You may recall me mentioning that Mr H and I were off to Amsterdam for a few days following the whole travel bottle debacle. Hard to believe that was over a week ago now (we’re missing the lovely Lucy lots!) but what a fabulous time we had! I could quite easily bore enthral you with pages detailing every little moment. But I’ll restrain myself and just stick to the highlights…

First off just wandering round Amsterdam in the crisp not-quite-spring- air was fabulous. Mooching round the streets admiring the beautiful architecture and popping into the quirky little shops was great fun and there was always something to see.

Beautiful buildings!

Lovely canals – perfect for strolling along.

One of the fabby little places Lu introduced us to was The Church of Our Lord in the Attic. And it does exactly what it says on the tin! It was an amazing little church that had been created in the attic of one of those lovely town houses during the time when the practice of Catholicism was forbidden in Amsterdam. It had an incredible history and had been beautifully renovated. One of those really surprising little places you just don’t expect.

Such a lovely little space!

Beautifully renovated original features.

The church in the attic also provided great views over the city.

Of all those quirky little shops I mentioned, my favourite was the vintage shop. Oh. My. Goodness. The shop itself is stunning so beautifully presented and inviting, and it is filled with the most incredible collection of vintage clothes and designs. I could have spent an awful lot of time (and money) in there, I think it’s a very good job it’s all the way over in Amsterdam and not in Manchester or you’d probably struggle to get me out!

Outside it’s all tucked away…

…and inside it’s just gorgeous. All light and bright and with pops of colour from the clothes!

Beautiful displays…

Even the changing ares are pretty!

I love this little outfit…

But this is the dress I bought! Completely in love with it and now need something to wear it to!

The vintage shop also has a website…don’t buy everything at once!

We also visited the Rijksmuseum which was incredible. I don’t have any pictures from in there because I was too busy enjoying all the art and the atmosphere and the building and the everything. Also you don’t need to take pictures of anything in the Rijks, because since they re-opened last year they have launched Rijksstudio, where there are now 150,000 artworks open for the public to download and use. How incredible! So you can print your favourite Rembrandt on canvas and hang it on your wall! Or use a print to make a motif for you living room wall. It’s a fantastic idea and they are also encouraging artists to use these masterpieces in their own works of art. It opens up a whole world of possibilities and I encourage you to go and have a look, even if all you do is browse through other people’s collections!

One of the best highlights of our trip was definitely on the last night. We’d spent the day mooching around, had agreed to go out somewhere for a nice meal. We were eating fairly early so we could get a table and so we could have a wander round the lit up canals afterwards…

Pretty right?!

Anyway so there we were been given the nighttime tour of Amsterdam with all it’s pretty lit up streets and buildings and canals, bits and pieces were being pointed out to us one of which was the music theatre, home to the national ballet company. It was at this point that Lu announced “…and it’s opening night of their new season so I got us tickets and we’re going in!”

:-O

First response was a confused “…I’m sorry what?” swiftly followed by MEGA excitement. If you know me even a little bit you will know of my eternal love of ballet. So getting to see the Dutch National Ballet on the opening night of their new season…IN AMSTERDAM…was pretty big for me. Not only that but the night was made up of two short ballets – first Frederick Ashton’s “The Dream” (an interpretation of A Midsummer’s Night Dream) which I love but have never seen live. Score! And second was Firebird. But not just Firebird (which I also love), but a brand new choreography by Alexei Ratmansky! I got to see the European premiere of Ratmansky’s Firebird!! And it was AWESOME! The whole evening was just breathtaking and I felt so completely spoilt and lucky to have got to share it with two of my favourite people. I even danced walked back to the flat as the firebird. Flapping wings and all.

All in all it was an amazing weekend with amazing people and I can’t wait for the next one.

Me with lovely people at the ballet!

Also we had pancakes for breakfast every day. *drool* If that doesn’t make for a good weekend I don’t know what does!