Heineken & Liberation Day

We went up to Amsterdam again. The main purpose was actually to buy souvenirs to bring home. Tee hee hee.. Since we were there, might as well go do some visiting and oh, it's Liberation Day today!

Upon arrival at the Centraal Station, we took the tram #24 to Heinekenplein where we visited the Heineken Experience. Once in a lifetime, of course must go and visit the local brewery mar! It was really worth the visit, I tell you. For EUR 11, you get to :-

* understand the history behind Heineken
* climb the beer glass staircase
* be your own DJ and make your own music
* see the huge copper brew-kettles
* take videos and photos and send it to your friends
* play interactive games
* be your own coachman where you are 'virtually' sitting on the coach and the horses bring you around Amsterdam
* experience how it feels like to be a bottle during the bottling process. Very fun!
* see the real Heineken horses - The Shires
* get 3 free drinks
* get a free gift which was a Heineken Experience can opener in a Heineken bottle metal casing

The Heineken Experience - truly an experience!

Definitely worth the money and time la. But if you do decide to visit, try to go there in the mornings (less crowd) and you must allocate at least 2 hours to visit the entire brewery.

After that, we walked around and took photos of the Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum, Stedelijk Museum, Concert Gebouw, Coster Diamonds, a few to mention. There were performances going on at the Museumplein for Liberation Day festival but we were hungry so we took the tram back to the city centre.

After lunch, we walked down Damrak street and bought as many souvenirs we could - fridge magnets, keychains, tee shirts and whatever we could bring back home. We reached Dam Square and saw the wreaths that were laid on the foot of the war monument. When we watched the live telecast on tv last night, thousands of people were there on Dam Square itself. As I stood on the square, I really couldn't imagine the crowd! Really very patriotic la, the Dutch!

National War Memorial at Dam Square

Now that I'm back in Utrecht already, I'm worried my luggages will exceed the limit! Darn!