Rough Guides - Pocket Rough Guide Amsterdam

This Pocket Rough Guide is one of a new generation of informative and easy-to-use travel-guide ebooks that guarantees you make the most of your trip, whether youre spending an afternoon or a few days away.

From the covers all the practical information youll need, from public transport to opening hours and festivals. A handy chronology and useful language list round off the guide.

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Amsterdam is simply unique. You could be sitting nursing a drink outside one of its cafs, chugging along its canals by boat, or riding its cheerful trams, and youll know immediately that you couldnt be anywhere else in the world. What is it that makes the place so exceptional? Well, its watery cityscape means that much of the centre is off-limits to traffic; its architecture is for the most part on a human rather than a grandiose scale; and its people are a welcoming bunch on the whole, proud of their city but not stuck in the past. Amsterdam is always changing but has an uncanny and reassuring ability to stay much the same as it has always been.

Flower Market By The Singel Canal

In part its the liberal traditions of the city that have given Amsterdam its distinctive character, beginning with the obvious legalized prostitution and dope-smoking coffeeshops. More subtle qualities are encapsulated by Amsterdammers themselves in the word gezellig , a very Dutch concept which roughly corresponds to warmly convivial something perhaps most manifest in the citys wonderfully diverse selection of bars and cafs. Amsterdam is also riding something of a resurgent wave, with dozens of great new restaurants, a vibrant arts life and a club scene that has come of age. As if this wasnt enough, theres also the reinvention of neighbourhoods like De Pijp and the ambitious redevelopment of the old docklands bordering the River IJ, featuring glittering new public buildings such as the .

All that said, the Old Centre remains the commercial heart of the city. Spreading south from Centraal Station, and including Amsterdams notorious Red Light District, the districts narrow canals are bordered by old merchants houses and a jangle of newer buildings. Moving on, the layout of the rest of the city centre is determined by a web of canals that loop right round the centre as the so-called Grachtengordel, a planned, seventeenth-century extension to the medieval town, with its tall, elegant gabled houses reflected in olive-green waters.

There are plenty of first-rate attractions, most notably the Anne Frank Huis, the Rijksmuseum, with its wonderful collection of Dutch paintings, the peerless Van Gogh Museum and the newly renovated Stedelijk gallery of modern art. But its not all about the sights: Amsterdam is a great city just to be in, with no attractions so important that they have to interrupt lazy days of wandering the canals and taking in the city at your own pace. Finally, dont forget that the Netherlands is a small country and there are plenty of compelling attractions close by, not least the small town of Haarlem, with the great Frans Hals Museum, the Zuider Zee villages to the north, and the stunning Keukenhof Gardens all very easy to reach by public transport.

Best places fora cold beer in summer

Its hard to imagine a more chilled-out place than Amsterdam in summer. Here are some of our favourite spots to kick back with an alfresco vaasje (glass of beer): >

BROUWERSGRACHT

AMSTERDAM at night