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Your photos and information (esp. about the combo-ticket) have been building me up into a frenzy! I'm glad I got to read one more before I left. I can hardly wait! Thank you so very much for this series of articles!
I'm SO excited for you & your daughter! You're going to have a fabulous time.
Oh, a bonus on that I*am*sterdam pass... there are coupons at the back of the book you'll get for restaurants etc, and they are good any time, so if you're going to get one of these passes do it at the start of your trip. (The pass activates its 24 hour time frame the first time you use it for transportation or museum admission.) In fact, get one at the airport when you arrive, because the airport office seems faster and more competent than the Centraal train station. :-)
Restaurants... do you like Indian food? We found one place that was so superb we went there twice... DH has their card somewhere but probably also remembers the name. The proprietor is just the nicest man, too.
I've been trying to make sure I figure the I*am*sterdam pass out. We are there for 5 days, then Bruges for 2. Can't you get a pass that's good for up to 3 days? But one day we will be in Keukenhof, so that's fine.
My question is, the pass is good for the bus and the trams, right?
And we do like Italian. Plus I'm sure most of our meals will be :on the go" from the markets, so a good sit-down meal we can count on will be nice.
You'll get the best value for your money, I think, if you designate a "museum day" and get a 24 hour pass. We didn't want quite such a marathon event, so we did a 48 hour pass. You get a free canal boat ride with your pass, too... don't forget to do it! (we had uncooperative weather, and then we decided we'd seen enough canals just walking around the district.)
We did have Italian one night, and it was good, but I think there are any number of great little Italian restaurants around. The one whose name I couldn't remember was an Indian place. Yes, restaurants are very expensive there. I ate excellent bread, cheese, fruit, and yogurt for breakfast/lunch most days...
Ah yes! Look for the grocery store sign with a big blue "AH" -- that's Albert Heins (or something like that), and they're all over the city, from little mini-mart sized ones to enormous stores with everything. They have some of the best bread in their bakery, less than 1 euro for a big baguette. The store brand of gouda cheese is just fine, too... comes in young (junge), old (oud), and some word starting with "b" that we think meant "smoked." Look for a cake made mostly of dried figs or dried dates, like a dense little hockey puck wrapped in cellophane... fabulous with the cheese, especially with brie. They don't give out little plastic bags like our grocery stores, but the bag with handles that they sell turned out to be a really sturdy, useful little thing to fold up and stuff into my backpack.
