European Vacation - Amsterdam, Netherlands

Amsterdam is an unusual city in that it has all the advantages of a big city—culture, history, food, entertainment, good transport—with relatively few of the disadvantages: it is physically small, beautiful, relatively quiet, and largely thanks to the canals, has relatively little traffic.

Amsterdam is one of the leading cities in Europe when it comes to modern and contemporary art, with lots of galleries and museums worth visiting.

Amsterdam is the COOL capital of Holland due to its famous art, surprising architecture, top designers, superb shopping and the enormous variety in delicious food served in trendy restaurants.

Amsterdam is a city of water and, it follows, of bridges. Amsterdam has no fewer than 1,281 bridges. Since the 17th century a maze of canals has divided downtown Amsterdam in 90 islands. The many hundreds of bridges link the islands. The canals have made Amsterdam famous. Small wonder, as the city has more canals than Venice and more bridges than Paris. At night, most of the downtown bridges are romantically illuminated.

Top Amsterdam attractions include:

Anne Frankhuis. This is the house were Anne Frank wrote her famous diary while her family and some friends were hiding from the Nazi occupation forces during World War II. The Anne Frankhuis also houses an exhibition on the prosecution of Jews during the war, and on current developments in racism, neo-fascism and anti-Semitism.
Vincent van Gogh Museum has compiled an impressive collection of Van Gogh's works. In addition, the museum displays works by Van Gogh's contemporaries and maintains holdings of the artist's letters and his own personal collection of Japanese prints.
Vondelpark is the biggest, greenest and most famous park of Amsterdam. There are a lot of meadows, trees and ponds. You will see people walking, running and roller skating along the paths and relaxing on the meadows.
Westerkerk was the largest Protestant church in the world until Christopher Wren came along with his St. Paul's Cathedral in London. Its tower rates as the city's highest monument. Its gigantic bell (popularly known as the "clock" of this area) rings every half hour.

Rembrandt, as well as his son, Titus, was buried in the church in an unmarked grave.
Rijkesmuseum is the Netherlands’s national museum and contains a varied (and huge) collection of pre-1850 Dutch art. It contains some of the most famous Dutch paintings in the world (including the Night Watchman).
Mager Brug (Skinny Bridge). Of Amsterdam's 60-plus drawbridges, the Mager is the most famous. Two wealthy sisters living on opposite sides of the Amstel, who wanted an efficient way of sharing that grandest of Dutch traditions, the gezellig (socially cozy) midmorning coffee break, supposedly built the bridge in 1672.
Artis Zoo. The winding paths, majestic trees and the monumental historical buildings give Artis a special, 19th century atmosphere. There are more than 8000 animals in the zoo, as well as two museums, the Zoological Museum and the Geological Museum. There is also a very sophisticated Planetarium, a children's farm and a magnificent, recently renewed Aquarium. The restaurant 'de twee cheetahs' (Two Cheetahs) overlooks the African Savannah.
The canals are one of the major attractions of Amsterdam. The four main city center canals are Prinsengracht, Herengracht, Keizersgracht and Singel