Amsterdam>Antwerp>Cologne

I just returned home from a trip touring the Zwilling and Demeyere factories and I can't wait to share the details about where we stayed, shopped and ate! Plus, what I packed and my Google maps.

Amsterdam

Our group stayed at the Anantara. My room was quiet and I slept like a rock in a cozy, fluffy bed. Although a friend’s room was on the other side of the hotel and had a lot of bar noise from an Irish pub below her room. The location is a bit off the canals and some of the neighboring shops are a bit touristy (think: Madame Tussaud’s, for instance). But there’s also a nice high-end department store just across the square and it’s an easy walk to the canals. Since the hotel is not on the canals, you won’t have a charming canal view of boats floating by, but it also makes it easy to get dropped at the front door by an Uber when you fly in. The hotel is an Amex Platinum property, so you get the perks of booking with Amex (complimentary breakfast, a $100 credit). All this to say, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it only because I prefer small hotels. Give me funky art and a good vibe over free breakfast any day.

Here’s my Amsterdam Google Map with shops, restaurants and bars that looked interesting.

On my first afternoon, I walked around Amsterdam and checked out a couple of