A few weeks ago me, and my friends D & A hopped on an early Saturday morning train to Amsterdam, to spend four excellent days with our beloved Z (we all worked together as graphic designers on a magazine a verrrrrry long time ago), in my home city from home. Neither D or A had been there properly, so the first thing on the list was to get them used to riding bikes, which they did quickly, in the quiet Noord neighbourhood.

We stopped for a delicious vegan lunch at Liever Hier in Nieuwendammerdijk, where we hands down had the best chocolate brownie either one of us had ever had. The view wasn’t bad either. Looking back at these pics I can see that we were very lucky with the weather (I’m typing this wearing heat tech and a thick fleece - in June).

The street that the café is on is almost 2km long, with a lovely mix of architecture. I think I’ll have to come back and walk it next time, so I can take more pictures of it.

Z had the smallest ladybird I’ve ever seen on her shoulder. I’m sure it’ll still give her lots of luck, despite it’s size.

Slowly making our way into town; you see a lot of this in Amsterdam, various ways of fitting your kids on a bike. I once saw someone cycle while holding a small baby in one arm, no sling or anything. Scary/skillz.

Pretty. Or ‘mooi’ - in Dutch.

Still in Noord, getting closer to the trendy end of it. Love the block of flats on the left. Why new builds in the UK can’t be this nice is beyond me. There’s just no inherent good taste in British architecture these days. I think it might have peaked in the Georgian era.

And these floating houses! Swoon. There’s a little neighbourhood of them, just in front of the block of flats in the previous pictures. Seeing the ladders going into the water makes my heart beat a bit faster.

When I go travelling I like to have a loose plan of what to do/see/eat, a bit of sketch if you like, with areas to visit but then keeping it flexible. It’s mainly to avoid the panic trying to find somewhere to eat when you’re dead tired and hungry, or making sure to not miss out on seeing a special place. Well, one of those special places for me in Noord is Van Dijk & Ko, a massive warehouse stuffed with second hand furniture, books and trinkets. The prices are ridiculous cheap too; some of the massive beautiful cupboards, including antique kitchen ones would cost up to six times as much in London. I hadn’t planned that we should cycle to it, but as it was on the way, we popped in.

D has a thing for antique linen and picked out some good ones.

There are also some weird stuff amongst all the goodness. Where do we think this would have been originally (minus the wig of course)?

I’ve been thinking recently how there are a whole generation of kids who mostly don’t know what a cuckoo clock is or what it does (these are the sort of things I think about - haha!). There would always be someone who had one when I was a kid. I was a tiny bit tempted to get one, but these were actually not that cheap, and who’s to say they still work?

If I had a different house style I would have got a few of these. Or if we had a second home.

Instead I got two old Hungarian ceramic bowls with crazy glazing on them.

Stop! Ferry time. Time to cross the IJ and cycle towards our dinner.

Love the mixture of the architecture here + the balustrade shadows.

Dinner at De Japanner has become a regular thing on the last few trips to Amsterdam. Incredible Japanese food that’s delicious in your mouth and kind on your wallet .

The street it’s on, Albert Cuypstraat, is a market street in the day time, and once it’s shut it’s quite a mess, which these herons have figured out, so they have quite a feast where the fishmonger trades.

And finally, catching some evening light on the ferry back home to Noord. Such a great first day of the trip.