Jason's Travel Blog

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

From Seinfeld, The Butter Shave episode:

George: What is Holland?

Jerry: What do you mean, 'what is it?' It's a country right next to Belgium.

George: No, that's the Netherlands.

Jerry: Holland *is* the Netherlands.

George: Then who are the Dutch?

Yes, I'm here in the Netherlands. Europe's most densely populated country. Today I took my own personal walking tour of the city. I only had a few hours, but there was a lot to see in just that short time.

The city in general strikes me as very beautiful. It is definitely old world, with the narrow streets and architecture that goes back hundreds of years. The canals, of course are a major part of the feeling of the city. You are never far from the water. In fact many people live on house boats right on the canals.

There is quite a bit of construction going on, but still, the city seems calm. A colleague from New York pointed out that he was walking through the city at 11AM on Sunday, and it was almost silent. Yes, it was a Sunday, but how many major cities are quite at any time day or night?

One reason for this may be the number of people who walk, or more often, ride bicycles in the city. The population of Amsterdam is a bit more than 700,000, and there are 600,000 bikes. From what I saw, I'd guess that most of the people who don't own bikes are the babies I saw riding around on the backs of bikes.



I started my day at the Centraal Station. It's just a few minutes by train from the airport. You can catch one of the many trams here to almost anywhere you'll want to get to in the city.



I did my sightseeing on foot, but the trams seem to be very efficient (I've ridden the commuter trains several times and find them to be excellent). You can buy travel passes "dagkaarten" in many places that will give you unlmited access to all public transportation for the day and are a great deal if you use the trams/trains/buses more than once or twice.

Just a few minute's walk from the station is The Dam, the main square that is built on the site of the original dam across the Amstel river, which is how the city got its name. In the square is the Koninklijk Paleis, the royal palace. It was built in 1662 and actually sits on over 13,000 wooden pillars. Tours of the palace are offered at varying times.



On the opposite side of the square is the national monument, which honors those who died in World War II.



Just off of Dam Square (to your right as you face the monument) is Dam Square Souvenirs.



It's a nice little gift shop, selling any number of things you might want, including a vast array of wooden clogs.



If you are looking for t-shirts, you might be better off at another shop. This store had some, but not as many as others. Personally, I found all but one of my souvenirs for the day in this shop. The prices seemed reasonable as well.

If you walk around to the rear of the Paleis and continue west, you'll come to an area called Jaarden. Originally, this was an upscale neighborhood to live in, and it has slowly transformed into a very trendy place to shop and eat. The streets were lined with cafes and restaurants, and interesting shops. Since I'm typing this on an iBook, I couldn't resist this one:



This is also where I found a shop called Exota for Kids, which I had read is a very cool shop for little children's clothes. Unfortunately, it was closed on Mondays.

After stopping for a coffee (jet lag), I took about a fifteen minutes stroll along one of the major canals. There are, of course, house boats all along the canals. Most of them don't look much like boats, more like barges, but they are defnitely little homes on the water, and some do look more like boats. Here's a couple of pictures of some that I saw.






Next stop on the tour, was Vondelpark, which was named after the poet and playwright Joost van den Vondel (the Dutch Shakespeare). The park was made famous, much later, during the 60s, as Amsterdam's acceptance of drug use collided with the hippie movement and the park blossomed into an open-air (open everything really) experimental living community.




In Vondelpark, after grabbing a hot dog for lunch (hey, when in Amsterdam...), I came across three interesting buildings. The first was interesting for what it turned out to be - I had no idea at the time, other than that it looked interesting. This is "De Amsterdamse Huishoudschool" (The Amsterdam school of Housecraft). There is a cookbook (I think several, actually) published from the school. I had no idea, considering it seems that the national cuisine is mainly pancakes and potatos (and pancakes made from potatos) - oh yeah, and chocolate.



The second was interesting in that it is a church named after a playwright. I'm not an expert on these things, but it struck me as unusual to have a church that did not have a name based on a religious figure or symbol. It's also an imposing building (and no longer a church, now housing a cafe).



The third building was interesting mostly because I like film. This is the Nederlands Filmmuseum, where they have free screenings in the summertime.



From here, I made my way to the Van Gogh (pronounced like "hawk," but you sort of make the "h" sound instead of the "k"...anyway) Museum.




I really wish I had more time to spend in the museums, of which Amsterdam has a very large number. Even for the Van Gogh, I only got to see the permanent collection. They are also currently featuring a collection of Rembrandt and Caravaggio in the temporary exhibit space (which is the very modern silver building in the picture above). As it was, I think I had just enough time to really enjoy the Van Gogh exhibit. Unfortunately (for me, good for the paintings), no photos are allowed inside the museum.

For the museums, if you are going to more than one, check out the various combination ticket options. They had deal where you could buy a ticket that would get you access to the Van Gogh museum (including the temporary exhibits, which require a separate admission), and the Rijksmuseum, and can be used repeatedly for something like 90 days. Normally, this would cost 29 euros if purchased separately (and only good once), but the combo was only 25 euros. A good deal if you're going to spend several days, which you could. The Rijksmuseum is massive, and while parts of it are undergoing a major renovation, some of my colleagues went and thought it was amazing. It houses more than one million pieces of art and artifacts.



The Van Gogh Museum and the Rijksmuseum sit on this very nice open park, and I saw this skateboard half-pipe sitting off to one side. Just my luck, there were a couple of kids skating. I just thought it says something. I don't know what, but something, and I thought it was cool on some level.



Also on this same park was the Concertgebouw, which is the world's busiest concert hall, receiving over 800,000 visitors a year.



As I continued on my trip around the city, I came across the Heineken Brewery, which does offer tours as well. It's not my favorite beer, and I didn't have time for the tour:



This is one of the canals, Reguliersgracht, which is called the canal of the seven bridges. It's apparently a sight to see at night, when each of the bridges is strung with lights. If you stand on the bridge at the north end (on the Herengracht canal), which I wasn't when I took this picture, you can see all seven bridges.



This is the Stadhuis-Opera, the opera house. Apparently, there was a major battle caused by what many saw as the building's rather dull design. The protests, which delayed the project by almost 20 years, gave the place the nickname "Stopera."



This is the Netherlands Academy of Film and Television. did I mention I like film?



This is the Waterlooplein, one of the many markets in Amsterdam. It's an open air market, similar in many ways to a flea market, or bazaar. Some of the things in the stalls are new, others are antique or vintage. There is clothing, including t-shirts and clogs, as well as a wide range of jewelry and other notions (one stall was full of, shall we say, retro stereo equipment). A word of warning, there are several stalls that contain material that I wouldn't consider appropriate for children, and they aren't hidden at all. Adult videos and drug paraphernalia, and some of the t-shirts were very adult in language and images (I actually realized I needed to crop this image, as I had caught some adult t-shirts in frame to the right). There are other such markets in the city, and I imagine they might have similar items.



As you probably know, Amsterdam has an open policy on "soft" drugs as well as prostituion. I didn't venture into the red light district, so you won't find any descriptions here. If you don't know (and haven't read a guide book that mentions it), there are any number of shops called "coffeeshops" that are licensed to sell limited quantities of drugs to customers over the age of 18. Perhaps not surprisingly, only 5% of coffeeshop customers are Dutch.

I really enjoyed Amsterdam, and wish I had more time to spend. I would have liked to visit a few more of the museums, and there are many areas of the city that I didn't get to. My walk took me about 4.5 hours, including about 2 hours at the Van Gogh museum, and a few wrong turns. In that time, I walked around a good portion of the city. I prefer to walk when I can, especially the first time (assuming I know it's safe). You get a much better feel for a place on foot. If I was going to be here more than one day, I would probably use the trams more. If you are really comfortable, you can rent a bicycle and do as the locals do. Beware, some cyclists ride very fast, and other than ringing a bell, there is little warning that you are about to get run over. In many areas, the bike lane is separate from auto traffic, but often there is only a dotted line marking the space, and the streets are narrow. There are also a high number of motor scooters, which sometimes share the bike lanes.

Amsterdam is a beautiful city with a long, rich history in both geopolitical and industrial terms. It is also an extremely progressive social environment. You may not agree with some or all of the openness, but it's quite an incubator for forward thought.

For info, the guidebook I used during my trip was by Lonely Planet, which puts out a very nice line of travel books.



Until the next stop...

posted by Jason Ward @ 5:41 PM