Rough Guides - The Rough Guide to Amsterdam (Travel Guide eBook): (Travel Guide) (Rough Guides)

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HANDSOME AMSTERDAM HOUSE

Contents

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Introduction to

Amsterdam

With its olive-green canals and handsome gabled houses, waterfront bars, bustling markets and exquisite art, Amsterdam never fails to charm. But there are plenty of surprises here too: long seen as an anything-goes place for stoners and Red Light District prowlers, Amsterdam is shrugging off its old image, smartening up and looking to the future. Over a billion euros has been invested in cultural projects, with the revamping of showpiece sights in the Museum Quarter and the regeneration of the long-neglected docklands with some cutting-edge architecture. That said, for all its focus on reinvention, Amsterdams streets and canals retain a laidback, small-city feel that you just dont get in any other European capital. Its a city thats proud of its character, and the perfect balance it strikes between business and bohemia.

Amsterdam is still far from being as diverse a city as, say, London or Paris; huge numbers of people have migrated from the former colonies in Suriname and Indonesia, as well as from Morocco and Turkey, but almost all live and work outside the centre and can seem almost invisible to the casual visitor. Indeed, there is an ethnic and social homogeneity in the city centre that seems to counter everything you may have heard about Dutch integration. Its a contradiction that is typical of Amsterdam. The city is world-famous as a place where the possession and sale of cannabis are tolerated and yet for the most part Amsterdammers themselves dont really partake in the stuff. And while Amsterdam is renowned for its tolerance towards all styles of behaviour the locals are more than happy for you to cycle through town in a silver bikini if the mood strikes you a more conventional big city would be hard to find. In recent years a string of hardline city mayors have had some success in diminishing Amsterdams image as a counterculture icon: visitors are welcomed as warmly as ever, and letting your hair down is positively encouraged, but locals are now upfront about wanting tourists to behave as good guests rowdy, drunken behaviour is frowned upon and due to new legislation, numbers of the citys famous coffeeshops are dwindling.

Amsterdam on the water

Amsterdam is defined by water, and its buildings complement their surroundings everywhere you look, whether its in the classic canal views of the seventeenth-century city or the contemporary developments in the former docklands. If you want to make the most of the citys unique watery environment, start with a district, east of Centraal Station, which offers one of the most authentic insights into Amsterdams seafaring past, whether youre inspecting the replica of an eighteenth-century East Indiaman or strolling past the quays and warehouses of the Entrepotdok.

You could also take a ferry from behind Centraal Station to the NDSM shipyard one of the citys coolest cultural hangouts to have breakfast in a converted shipping container at , a timewarp ex-island thats just a bus ride away.

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However, some things havent changed, and its hard not to be drawn in by Amsterdams fun summer festivals, the cheery intimacy of its cafs, its first-rate art galleries and its air of upbeat positivity. Amsterdammers themselves make much of their city and its attractions being gezellig, a rather overused Dutch word roughly corresponding to a combination of cosy, lived-in and warmly convivial. Nowhere is this more applicable than in the citys unparalleled variety of watering holes whether its a timeworn brown caf or one of a raft of newer, more stylish bars. An increasingly creative restaurant scene and lively nightlife are further draws, and the citys compactness means that its an easy hop from a candlelit canalside dinner in the centre to the cool bars of the regenerated NDSM shipyard over the River IJ, for example. In fact, thanks to its manageable size and its prevailing atmosphere of friendly inclusiveness, you can really get under the skin of Amsterdam in a stay of just a few days; there can be few capital cities that have such immediate, accessible appeal.

What to see

The citys layout is determined by a web of canals radiating out from a historical core to loop right round Amsterdams compact centre; it takes about forty minutes to walk from one end of the centre to the other. Butting up to the River IJ, the Old Centre spreads south from Centraal Station, bisected by Damrak and its continuation, Rokin, the citys main drag; en route is the Dam, the main square. The Old Centre remains Amsterdams commercial heart, as well as the hub of its bustling street life, holding myriad shops, bars and restaurants. The area is also home to the Red Light District, which contains dozens of fine old buildings, most memorably the Oude Kerk and the Koninklijk Paleis.

The Old Centre is bordered by the first of the major canals, the Singel, whose curve is mirrored by those of the Herengracht, Keizersgracht and Prinsengracht collectively known as the Grachtengordel, or Girdle of Canals. This is Amsterdams most delightful area, full of handsome seventeenth- and eighteenth-century canal houses with decorative gables, and narrow, dreamy canals. Here youll also find perhaps the citys most celebrated attraction, the Anne Frank Huis, the house in which the young Jewish diarist hid away during the German occupation of World War II, now a poignant reminder of the Holocaust.

Immediately to the west of the Grachtengordel lies the Jordaan, one-time industrial slum and now almost entirely gentrified. The same applies to the adjacent western docklands, dredged out of the river to create extra wharves and shipbuilding space during the seventeenth century; only in the past few decades has the shipping industry moved out.

On the other side of the centre is the old Jewish quarter, home to a thriving Jewish community until the German occupation of World War II, with a number of absorbing sights, including the Esnoga (Portuguese Synagogue) and the Joods Historisch Museum (Jewish Historical Museum). The adjacent Plantage is greener and more suburban, holding the excellent Verzetsmuseum (Dutch Resistance Museum) and Artis Royal Zoo. Just north, the eastern docklands is another formerly industrial area that has undergone rapid renewal; attractions here include NEMO, a science and technology museum, and the Scheepvaartmuseum (Maritime Museum). The regeneration continues across the River IJ in Amsterdam Noord, with the futuristic