Sex and drugs and …………. two girls, one night in Amsterdam (that’s all it took!)

“Two hot girls on a hot summer night, looking for……..” (let’s not go there),  to quote Carly Simon, goodness knows quite what it was we were looking for in Amsterdam but we found plenty to keep us amused, and more besides! Goodness me, didn’t we just. And I think we amused other people too – my colleague Holly drew quite a crowd as she displayed herself in a ‘window’ enhanced by the surrounding red lights!

We had a whole evening to explore what you would probably think of as the ‘seedier side’ of Amsterdam but you know, it’s all rather above board and well presented, and I have to be honest, even at 1am I felt extremely safe walking around this most eclectic of cities.

The Red Light Area of Amsterdam might not be everyones cup of tea but if you are relatively open-minded it is a great place to while away an evening – and quite educational if you get my drift.
Holly had never visited Amsterdam before so we started off with a stroll around the streets, peering into the windows inhabited by young ladies plying their trade, mouths gaping slightly as we watched young men entering through the doors, or emerging – another world really because I don’t think they were going to play Scrabble!

Following this, we headed for the prostitute’s museum, ‘Red Light Secrets’ which takes visitors on a journey about the history of prostitution and different elements of the job, setting aside the obvious! If you set aside the subject matter, it is just like any other museum, although maybe not quite – morbid curiosity does rather draw you along though. Well worth a visit for the curious amongst you! There is also a red light window that you can sit in, purely to have your photo taken for posterity I might add!

Feeling bolder now that we had attracted so much attention we thought we would try our luck at Moulin Rouge, one of the famous sex shows on offer. For the princely sum of 35 euros each, to include two drinks a piece, we entered the gloom and on a central stage the entertainment was revealed to us. I won’t go into detail but suffice it to say you can do more with a banana that eat it or bake a banana cake – enough said.
Following the show – we managed an hour in there (had to get our monies worth) – we popped into a local hostelry for a medicinal tot to soothe our shattered nerves. We then decided to round off the night with a quick visit to a peep show – 2 euro for 2 minutes seemed so reasonable that it would have been rude not to. A central revolving area is surrounded by individual booths where you stand and watch the entertainment. We were told as we went in that men would not be performing until after midnight – a bit sexist I thought but there you go, what do I know. It all proved a bit tame after what we had witnessed at the sex show and we left well before our two minutes were up.

A couple more drinks (medicinal again) rounded off the evening nicely and we then headed back to our hotel – Best Western, just off Dam Square, brilliantly located for tourists, to get a good nights sleep. Tomorrow we were going to sample one of the other faces of Amsterdam, Anne Frank’s House, somewhere I have waited  42 years to visit – my next post so watch this space.

For more information on things to do in Amsterdam, or cruises visiting this wonderful city just give me a call on 0800 408 6084 and I will be delighted to chat to you. Just for the record, I am only taking cruise bookings now, I am not taking bookings for any other services 😉