"Picture yourself in a boat on a river, With tangerine trees and marmalade skies...."

We stayed in the most beautiful apartment in the center of Amsterdam, The Johannes Vermeer.

Amsterdam is one of my favorite cities, because it’s beautiful, the people are charming, and it’s so easy to get around! The Vermeer apartment is centrally located, just a short walk or tram ride to the museums, cafes, shopping, entertainment, sights, everything! It’s not a huge place, but it does offer a enormous living area right on the 1^st floor that overlooks the Keizersgracht (a lot of the postcards I purchased had photos of the bridge over the canal just outside our 20 foot windows). The heat worked wonderfully, there was an easy-to-use coffee machine, a tea kettle, a flat screen TV, and a big giant beauty of a sectional couch in the butteriest creamy leather. The bathroom was pretty and well appointed, and it housed a washer/dryer.

The 2 small bedrooms could use some TLC to bring them up to the level of comfort and style of the main living room. The master bedroom wouldn’t need much - it’s painted black walls and ceiling were nice, there was a huge replica of Vermeer’s well-known “Girl with Pearl Earring” painting above the bed, a nice big window, and a pretty chandelier. The bed in the master bedroom, though, was comprised of 2 twin beds pushed together, which was somewhat uncomfortable. The linens could be updated, and there could be nicer pillows (and more of them). At the foot of the 2 beds was a nice big flatscreen TV, which would be pretty cozy comfy if one were to hole up and zone out on the tube. The upstairs bedroom, also quite small, wasn’t painted in any interesting fashion, and there were no painting replicas whatsoever and no window, so you really could close yourself off to the outside world altogether if you had the inkling.

The Vermeer was definitely one of the easiest, most comfortable and inviting spaces I stayed in during my travels, and I would recommend it to anyone making a trip to the beautiful city of Amsterdam, regardless of the funny little bedrooms.