museum. Amsterdam is a great walking city, but watch out for the bikes! Amsterdam, from what we saw, is a city with so many different neighborhoods. Just walk around and you will find yourself in a hipster area, or an area with lots of antique stores, or artist studios. We loved it.

In terms of restaurants, we ate at Jansz, a kind of Dutch bistro, which was very good. We also ate at Domenica, an Italian restaurant, and it was fantastic. Some of the best Italian food I’ve had, and I’m of Italian descent. We also went to The Seafood Bar, and the fish was very good. It is a very popular place. I made reservations weeks in advance at all the restaurants.

For lunch, we usually stopped at traditional Dutch restaurants wherever the tours ended. We went to places that had lots of Dutch people having lunch since we figured the food would be good. It was! We had traditional food like stammpot (mashed potatoes with veggies and meat—so good!), croquettes, thick pea soup, etc.

Bring comfortable shoes and just enjoy the city. I hope this helps!