Amsterdam was almost everything you’d want from a city. Then, without meaning to, I stopped going...

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Our Return Journeys series takes a look at the happiness of going back to a place from one's past – whether it's a nostalgic childhood summer camp or a pivotal first job in a foreign country.

This week, Lisa Armstrong, The Telegraph's fashion director, returns to Amsterdam on her second trip to the Netherlands. When she first visited, just out of college, Armstrong was more than a decade younger than the rowdy American high school students she was leading as a tour guide. Her return trip proved to be a more sophisticated - yet far from predictable - experience, and a truly emotional one too.

When I couldn't go, I was 15 years old. My next younger sister Katy went instead when she was 13. That's how it was in the '70s. Or that's how it was in our slightly chaotic household. We never went on family vacations. My parents' business demanded all their attention during the summer. My parents had us send the kids to school for holidays or a school cruise since everyone assumed I'd be terrible at skiing.

Any thoughts of luxury and the glamorous image of Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis disappeared the instant we boarded. SS Uganda was so bare-bones that she probably had to be upgraded before being deployed in the Falklands War eight years later. We were crammed into large, cramped dormitories below the portholes, and the seasickness was intense. "Batten down," the teachers instructed us, as if this were some sort of educational experience.

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We didn’t learn about World War II or the Holocaust in school. Since my parents and grandparents never discussed the latter, I pieced together what I knew from different sources, such as historical fiction novels, "The Diary of Anne Frank," contemporary war footage, and a later trip to Dachau.

Katy's Amsterdam trip was a whole new level of educational. It was a group trip – they stayed on a boat. Museums, galleries, and boring historical tours were hardly a priority. The group leaders were almost as young as the passengers, and it seemed like marijuana was an option. When Katy got back home and recounted her "educational" experiences, no one called social services. My mom probably wasn't aware of what marijuana was.

I was 21 before I made it to Amsterdam. I had landed a job as a tour guide during my university breaks. What a clear violation of the Fair Trade Practice Act (there may not have been one in 1982). I wasn't professionally trained, nor had any guidance, had a terrible sense of direction, could barely read a map, and hadn't visited most of the countries I'd be leading 40 American high school students through.

But I was majoring in French literature and had learned how to say, ‘Everywhere I find nothing but base flattery, injustice, self-interest, deceit and roguery,’ in Molière’s native language. The tour company, let's call them Gungho Ltd, agreed that I was the perfect fit for the job.

My motto was always, 'When in doubt, smile!' Fair to say, it worked pretty well most of the time.

A note about the groups participating in these tours. Some members were rather unruly, almost degenerate, and they were our educators, ironically. We were told they would serve as our role models and sources of guidance. ‘Toodle-pip,’ Gungho said at the end of our first 'orientation' day in a questionable hotel in Bayswater. ‘If you have any issues, you can visit our office between eight and five.’

My backup plan for my first Amsterdam trip, with 40 friendly but lively Texan students, came courtesy of a guy we'll call Patrick, a charming protest leader. We barely got settled into our modest hotel on a narrow, unappealing side street, when Patrick hijacked the night's agenda: midnight visit to the Rijksmuseum or a tour of the red-light district?

Only one out of the 40 students voted in favor of the museum field trip. Alphonse - who had a rather unexpected French name, considering he was from Texas - was the first person I'd ever seen with a Fendi wallet, and he stood out on our tour because he was the only student who, as we drifted down the breathtakingly beautiful Grand Canal in Venice, didn't ask where McDonald's was.

It was 1982 and obtaining permission from Texas parents was out of the question. Even if it had been an option, Patrick didn't appear to be the type to ask for permission. 'Don't worry,' he told an unhappy Alphonse and me, 'this will be educational.' Where had I heard him say something like that before?

Recently, I came across an article that discussed how a well-known area known for prostitution, specifically the red-light district, has undergone a transformation and is now welcoming tourists visiting with their children. Walking alongside these families in this area doesn't sit right with me, as I recall my own experience there years ago, where I felt a sense of despair and exploitation while watching live sex acts. I believe the performers were under the influence of substances, which was even apparent to me at a young age.

I ponder what it did to everyone else, but they all remained uncommonly quiet on the walk back to their starting point, except for dear, diligent, and on the verge of coming out Alphonse and three others, who climbed out the hotel window later that night using sheets and went missing for a few hours. Needless to say, it was the torn sheets that convinced the hotel management to switch from being annoyed to outright hostile. That was a black mark for Gungho Ltd. For years afterwards, when I thought of Amsterdam, it was through a cloud of sleaze.

Future trips weren't quite as dramatic, but they were more enjoyable overall. The hotels were gradually getting better. Along the way, I learned to steer clear of streets cluttered with vendors selling fake tulips and gaudy pubs. I visited once in the winter with an Australian who had moved to the UK because he disliked the warmth of his home country's climate, and the locals were ice-skating on the canals. In the summer, bright red and white flowers spilled out of the flower boxes.

I tried pickled herring for breakfast - my favorite dish - and visited smoky cannabis cafes (I didn't use them), walked through the Anne Frank museum with tears in my eyes, fell in love with Van Gogh's artwork and developed a passion for Dutch old masters.

Amsterdam was a city that seemed to have it all - grand, cozy, friendly, lively, unpredictable, and completely walkable. However, it wasn't long before I stopped visiting. Young children made it impossible for me to take mini-breaks. Older kids meant more efforts to plan family vacations near the beach. In my mind and my husband's, Amsterdam was a place more suited to backpackers (he'd traveled there by train) and carefree twenty-somethings.

While on vacation with friends, we traveled via Bologna, Zurich and Paris. The Swiss railway system still operates very efficiently, but that's not the case with other trains. When it comes to the food, you could complain far less about a Great Western Railway sandwich from now on. On several occasions during our journey, all they had was potato chips.

The upgrades during this stay were so impressive, I expected staff to tell me to "book a room on the second floor," I'd heard fantastic things about the comfort, the beautiful view, the rooftop and pool area bars, the high-end hair dryers, restaurant, and new spa – but I wasn't prepared for how quirky everything was.

This place was built using 25 old merchant houses from the 17th and 18th centuries. Each room is uniquely designed with antique and vintage decorations. We started in The Flower Collector's Suite, a two-room space that celebrates the city's history of flowers through a whimsical and romantic lens. This suite, which is only a year old, is inspired by a 19th-century tulip merchant's home and features a bright pink drawing room and a cozy bedroom with dark green walls and many pictures. We had to switch rooms on the second night because they were very busy, and we ended up in a smaller room with a beautiful view of a large courtyard surrounded by leaves.

The wealthy merchants who constructed these towering seven-story skylines, reminiscent of the familiar scenery around Lower Manhattan, would likely endorse the Pulitzer's current state, which appears to encapsulate Amsterdam's essence: calmly organized on the outside, yet quirky on the inside.

The canals were surprisingly quiet when it came to tourists. From the start, the endless streets of old brick houses with pointed roofs seemed like a picture of perfectly uniform city design. However, each house is unique, and while most have been restored to appear incredibly elegant, some still have beautifully planted gardens in tubs on the outside, and sometimes even in the canals themselves. Occasionally, you'll find a house occupied by people living in it temporarily and displaying anti-gentrification signs.

Some buildings appear to be on the verge of collapse, making one wonder how long they will last. There's plenty of time to enjoy crossing the three main canals that completely encircle the city's historic center, visiting different cafes that may or may not serve marijuana - there's significantly less marijuana smell in Amsterdam compared to London - and browsing through specialty homeware and fashion shops with a touch of eccentricity.

Amsterdam has its share of chain stores, but also a thriving local design scene. Róhe, a three-year-old fashion brand and the Netherlands' answer to Toteme, is gaining popularity, while Ace & Tate eyewear and Wandler bags and shoes have a strong following worldwide. Make time to visit Carmen Amsterdam, a fashionable café, guest house, and store that gives priority to Dutch brands. And if you need to recharge, there’s the new Beauty House with its custom massages and facials just off Prinzenstraat, owned by The Putlizer.

You might want to wait for the crowd to subside – or plan a visit to the Van Gogh Museum. At both, we used the audio tours – they're not bad and help ensure you see the most popular highlights.

This took us on a 90-minute journey through a bygone era when Amsterdam was the heart of the world. If you're unfamiliar with VoiceMap, do yourself a favor and download the app. You can pick from over 1,300 tours spanning 68 countries, each costing between $0 and $16, which you can share the cost of if you connect two pairs of headphones to one phone, with some guided by enthusiastic locals and others by professional guides, writers, and academics.

The AI showed us through narrow side streets, past the house of Rembrandt, founder of the Dutch East India Company's headquarters - a company that was responsible for Amsterdam's wealth during the 17th century, as well as the complex and intriguing architecture that often seems lovely on the surface but has a disturbingly complex history, leading out into its present-day port.

A visit to Anne Frank's house, now greatly expanded. They've done it sensitively with an excellent audio guide and footage of Miep Gies, one of the individuals who risked their lives to assist the families in hiding, and Otto Frank, Anne's father who, I now know, passed away just two years before I first went to Amsterdam.

It's now larger, but within its modern glass addition is the small apartment where the Frank and van Pels families secretly lived for two years to escape the Nazis. You gain entry through a narrow stairway behind a bookshelf that can feel claustrophobic. This spot has become a popular temptation for taking photos (odd, insensitive, and officially forbidden, but apparently, it's the only way some people can capture this experience). It's tough not to be deeply touched by those who provided help to the families, as well as the families' sufferings and their remarkable ability to persevere in the face of hardship.

If you see nothing else in Amsterdam, this is the essence of it all; the darkness, the illumination, the positive, and the not-so-positive.

Prices for a standard room at the Pulitzer start from $532 per night. Prices for the Flower Collector’s Suite begin at $1,121. For more information, visit pulitzeramsterdam.com