Hi, my wife and I usually travel on our own, but are doing a tour of Northern Italy with a group. Our flights to Milan has a 5 hour layover in Amsterdam. We're there at 9:15 AM. Any suggestions for using that time would be appreciated.

 

Hi,

5 hours is not a lot of time. BUT: underneath Schiphol airport there is a trainstation which basically takes you to Central Amsterdam in 15-20 minutes (if you like a lot of tourist and buildings from around 1700 ) and a high speed train that takes you to Rotterdam (If you liek architecture, see and for pointers) in under 40 minutes. So you could take that and spend about 2 hours in one of these city's. You could go for a quick stroll or rent a bike and see some of the city. My experience flying back to home from the States is that i was pretty knackered but its worth the try

Otherwise the Schiphol airport is big and has some shops, try getting so good cheese and Heineken.

Cheers,

Arie

 

Thanks for the info. Can you tell me what's involved in getting in and out of the airport, that is, security and customs?

 

No, not sure. Your bags probably gets transfered automatically to the other plane, so its just going through customs back and forth (its one of the biggest airfields in Europe so they are pretty fast). You fly from US to the NL, so you basically are already in the EU. I think that makes your transfer to Italie less "formal" (yes i am pro 1 Europe) you could check this site for the airport: https://www.schiphol.nl/en/ or probably contact your travel company. Here is a link to the train site (English): https://www.ns.nl/en/journeyplanner/...ash=2056162347
You could even already buy a ticket upfront, thats safe you the hustle at a vending machine. Have fun in Italie!

 

Thanks