Traveling to Leiden/ Amsterdam area end of May - some suggestions please?

[lovetheblues]

Hello all,

My wife and I will be in Leiden for a few days (3-4) at the end of May. We've never been there, or to Europe before for that matter, so I'd love to hear any suggestions for things to see and do, live music to check out, bass shops to puruse, etc. Any help/ideas would be greatly appreciated! Thank you in advance

Cheers!

[bazzbass]

with cheap sex and drugs, I'd go without the rock and roll hehe

sorry, not helpful at all

[Grangur]

A long time back I spent a week in Amsterdam with the ex-Mrs G.

Amsterdam is good for art galleries. There are attractive street markets and boat trips on the river. You can also go to visit Ann Frank's house.

Leiden must also have things to do, though.

[T-Bay]

A
The Ann Frank is worth a visit but go,on a weekday and get there for when it opens, when quiet it's a moving place to be, when rammed it's more like walking round someone's house - it loses the impact.

[Bolo]

Leiden is a lovely city, a boat trip on the canals, museums aplenty (Naturalis with some excellent huge dinosaur skeletons, Corpus for a trip through the human body, museum Volkenkunde has amazing exhibits for instance).

Leiden-info.com has info on the nightlife and restaurants etc. Contact them to see if they have an english version of the website

An hours drive is Edwin van Huik's bassconnection in Hilversum http://www.connectionbult.com/wp/
Excellent shop

Bax has shops in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Goes. Not bass specific though.

There's plenty more to see and do in Leiden https://www.visitleiden.nl/en/plan-your-visit/information/tourist-information-centre
And most other citys are 30-60 minutes away by train. By car, avoid driving between 7-9am and 5-6pm.
Enjoy!

[lovetheblues]

Thanks all for your suggestions and links so far, I appreciate it!

Steve

[Cato]

This one of favourite places in Amsterdam.

http://www.amsterdam.info/music/cafe-alto/

It can be a bit hit and miss to be honest, one night I turned up and it was about 3 hours of free form jazz improv, but it's normally pretty good.

[Bbiigg Kev]

I love Amsterdam for some reason !!!

[leftybassman392]

+1 for the museums. If time is limited head for the Rijksmuseum; if you have a little more time try to squeeze in the Van Gogh museum as well. The Anne Frank house is superb as well... apparently. It gets really busy really quickly and we just didn't have the time to queue for a couple of hours so we could be in a bunfight. Canal tours are probably a bit of an indulgence in the time you have, but well worth it if you get the opportunity.

The Dutch rail network is excellent: if you get the chance you might want to consider taking a trip to Haarlem (compact and chocolate-box pretty) and/or The Hague (a huge city that you'll do well to see much of in a day).

Edited May 1, 2017 by leftybassman392

[Mykesbass]

[quote name='Cato' timestamp='1493491687' post='3288779']
This one of favourite places in Amsterdam.

[url="http://www.amsterdam.info/music/cafe-alto/"]http://www.amsterdam...usic/cafe-alto/[/url]

It can be a bit hit and miss to be honest, one night I turned up and it was about 3 hours of free form jazz improv, but it's normally pretty good.
[/quote]

I just did a search for the bar where Hans Dulfer, father of Candy Dulfer (Lily Was Here and Prince sax player for a while) regularly plays, and it turns out to be the same place Cato recommends. Well worth a visit.

[Bolo]

More on bands and such in amsterdam: https://www.iamsterdam.com/en/visiting/whats-on/music