How Amsterdam proved a surprise winner for a mother-daughter city break

We’re having a competition, the 10-year-old and I, to find the most ridiculous museum we can. It’s easy in Amsterdam: we’ve already spotted the Tulip Museum, the Pipe Museum and The Houseboat Museum.

“Oh my God,” my daughter yells, racing down the pavement as she spots one. “The Cow Museum! It’s a museum dedicated to COWS!” She leans on me, giggling, as we carry on down the cobbled street.

We’ve come to Amsterdam in search of happiness. Not that we’re unhappy; it just turns out we’re not as happy as the Dutch. According to a Unicef report back in 2013, Dutch children are the happiest in the world.

Compared with their British counterparts, they spend more time outdoors and more time with their parents. And, crucially, they get to eat chocolate sprinkles for breakfast. Perhaps our hectic London lives (I work too much, my daughter plays Minecraft too much, and neither of us gets to eat chocolate sprinkles for breakfast) could do with a reset.

The journey sets the tone. No need for the hassle of an airport when there’s the direct Eurostar, a calm three and a half hours from St Pancras, whizzing us straight into Amsterdam Centraal.

We’re here for just the weekend, which is fine for such a walkable city, where the blockbusters are all within a 30-minute stroll of one another. And blockbusters are just right for tweens, who, by the way, are at that travelling sweet spot: old enough to be up for anything, but still young enough to want to spend time with you.

So we walk everywhere – to be outdoors, like the Dutch, but also because Amsterdam is beautiful on foot, allowing us to gaze up at the spindly buildings and lean over bridges to watch the boats, the floating seeds from the linden trees swirling around us like snow.

Amsterdam is even more beautiful from the water, and our hotel, The Pulitzer, has its own boat. Dating from 1909, it is lined with polished mahogany and brass, and has ferried around the likes of Winston Churchill. Now it ferries us around, my daughter’s head on my shoulder as we listen to historical titbits from the guide and snigger when we spot the Museum of Bags and Purses.

At the Vondelpark, the city’s biggest green expanse, we rent bikes and zip around its paths. My daughter spots a chestnut tree, throws down her bike and scales up its branches. It feels wholesome. It feels Dutch. 

We do the big guns, visiting the Van Gogh Museum and marvelling at the sunflowers, which are, she declares, “amazing”. At the Rijksmuseum, Rembrandt’s Night Watch holds her attention for a full 10 minutes, having her pace from left to right to see if the weird 3D effect of the main watchman’s outstretched hand changes as you move (it doesn’t).

The hotel, a smart series of townhouses knocked together on pretty Prisengracht, has a series of leafy courtyards and glassed-in corridors, perfect for tearing along in socks.

There are pleasing touches for children, including a whimsical bicycle hanging from the gabled ceiling of our room, a colouring bag filled with pens, and a little plate of Crayola-bright macaroons. Jansz, the canal-side restaurant, has chocolate croissants, drinking chocolate and chocolate-smothered French toast. We have them all.

At Nemo, the city’s science museum, we get lost in the interactive exhibits for hours. There are levers to pull and water wheels to spin and a whole laboratory section where we don white coats and are given a chemical experiment to complete.

It’s here that I notice something odd about the local parents. They’re joining in. They’re not standing back, detached. They’re not looking at their phones. They play with their kids, and help them. They talk.

We talk all weekend, probably because the iPad has been banned and we’ve not spent this much time with each other since I was on maternity leave. We chatter as we walk along canals, hand in hand. We natter our way around the museums, and play noisy games of Uno over supper.

Henceforth, I decide, weekends will be less busy, less screeny, more chatty – and with more time spent looking for good trees to climb, or silly things to giggle about. My daughter nearly falls over laughing when she spots a sign for the Sex Museum. Just a sign, though; the Red Light District is, thankfully, easy to avoid.

It’s at the Anne Frank House that we fall silent. My daughter recently read the diaries, but I can see that the reality of the dingy, cramped annexe, with Anne’s faded magazine pictures of film stars still taped to the walls, shocks her.

So, too, does the evocative audio guide, and the last, dark room, where her diaries lie open in a glass box. Back outside, she takes my hand. We walk to a corner café, where we sit thoughtfully over plates of apple cake.

“We’re very lucky,” she says quietly. And then, on the way back to the hotel, she spots a sign: Cheese Museum. She squeezes my hand, and we’re laughing again.

The essentials

Eurostar operates three daily direct services from London St Pancras International to Amsterdam from £35 one way, based on a return journey. The return entails changing train in Brussels.

Pulitzer Amsterdam offers a two-night Kids Getaway Package from £839, based on two adults and two children sharing, including b&b in connecting room or family suite, tickets to Nemo, various activities and one dinner in Jansz worth £130.