FIVE NIGHTS IN AMSTERDAM FOR UNDER £250

I took full advantage of the long Easter bank holiday weekend and booked a getaway to Amsterdam. I have wanted to go there for the longest time, so when I found return flights from London for £100, I couldn't not place a cheeky booking, could I?

The whole trip cost us £248 each, which I know is super cheap as it can be quite expensive to go away to Amsterdam for a weekend - let alone five nights/six whole days.

I found the flights through Kayak, which automatically puts you through to the airline for the booking process. Our flight was with Easyjet and departed nice and early at 8AM, which saw us landing in Amsterdam Schipol just twenty minutes later! I swear by the time we got comfortable, it was time to get off again!

Accommodation in any city can range from low to high, but we knew we didn't want to stay anywhere small or dirty. However, we still wanted to budget ourselves, as we knew we wouldn't be spending too much time in the hotel itself and would be out and about exploring the city. That's when we came across LastMinute.com's Secret Hotels.

Secret Hotels is exactly what it says. You get a brief description of the hotel, including the star rating, a photo or two of the room and what facilities the hotel has. However, you don't find out what hotel it is until after you book it. 

I read online that if you do some basic detective work, you can easily find what hotel you will be staying at. So, we found a 4 star hotel that looked nice in the photos and also had spa and fitness facilities. It was also only 7 minutes away from the airport and 20 minutes away from the city centre.

After my Googling around, I came across Amsterdam's NH Hotel which was confirmed after we booked it. We paid £286 for the both of us - which was coming up as much cheaper than any other hotels we had found for a slightly longer than usual city break. We had even been looking at booking an Air B&B, which came up slightly cheaper but had less privacy.

Our executive en-suite room was super comfortable - with a giant Queen size bed and a nice enough view from the window. It was more than we ever expected, as we didn't plan on spending too much time in the room due to the spa and fitness facilities downstairs and of course... the city of Amsterdam itself!

The pool was really lovely and relaxed - although the jacuzzi was broken, so we sadly couldn't use that. The area also had a sauna and steam room and a gym that provided free bottles of water and apples. Result!

Photo: NH Amsterdam

We did so much in six days - involving lots of walking and exploring the typical sights that attract tourists.

We was kindly given some train tickets by a random man who no longer needed them, but a 3 day train pass costs 26 euros each. The trains are incredibly easy to use and seem to be a lot more thought out design wise than London transport.

Our first lunch was at The Dirty Chicken Club and had their infamous (yeah, you said it) deep fried chicken burger. Simply delicious and very greasy, but exactly how a burger should be.

We went on a 1 hour boat tour which can be booked at any of the hundreds of tourist attraction shops. The tickets cost 16 euros each and educated us on the brief history of Amsterdam and its famous buildings.

Of course, we visited The Sex Museum and learnt more about sex throughout time. Call me innocent, but I literally had no idea that pornography was out and about existing since before the 1800's. Yes, there are willies and seedy photographs everywhere, but it was actually really interesting learning more about such a positive act nowadays. Women especially kept sex as their secret and often shot amateur stuff in the comfort of their own homes in private.

We tried Holland's super famous fries at Mannekenp - which are said to be Holland #1 Fries. I can confirm they were simply delicious and totally worth the 45 minutes of queuing.

The Amsterdam Dungeons attracted us and we ended up purchasing tickets one afternoon. It's a similar experience to The London Dungeons - just a little more interactive and DARK. During the tour, we got to find out more about the history of Amsterdam; especially the darkest of times. I don't want to give too much away, but it's definitely worth a visit if you have some extra money to spend on tourist attractions. Just save some money for the gift shop afterwards.

We ate dinner at a pan-asian restaurant called Nooch, which I had read so many good things about beforehand. I'm pleased to say that it didn't disappoint and lived up to my expectations - with an awesome service to go alongside. It was the perfect place to eat after an afternoon of wandering around in the rain.

We came across a sweet shop called Jamin, which actually have several stores dotted around Amsterdam Central. I couldn't help but take advantage when I saw they had white chocolate m&ms and grape fanta - my absolute favourite, but a rare one to find in the UK! I also got to try a peanut butter Twix, which was just as nice but weird without any caramel!

The red light district is definitely worth the visit; unless you are squeamish, shy or somewhat sexually awkward. There's roughly 300 windows in the red light district, which means 300 girls selling sex to make their money. Renting a window costs 150 euros per night and the rest of the money they make is their profit, so I really felt sorry for these girls and the kind of work they have to do in order to feed themselves and put a roof over their head.

Top tip when visiting the red light district: Do NOT take photos or film the girls. They will tell you off and the pimps have the right to take your phone and smash it up.

We wouldn't be in Amsterdam if we didn't take a bike ride, so we decided to rent some bikes for an afternoon. Now, this is the difficult part as despite Amsterdam having thousands of bikes on its roads and chained up on any part of the sidewalks and pavements, it was actually quite difficult to find bikes to hire.

We ended up hiring two bikes from Lock Amsterdam, who honestly have the prettiest bikes in the whole of Dam. We paid 18 euros for both bikes and a £50 deposit, which was super cheap compared to the 300 euros deposit quote that we got from the previous man five minutes beforehand!

The roads in Amsterdam are absolutely mental, which is something to bare in mind. There are designated cycle lanes, but bikes are a part of the road, so you have to abide my road laws and stop at traffic lights. You also have to be aware of trams as they ding dong and appear out of nowhere! Thankfully, we lived to see the day!

I fully recommend Amsterdam as a place to visit - although, I personally felt like with most city holidays, once you've done it once, there's no need to return again. However, if I found a cheap weekend getaway, then I probably would!

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My highlight: The hotel itself and riding care free on a bike with the sun and wind on my face.

Ricky's highlight: The bike ride too. It was fun seeing inside and outside of the city.

Disclaimer: The trip was paid with my own money and this blog post is not sponsored.