Winters in Amsterdam are generally dark, grey, and rainy… very rainy. We typically get just a couple of flurries over the course of the winter. Absolute best-case scenario, the snow sticks enough to turn the city white for a few hours. But this year was different.
The forecast last week was calling for consistent snowfall on Sunday and Monday with accumulation possibly reaching upwards of two feet. Surely that must be an exaggeration, I thought. Sure enough, light flurries started late Saturday evening and by morning, we woke up to find a winter wonderland just outside our front door.
The snow wasn’t done yet, but we were eager to get out and start exploring — still in disbelief and doubting whether the snow would actually be sticking around for much longer. So we bundled up and headed into the city center to explore this new, snowy version of Amsterdam.
By Monday evening, the snowfall finally came to an end. The temperature, however, was starting to plummet into the single (Celcius) digits. About mid-week the predictions started rolling in… with a week of such low temperatures, there was a decent chance that the canals could freeze over. And frozen canals means the chance to see a rare phenomenon (at least these days): ice skating on the canals.
The canals last froze over in 2018, so I figured it was unlikely to happen again just a few years later. Nevertheless, I kept my fingers crossed and kept a close eye on the forecast. I wasn’t the only one — even the local water board was doing their part, closing off parts of the canals to keep boat traffic from disrupting the formation of ice.
By Friday, some reports starting coming in of small canals and ponds freezing over. We went for a walk around Vondelpark over lunch and were delighted to see a few people already out on the frozen pond. We live just a few blocks away from Vondelpark and have taken countless walks around the park, but never have we seen it quite like this.
The temperature was still on a downward trend with the coldest days yet coming over the weekend. And a couple more days of freezing temperatures meant the newly-formed ice on the bigger canals in the city center may become thick enough to skate on. In anticipation of this very exciting occasion, we decided to make a last-minute reservation at the Hoxton, a stylish hotel in the Nine Streets neighborhood near to the most scenic canals in Amsterdam.
Saturday was a beautiful day — chilly but with full sun and blue skies. It seemed all of Amsterdam was out for a walk midday as we headed to the hotel to check in. The canals were fully frozen by this point, but the conditions weren’t yet safe enough to support ice skating. They were still beautiful to look at, though. We did some sightseeing around the Nine Streets and Jordaan neighborhoods for a few hours before heading back to the hotel.
Later on, we ventured back out to pick up pizzas from our favorite pizzeria La Perla and enjoyed a romantic (and brisk) walk through a snowy Jordaan.
The next morning, we enjoyed a late brunch in bed and checked out of the hotel by noon. Right away we spotted some commotion along the canals and sure enough, down below were a handful of ice skaters doing laps down the length of the Herengracht!
We continued onward toward home, eventually reaching the Prinsengracht. This canal was apparently more frozen than the others. We decided to join the 20 or so others out on the ice for a quick photo op.
This was undoubtedly one of the most memorable weeks of our time in Europe. The excitement of snow and frozen canals provided just the reset we needed after many months of lockdown spent cooped up in our home. If only every winter in Amsterdam were this exciting!
