If you're planning a short break to Amsterdam, you'll have your own personal inventory of stuff to take, of course. Your Euros, your bicycle clips, and other essentials. What I've compiled below isn't anything in the way of a physical inventory - it's kind of like a web inventory for your netbook, smartphone or tablet.



I amsterdam -http://www.iamsterdam.com/ - a wealth of Amsterdam-related info on this one. This is a very well-designed site, with up-to-date information for your trip. A cut above most other tourist info sites I've seen, it also has its own smartcard - the I amsterdam Card. This little card is pretty useful and gives you free entry to a long list of museums, and doubles as a public transport ticket for trams, buses etc (train travel to and from Schiphol excepted). Full info here.

GVB -http://www.gvb.nl/english/Pages/default.aspx - official website of the public transport company of Amsterdam. Includes FAQ, maps, timetables, ticket info etc for tram, bus, metro and more. Pretty essential site. Amsterdam's not the biggest city in the world, but to see it properly you'll definitely be using Amsterdam's clean and easy to use public transport system.

Trip Advisor's Amsterdam Tourism page. Honest reviews by people who've been. Covers hotels, attractions and eating out. While in my experience a lot of Trip Advisor users' experiences don't exactly chime with my own, always an interesting read.


Official Holland tourism site - http://www.holland.com/uk/ - even if your stay is short, there's still time to go further afield, as Holland is a fairly compact place. This site is informational, well designed and will give you a flavour of what awaits in this, my favourite, country.


So, that's your concise virtual inventory for Amsterdam. If you're planning a short break then be sure to maximise your enjoyment potential by getting as much out of Amsterdam as you can. And drop us a comment if you think there are other essential links for the inventory and we can do another blog post on this subject sometime soon.