Time to plan that ‘dam trip, fam!
Last year, a jaunt to the continent got a little easier with the news that Eurostar would be starting direct services between London and Amsterdam. Since services began in April, the extra-cheap £35 fares have been snapped up quickly whenever they’ve been released – and a new batch have just gone on sale.
See also: Our roundup of 2019’s cheap summer getaways.
Heading straight from St. Pancras International to Amsterdam Centraal, The journey will take you around four hours on the outward leg, calling at Brussels and Rotterdam en route, with trains leaving throughout the day. On the return trip, passengers will most likely need to detrain at Brussels to go through passport control – which adds 45 minutes to the overall journey – but the odd direct route can be found.
The £35 fares are available for dates between May 6th and September 19th, 2019, with 15,000 seats in standard class up for grabs. As you’d expect, they are disappearing rather swiftly, but we found a fair amount of availability into June and July from a cursory look. The fares do tend to be a touch higher for the return leg, mind you, so it’s worth having a poke about to find the lowest possible price.
Amsterdam is one of the most visited cities in Europe and, aside from its postcard prettiness, has hundreds of festivals and events to inspire a trip. One famous early occasion is Kings Night (April 26) a traditional time of all-night, city-wide revelry, followed by a whole day of orange-clad street celebration on Kings Day (April 27.)
Into the summer, there are a crazy number of festivals at locations throughout the Amsterdam area, with a special emphasis on dance music.
