The Rough Guide to Amsterdam 7 (Rough Guide Travel Guides) - Softcover

Rough Guides

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1858288983 ISBN 13: 9781858288987

Publisher: Rough Guides, 2003

Synopsis

INTRODUCTION

Amsterdam is a compact, instantly likeable city. It’s appealing to look at and pleasing to walk around, an intriguing mix of the parochial and the international; it also has a welcoming attitude towards visitors and a uniquely youthful orientation, shaped by the liberal counterculture of the last four decades. It’s hard not to feel drawn by the buzz of open-air summer events, by the cheery intimacy of the city’s clubs and bars, and by the Dutch facility with languages: just about everyone you meet in Amsterdam will be able to speak good-to-fluent English, on top of their own native tongue, and often more than a smattering of French and German too.

The city’s layout is determined by a web of canals radiating out from an historical core to loop right round the centre. These planned, seventeenth-century extensions to the medieval town make for a uniquely elegant urban environment, with tall gabled houses reflected in their black-green waters. This is the city at its most beguiling, a world away from the traffic and noise of many other European city centres, and it has made Amsterdam one of the continent’s most popular short-haul destinations. These charms are supplemented by a string of first-rate attractions, most notably the Anne Frankhuis, where the young Jewish diarist hid away during the German occupation of World War II, the Rijksmuseum, with its wonderful collection of Dutch paintings, including several of Rembrandt’s finest works, and the peerless Vincent van Gogh Museum, with the world’s largest collection of the artist’s work.

However, it’s Amsterdam’s population and politics that constitute its most enduring characteristics. Celebrated during the 1960s and 1970s for its radical permissiveness, the city mellowed only marginally during the 1980s, and, despite the gentrification of the last twenty years, it retains a laid-back feel. That said, it is far from being as cosmopolitan a city as, say, London or Paris: despite the huge numbers of immigrants from the former colonies in Surinam and Indonesia, as well as Morocco and Turkey – to name but a few – 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 run counter to everything you may have heard of Dutch integration.

The apparent contradiction embodies much of the spirit of Amsterdam. The city is world famous as a place where the possession and sale of cannabis are effectively legal – or at least decriminalized – and yet, for the most part, Amsterdammers themselves can’t really be bothered with the stuff. And while Amsterdam is renowned for its tolerance towards all styles of behaviour and dress, a primmer, more correct-thinking big city, with a more mainstream dress sense, would be hard to find. Behind the cosy cafés and dreamy canals lurks the suspicion that Amsterdammers’ hearts lie squarely in their wallets, and while newcomers might see the city as a liberal haven, locals can seem just as indifferent to this as well.

In recent years, a string of hardline city mayors have taken this conservatism on board and seem to have embarked on a generally successful – if often unspoken – policy of squashing Amsterdam’s image as a counterculture icon and depicting it instead as a centre for business and international high finance. Almost all the inner-city squats – which once well-nigh defined local people-power – are gone or legalized, and coffeeshops have been forced to choose between selling dope or alcohol, and, if only for economic reasons, many have switched to the latter. Such shifts in attitude, combined with alterations to the cityscape, in the form of large-scale urban development on the outskirts and regeneration within, combine to create an unmistakeable feeling that Amsterdam and its people are busy reinventing themselves, writing off their hippyfied history to return to earlier, more stolid days.

Nevertheless, Amsterdam remains a casual and intimate place, and 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 city’s unparalleled selection of drinking places, whether you choose a traditional brown bar or one of a raft of newer, designer cafés, or grand cafés. The city boasts dozens of great restaurants too, with its Indonesian cuisine second-to-none, and is at the forefront of contemporary European film, dance, drama and music. The city has several top-rank jazz venues and the Concertgebouw concert hall is home to one of the world’s leading orchestras. The club scene is restrained by the standard of other main cities, although the city’s many gay bars and clubs partly justify Amsterdam’s claim to be the "Gay Capital of Europe".

About this title

About the Author

Rough Guides are written by expert authors who are passionate about both writing and travel. They have detailed knowledge of the areas they write about—having either traveled extensively or lived there—and their expertise shines through on every page. It's priceless information, delivered with wit and insight, providing the down-to-earth, honest read that is the hallmark of Rough Guides.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

WHERE TO GO Confined by the circuitous sweep of the Singelgracht canal, Amsterdam s compact centre contains most of the city s leading attractions and only takes about forty minutes to stroll from one end to the other. Centraal Station, where you re likely to arrive, lies on the centre s northern edge, its back to the River IJ, and from the station the city fans south in a web of concentric canals, surrounded by expanding suburbs.

Butting up to the River IJ, the Old Centre spreads south from Centraal Station bisected by Damrak and its continuation, Rokin, long the city s main drag; en route is the Dam, the main square. The Old Centre remains Amsterdam s commercial heart, with the best of its bustling street life. It also holds myriad shops, bars and restaurants, includes the Red Light District, just to the east of Damrak, and contains dozens of fine old buildings, most memorably the Oude Kerk, the Amstelkring and the Koninklijk Paleis. The Old Centre is bordered by the first of the major canals, the Singel, which is followed closely by the Herengracht, Keizersgracht and Prinsengracht collectively known as the Grachtengordel, or "Girdle of Canals". These canals were part of a major seventeenth-century urban extension and, with the interconnecting radial streets, form the city s distinctive web shape. This is Amsterdam s most delightful area and the one you see on all the brochures handsome seventee! nth- and eighteenth-century canal houses, with their distinctive gables, overlooking narrow, dreamy canals: a familiar image perhaps, but one that is still entirely authentic. It s here you ll also find the city s most celebrated attraction, the Anne Frankhuis, a poignant reminder of the Holocaust.

Immediately to the west of the Grachtengordel lies the Jordaan, one-time industrial slum and the traditional heart of working-class Amsterdam, though in recent years the district has experienced a measure of gentrification. The same applies to the adjacent Westerdok, though the origins of this district are very different. The artificial islands of the Westerdok were dredged out of the river to create extra wharves and shipbuilding space during the city s Golden Age and only in the last few decades has the shipping industry moved out. On the other side of the centre is the Old Jewish Quarter, which was once home to a thriving Jewish community until the German occupation of World War II. Post-war development has laid a heavy hand on the quarter, but nonetheless there are a couple of poignant survivors, principally the Portuguese synagogue and the Jewish Historical Museum. The adjacent Plantagebuurt is greener and more suburban, but it does possess one excellent museum, the Ver! zetsmuseum (Resistance Museum) as does the neighbouring Oosterdok, another area of former dockland that is undergoing a rapid process of renewal and revival. Amsterdam s Museum Quarter contains, as you might expect, the city s premier art museums, principally the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum. Each has a superb collection and both lie just a stone s throw from the city s finest park, the Vondelpark. Finally, the residential suburbs or Outer Districts spreading beyond Singelgracht are relatively short of attractions, one notable exception being the wooded parkland of the Amsterdamse Bos.

Talk to Amsterdammers about visiting other parts of their country and you may well be met with looks of amazement: ignore them. The Dutch have an outstanding public transport system, an integrated network of trains and buses that puts the city within easy grasp of a large and varied slice of the country. Consequently, the choice of possible day-trips is extensive: the towns of Haarlem and Alkmaar, the old Zuider Zee ports of Marken and Volendam, and two villages, pretty Edam and the recreated seventeenth-century Dutch hamlet of De Zaanse Schans, are all worth a visit.

WHEN TO GO Amsterdam enjoys a fairly standard temperate climate, with warm, if characteristically mild, summers, and moderately cold and wet winters. The climate is certainly not severe enough to make very much difference to the city s routines, which makes the city an ideal all-year destination. That said, high summer roughly late June to August sees the city s parks packed to the gunnels and parts of the centre almost overwhelmed by the tourist throng, whereas spring and autumn are not too crowded and can be especially beautiful, with mist hanging over the canals and low sunlight beaming through the cloud cover. In the summer mosquitoes can be bothersome, and at any time of the year, but particularly in summer, try to book your accommodation ahead of time.

Edition details

• Publisher: Rough Guides
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1858288983
• ISBN 13: 9781858288987
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304