We made the weekend before Christmas (sorry this post is late - we've been busy) a long weekend, and headed off to Amsterdam. The city was much nicer than I had expected. In winter at least, Amsterdam is a really chilled out and laid back place. Everybody cruises around on push-bikes, so we did the same. Another thing I wasn't excpecting is the canals - the old part of Amsterdam is like a honeycomb canal network. It was a cold weekend, but the clear blue skies were reviving for us after drab grey London.