A night in Schiphol Airport

It’s a common travel story: delayed flights, overnights in airports. It’s certainly not the ending I had planned for my two+ week trip to Greece. We were supposed to fly back to Amsterdam, have an overnight in the charming town of Haarlem, and board our flight back to the U.S. the next day…but that’s not how it turned out.

Our flight from Athens to Amsterdam was delayed 12 hours, bringing us in at 2:00am Amsterdam-time. Too late to check into our hotel, and not worth the taxi ride there – everything would be closed and we would have to ride right back at 8:00am for our next flight, so we basically spent the night in the Schiphol Airport.

Now, I have my griefs with Schiphol. The security line is so long and slow that I called it “Shithole Airport” under my breath. But once we were through security in the wee hours of the night, we entered into the newly remodeled and gorgeous international terminal, and I was regretting my comment. Of all the airports to spend six pre-dawn hours, this was one of the best.

Not only was there abundant seating, but they even provided outlets to charge your smartphones and laptops! Also, we founds some lounge chairs overlooking the runways and far from the hustle and bustle of shops, which provided a few hours of rest before our next flight.

main lounge with tons of seating

main lounge

charging station for phone, ipod, laptop, etc. 

clear floor shows conveyer belts moving the luggage

lounge chairs for resting

massage chairs

lots of seating

the clock was an art video of a guy painting the hands each minute

view from the lounge

dawn view from the lounge