Traditional herring in Albert Cuyp market – Amsterdam

It turns out the central location of the apartment is great for many reasons, but one of them was not for quiet mornings.

The window was open during the night, and early in the morning, I could hear this incessantly irritating beeping, which I later realised was the street crossing on the road below.

I felt slightly cheated out of a lie in and couldn’t get back to sleep.

When D woke up, we decided over breakfast to head to Amsterdam for the day.

Speaking of breakfast, who among you knew that cheese and jam was a GOOD combination?

I’ve been offered it before but was skeptical about those two flavours mingling, however much to my surprise, it was pretty damn good.

Once again, I hopped on the back of D’s bike, but first, we stopped at the bicycle shop down the road so that he could pump up his tyres.

I think it’s great how big cycling is here, and that the bicycle shops have free pumps you can use outside!

D cycled to the station with me clinging on to the back and grabbed me a travel card to use on public transport around the city.

We got the train into Amsterdam, walked down the street a little, and then hopped on a tram.

We walked through the “Albert Cuyp” market, which was overspilling with flower stalls, cheese stalls, clothes stalls, fish stalls and fruit and vegetable stalls…

I tried eel for the first time. In a bun. Apparently,sauce ruins it. So it was literally just eel in a bun. To be fair, it wasn’t really all that bad, though not photogenic in the slightest.

On the way back up the market we went to grab some herring. There are herring stalls dotted all over the city, but supposedly the stall at Albert Cuyp is one of the best places to try this popular traditional dish.

This particular stall is very well known and has been family run since 1916.

We had to wait behind a camera crew filming the vendors before we eventually got given a paper plate with slices of herring and pickles, covered in finely chopped onions. I actually quite enjoyed this dish.

We walked to the part of the city I hadn’t previously got round to seeing.

We strolled past Vogelpark, the “I Amsterdam” sign and the Rijksmusuem. We decided against getting tickets to go inside, as it was such a lovely sunny day and we wanted to enjoy the weather.