The travel business is one of the biggest market in the world! We, at Robin Travels, have a dream: transforming money into human development.
It’s hard, it’s a long way but it is the best way we found to spend our life!
We have been working for some years on our online booking website: LivingAmsterdam.com. It is now possible to support the project by booking through our new partners:
If you’re in a college or a school, you might have stayed with your friends from high school in their college towns, or perhaps visited a friend from college who departed for a job or graduate program in another city. Despite lacking some of the comforts that come with having your own space in a hotel, the experience has always been fun and you didn’t have to spend a lot of money to see a new place. With CouchSurfing.net, a relatively new phenomenon utilizing online social networking to connect fellow travelers, you can make new friends throughout the world, surfing from couch to couch as you explore new places and cultures. Conceived by a former American college student who wanted to lower the cost of his trip to Iceland, the site was founded in 2003 and has grown rapidly over the last few years, attracting 2.5 million users. Searching for a new adventure this summer? Want to host someone else’s new adventure? Consider the following 10 reasons to couchsurf — you could be in for an experience of a lifetime.
It’s free: CouchSurfing.net is a nonprofit organization funded by donations from its members. All commercial activity is forbidden from the site, which is entirely free to use. Hosts who attempt to charge couchsurfers essentially break the site’s moral code and are therefore removed. Read the rest of this entry »
From Amsterdam, Socially Responsible Tourism now has a name: Robin Travelsand LivingAmsterdam.com. When you reserve a hotel room, B&B or apartment through LivingAmsterdam.com, part of the room rate will support educational project in developing countries… at no extra cost for you!
They have Style! This is what Charles Bukowsky would say about Wynand Fockink after a visit at the tasting room, 10 seconds walk from Dam Square.
Born in 1679, Wynand Fockink liqueur distillery is acually managed by the two eager owners (no more part of the Fockink family). They spend their time to experiment new mixtures and tastes, producing the best jenevers ever! This is what you can see (and taste!) during the visits of distillery (Monday till Friday from 10.00 until 17.00 hours, Saturday from 13.00 until 18.00 hours, 9€) and at the tasting room (open daily from 15.00 until 21.00 hours).
I have been just yesterday and I tested something completely new: liquors made with the receipt of 300 years ago, when sugar was something missing in Europe.
In the same place Wynand Fockink organizes workshops (in English 14-16 every second Sunday of the month and in Dutch every last Sunday) and sells his products (a range of over 60) at the Liquor Store (sunday closed).
So, folk, when you are near Dam square and when you want to experience a well done liquor (every shot costs about 3€), stop in Pijlsteeg 31 & 43 (10 seconds far from Dam Square).
Who lives in Amsterdam knows that finding a good pizza is a hard work! To prepare a good one you need:
1. experience,
2. the right ingredients,
3. the right oven,
4. love.
Well, you can find all that stuff in Amsterdam at Mangiamore (“eatlove”), Mangiancora (“eatagain”) and Mangiassai (“eatalot”), the answer to the needs of a wise stomach.
Ciro, from Napoli, came to Amsterdam and funded Mangiamore in 2007 with his Dutch wife. It was a success! Two years later in 2009 part of his family came along and with their deep knowledge they funded Mangiancora: another success. That is why to greet the new year he funded the third pizzeria, Mangiassai (2011).
Ingredients, recipes and even the bricks of the ovens (made with the sand of the volcano Vesuvio) come directly from Napoli, where the typical rounded pizza was born. The basic ingredients are basil, mozzarella, extra virgin olive oil and every peace of dough is weighted.
At Mangiamore and Mangiancora it is also possible to buy some selected food from Napoli like olive oil, wine, vinegar and pasta.
So, wise stomachs, next time you want to taste a well-deserved pizza in Amsterdam, try out one of these 3 places:
Mezrab is growing, Mezrab is alive, is playing music, is telling stories, is explaining the reality through cinema, poetry, colours… life!
One week ago I had the pleasure to spend half an hour with the Iranian-born Sahand. His idea is something inherent to the basic nature of mankind: sharing experiences and learning from each other.
“Amsterdam is a multicultural place but often people withdraw with people from their own culture. We create a space for talent from various disciplines and countries to meet and share.”
Activities organized at Mezrab (click here for agenda):
- Every Monday: documentary film, 20:30
- Every Wednesday: fiction film, 20:30
- Every 1st Friday of the month: Dutch storytelling, 20:00
- Every 3rd Friday of the month: English storytelling, 20:00… drop by and tell a story!
Entrance is free, but donations very welcome.
All films are spoken or subtitled in English.
Tea, Iranian soups and more!
So people, again: if you want to enjoy something really authentic and free in Amsterdam, consider to pay a visit to Mezrab!
Every Monday night the cinema expert Jeffrey proposes a movie from the database of his mind at the pub ‘De Nieuwe Anita’ on Frederik Hendrikstraat 111 (Oud-West). Bar open from 19.30 hours, entree € 2,50.
It is a perfect place to relax with a beer or a tea while watching an interesting movie.
Besides cinema, there is live music about three nights a week.
Where is Jeffrey during the rest of the week? He is also active with his “underground cinema at OT301 (Sunday night, 20,30, 4€ entrance) and at CAVIA (Thursday, 20.30, entree 4€… really fair!).
A nice quote from Jeffrey: “No rush: I like a cinema from underground, something able to awaken heart and brain.”
September 9, 2009 at 10:38 pm · Written by Michele · Filed under Bicycles, Recycle, Shopping
Who lives in Amsterdam knows how useful is to have a bike.
If you want to buy a new bike, you could pay up to 600 euro.
Stolen bikes (also known as Junkie Bikes) cost between 5 and 25 Euros, but it is not so politically correct to support the black market of stolen bikes.
In Spuistraat 84 you can find Vitor in his shop: Recycled bikes. www.recycledbicycles.org
At Recycled Bikes you can fix your bike as well as buy second hand bikes.
Vitor is a portuguese guy from Lisbon.
He combines old bike parts with new ones for building the bikes that he sells at his shop.
Remember that, when you fix your bike there, they don’t ike to replace pieces unless it is really necessary. At recycled bikes they always try to fix what is fixable. Less waste!
If you need a bike fix, Recycled bikes is cheap, fast, and the people there are always patient and kind.
These wonderful birds are the real citizens of this city. They are everywhere. Take your bike for a daily ride and watch them having a meeting in Vondelpark (where the usually discuss about foreign policy and coffee shops), along the river Amstel where they love to have water-picnic or into a painting of Willem Maris.
You can ignore them, think they don’t care you but this is not true! They miss you when you go back to your country inside that enormous duck called Transavia or KLM or whatever! Two weeks ago I risked my life for two of them: a mother with her baby duck were crossing a big street located in west Amsterdam: I parked my bike right away and I blocked the traffic. A dutch man smiled to me from his car: my mission was accomplisced. And… maybe you don’t believe… but I did the same thing in the highway A4 near Delft: I saved a mother with 6 chicks. But this is another story.
Anyway, in Amsterdam you will mainly find four different subfamilies of ducks or anatidae:
April 27, 2009 at 5:32 pm · Written by Michele · Filed under Drinking, Shopping, Wine
Go for a beer?
Sometimes it’s nice to have a good beer in a typical Amsterdammer cafè, but when the summer comes it is wonderful to spend all the day long in the parks or just sitting by the canals with a good beer. Anyway if you are tired of the beer cans you can generally find in the super-markets and you want to try something new, then you should pass by the Cracked Kettle.
It is a very small shop in the Center of Amsterdam, on a little street that crosses Spui Straat (Raamsteeg 3). They have more than 500 different types of beer from all over Europe: a vast choice of biological and indipendent producers. If you are a curiouse person you can also try strange varieties as the choco-beer or the one with banana taste. Ask them to suggest you something!
I would suggest the one without any tag: it is a Belgian beer produced in a small farm in the middle of nowhere. It is very difficult to find it in other places and the taste is great.
LivingAmsterdam.com comes from the desire of a better world through a more conscious tourism. This blog will guide you to the unforeseen and hidden part of Amsterdam, beyond the Coffeeshops and the Red Light District. RSS feed
avel business is one of the biggest market in the world! We, at Robin Travels, have a dream: transforming money into human development.
One week ago I had the pleasure to spend half an hour with the Iranian-born Sahand. His idea is something inherent to the basic nature of mankind: sharing experiences and learning from each other.
RSS feed 
