Amsterdam Directions Read online

  The first floor is dedicated to Dutch colonialism, focusing on Indonesia and the Pacific, with many treasures on show for the first time after having been hidden away for years.Amongst the artefacts, there are Javanese stone friezes, elaborate carved wooden boats from New Guinea, life-size figures dressed in colonial dress and, perhaps strangest of all, ritual ancestor "bispoles" cut from giant New Guinea mangroves. The collection is imaginatively presented in a variety of media – slides, DVDs and sound recordings – and there are also creative and engaging displays devoted to such subjects as music-making and puppetry, as well as traditional storytelling. In addition, there are reconstructions, down to sounds and smells, of typical streets in Iran and Latin America and these aim to provide candid expositions on the problems besetting the world, both culturally – with the year-long exhibition "Urban Islam" – and environmentally.

  While you’re here, be sure to look in on the bookshop, which has a good selection of titles on the developing world, and try the inexpensive restaurant, the Ekeko, which serves tropical snacks and lunches, including popular national dishes from the exhibited countries. Downstairs, the Tropen Instituut Theater specializes in Third World cinema, music and dance.

  Shops

  Waterwinkel

  Roelof Hartstraat 10 (Oud Zuid) tel 020/675 5932.

  The only thing on offer here is water – over 100 different types of bottled mineral water from all over the world. Try the wonderful German Statl Fasching.

  Coffeeshops

  Greenhouse

  Tolstraat 91.

  Consistently sweeps the boards at the annual Cannabis Cup, with medals for its dope as well as "Best Coffeeshop". Tolstraat is a way down to the south (tram #4), but worth the trek: if you’re only buying once, buy here. Also branches nearer to the centre at Waterlooplein 345 and O.Z. Voorburgwal 191.

  Cafés and tearooms

  Granny

  1e van der Helststraat 45.

  Just off the Albert Cuyp market, this café serves up terrific appelgebak and koffie verkeerd.

  Molenaur Vishandel

  Albert Cuypstraat 93.

  What better place to round off your visit to the market than to sample the delights of this excellent – and typical – Dutch fish stall.

  Restaurants

  L’Angoletto

  Hemonystraat 2; tel 020/676 4182. Closed Sat.

  Just about everyone’s favourite Italian, inexpensive and always packed, with long wooden tables and benches that create a very sociable atmosphere. Not everything they serve is shown on the menu, so keep an eye on the glass showcase in front of the kitchen for any specials. No bookings, so just turn up and hope for the best.

  Hotel Okura

  Ferdinand Bolstraat 333; tel 020/678 7111.

  The two restaurants in this five-star hotel – the sushi restaurant Yamazato, and the grill-plate restaurant Teppan-Yaki Sazanka – serve the finest Japanese cuisine in the city. Reckon on at least €50 per person. Advance booking essential.

  Saray

  Gerard Doustraat 33; tel 020/671 9216.

  Excellent Turkish eatery down in the De Pijp neighbourhood. Popular with students.

  Warung Marlon

  1e van der Helststraat 55; tel 020/671 1526. Daily except Tues 11am–8pm.

  Surinamese takeaway and popular hangout for lunch, rapidly gaining a loyal clientele. Lively atmosphere.

  De Waaghals

  Frans Halsstraat 29; tel 020/679 9609. Tues–Sun 5–9.30pm.

  Well-prepared organic dishes in this cooperative-run restaurant near the Albert Cuyp.

  Zagros

  Albert Cuypstraat 50; tel 020/670 0461.

  Popular no-frills Kurdish restaurant run by four brothers. Serves inexpensive traditional dishes from around €3 for starters and €11 for lamb and chicken mains. Vegetarian food available too.

  Bars

  De Engel

  Albert Cuypstraat 182.

  Excellent spot if you’re hankering after a sit-down while you’re shopping in the adjacent market. This is a beautifully restored café with huge candle-lit tables and angels painted on the wall. Live jazz on Sat & Sun, and classical music concerts provided on Sunday mornings by local students.

  Café Krull

  Sarphatipark 2.

  On the corner of 1e van der Helststraat, a few metres from the Albert Cuyp, this is an atmospheric and lively place. The actual krull (curve) is the nearby men’s urinoir – designed in a curve. Drinks and snacks all day long from 11am.

  East of Eden

  Linnaeusstraat 11.

  A wonderfully relaxed little place right near the Tropenmuseum. Appealing combination of high-ceilinged splendour and gently waving palm trees, with James Dean thrown in to boot. A good way to spend a sunny afternoon.

  De Vrolijke Drinker

  Frans Halsstraat 66A; tel 020/771 4316. Mon–Thurs 4pm–1am, Fri & Sat 4pm–3am.

  One of the more intimate bars along this road, with board games and a large selection of rum. Frequented by locals and expats alike, friends of the English-speaking owner. From March to November the pavement tables become a pleasant terrace for people-watching.

  Wynbar Boelen&Boelen

  Eerste van der Helststraat 50; tel 020/671 2242. Tues–Sun 5pm–1am.

  Tasteful wine bar close to Albert Cuypstraat market with a huge selection of wines from around the world, all available by the glass. A heated terrace provides alfresco eating even in the cooler months, and the French restaurant offers seafood delights such as a dozen oysters for around €10.

  Clubs and venues

  Arena

  ’s-Gravensandestraat 51; tel 020/850 2400, www.hotelarena.nl.

  Hip club adjoining a hotel that used to be an orphanage and an asylum. Open Fridays and Saturdays 11pm–4am, with occasional Salsa nights and special parties hosted on a Sunday. International DJs sometimes drop by – and that’s when you can expect the entrance fee to jump from around €11 to €20. Tram #6 from Centraal Station.

  Day-trips from Amsterdam

  Amsterdammers will tell you that there’s nothing remotely worth seeing outside their own city, but that’s far from the truth. The fast and efficient Dutch railway network puts a whole swathe of the Netherlands within easy reach, including all of the Randstad, a sprawling conurbation that stretches south and east of Amsterdam and encompasses the country’s other big cities, The Hague, Utrecht and Rotterdam. Close to Amsterdam, amidst this urban pile-up, Haarlem’s attractive centre is home to the outstanding Frans Hals Museum, and is also near the showcase of the country’s flower growers, the Keukenhof Gardens. To the north of Amsterdam, the most obvious targets are the old seaports bordering the freshwater Ijsselmeer and Markermeer lakes, formerly – before the enclosing dykes were put in – the choppy and notoriously unpredictable saltwater Zuider Zee. No trains venture out along this coast, but it’s an easy bus ride from Amsterdam to the most interesting of them, the former fishing village of Marken, as well as to the beguiling one-time shipbuilding centre of Edam. Edam is, of course, famous for its cheese, but its open-air cheese market is not a patch on that of Alkmaar, an amiable small town forty minutes by train north from Amsterdam. On the way, most trains pause at Koog-Zaandijk, the nearest station to the windmills and canals of the recreated Dutch village of Zaanse Schans, which illustrates eighteenth-century rural life.

  Haarlem and the Frans Hals Museum

  An easy fifteen-minute journey by train (4 hourly) from Amsterdam’s Centraal Station, Haarlem has a very different pace and feel from its big-city neighbour. Once a flourishing cloth-making centre, nowadays it’s an easily absorbed town of around 15,000 souls with a good-looking centre studded with fine old buildings. The real draw, however, is the outstanding Frans Hals Museum, located in the almshouse where the artist spent his last, and for some his most brilliant, years. Located at Groot Heiligland 62 (Tues–Sat 11am–5pm, Sun noon–5pm; €5.40; www.franshalsmuseum.nl), it’s a five-minute stroll south from the main square, the Grote Markt – tak
e pedestrianized Lange Veerstraat and keep straight as far as Gasthuispoort, where you turn right and then first left.

  The museum holds a relatively small but eclectic collection of Dutch paintings from the fifteenth century onwards and features a handful of prime works by Hals. Chief among the paintings not by Hals are works by Jan van Scorel; Karel van Mander, the leading light of the Haarlem School and mentor of many of the city’s most celebrated painters; Haarlem-born Jan Mostaert; and Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem. As for Hals, the museum’s collection includes the set of "Civic Guard" portraits with which he made his name. Displayed all together, these make a powerful impression – alongside the artist’s later, darker works, the most notable of which are the twin Regents and Regentesses of the Oudemannenhuis. There are those who claim Hals had lost his touch by the time he painted these pictures, yet the sinister, almost ghostly power of the regents facing each other across the room suggests quite the opposite. And Van Gogh’s remark that "Frans Hals had no fewer than 27 blacks" suddenly makes perfect sense.

  The Keukenhof Gardens

  www.keukenhof.com. Late March to late May daily 8am–7.30pm. €12.

  The pancake-flat fields extending south from Haarlem towards Leiden are the heart of the Dutch bulbfields, whose bulbs and blooms support a billion-dollar industry and some ten thousand growers, as well as attracting tourists in their droves. The small town of Lisse, halfway between Leiden and Haarlem, is home to the Keukenhof Gardens, the largest flower gardens in the world. Literally the "kitchen garden", its site is the former estate of a fifteenth-century countess, who used to grow herbs and vegetables for her dining table here. Some seven million flowers are on show for their full flowering period, complemented, in case of especially harsh winters, by 5000 square metres of glasshouses holding indoor displays. You could easily spend a whole day here, swooning among the sheer abundance of it all, but to get the best of it you need to come early, before the tour buses pack the place. There are several restaurants in the 28 hectares of grounds, and well-marked paths take you all the way through the gardens, which specialize in daffodils, hyacinths and tulips.

  To get to the Keukenhof by public transport from Amsterdam (or Haarlem), take the train to Leiden (every 20min) and then catch bus #54 (every 30min) from the adjacent bus station.

  Marken

  Stuck out in the freshwater Markermeer, the tiny little island of Marken was, until its road connection to the mainland in 1957, pretty much a closed community, supported by a small fishing industry. Nowadays, the fishing has all but disappeared, though the island – or rather its one and only village, Marken – does attract hundreds of day-trippers on account of the picturesque charm of its immaculately maintained houses, mostly painted in deep green with white trimmings, clustered on top of artificial mounds first raised to protect the islanders from the sea. There are two main parts to the village, beginning with Havenbuurt, behind the harbour, where the waterfront is dotted with snack bars and souvenir shops, often staffed by locals in traditional costume. The other part – Kerkbuurt – centred on the church, is a good deal quieter, its narrow lanes lined by ancient dwellings and old eel-smoking houses. One or two of the houses are open to visitors, proclaiming themselves to be typical of Marken, and here and there you’ll find poignant reminders of just how hard life used to be in communities like this.

  Marken is accessible direct from Amsterdam on bus #111, departing from outside Centraal Station (every 15–30min; 30min). The bus drops passengers beside the car park on the edge of Marken village, from where it’s a five-minute walk to the centre.

  Edam

  Located just 12km or so up along the coast from Marken, you might expect Edam to be jammed with tourists considering the international fame of the rubbery red balls of cheese that carry its name. In fact, Edam usually lacks the crowds and remains a delightful, good-looking and prosperous little town of neat brick houses, swing bridges and slender canals. In fact, "Edam" is the name of a type of cheese and not its place of origin, and the red balls are produced all over the place, not necessarily even in Holland. Nonetheless the open-air cheese market here, held every Wednesday morning in July and August on the Kaasmarkt (10.30am–12.30pm), draws huge crowds.

  Leaving Amsterdam every half hour from outside Centraal Station, bus #110 takes 40 minutes to reach Edam. Edam’s bus station is on the southwest edge of town, on Singelweg, a five-minute walk from Damplein. There are no signs, but aim for the easily spotted Speeltoren tower: cross the distinctive swing bridge, turn right and follow Lingerzijde as it jinks left and right. From the Speeltoren, it’s a few metres east to the Damplein, where the VVV issues town maps and has details of boat trips both along the local canals and out into the Markermeer. Bike rental is available at Ronald Schot, in the town centre at Grote Kerkstraat 7 (tel 029/937 2155, www.ronaldschot.nl); day rental costs €6.50.

  Zaanse Schans

  April–Oct daily (some parts closed Mon); Nov–March Sat & Sun. Precise times available from the visitor centre, daily 8.30am–5pm; tel 075/616 8218, www.zaanseschans.nl.

  Local trains heading north from Amsterdam’s Centraal Station cut through the city’s sprawling suburbs en route to Koog-Zaandijk, the nearest station to the recreated Dutch village of Zaanse Schans, about 800m away. Made up of around twenty five cottages, windmills and workshops assembled from all over the region, this represents an energetic attempt to reproduce a Dutch village as it would have looked in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Spread over a network of narrow canals beside the River Zaan, it’s a pretty spot and deservedly popular, with the particular highlight being its string of working windmills, giant industrial affairs used – amongst other things – to cut wood, grind mustard seeds and produce oil. This is the closest place to Amsterdam to see working windmills and there’s a scattering of other attractions too, notably a bakery, the inevitable cheese-making workshop and a clog-making workshop. It’s actually possible to walk round Zaanse Schans at any time, and in the evening or early morning you may well have the place pretty much to yourself. Finally, there are also enjoyable hour-long boat trips on the River Zaan from the jetty near the De Huisman mustard windmill (April–Oct daily 11am–4pm, every hour; €7; tel 075/614 6762).

  Alkmaar cheese market

  Mid-April to mid-Sept Fri 10am–noon.

  Forty minutes from Amsterdam by train – and thirty from Koog-Zaandijk – the little town of Alkmaar was founded in the tenth century in the middle of a marsh. It takes its name from the auk, a diving bird which once hung around here in numbers, as in alkeen meer, or auk lake. The town’s agreeable, partially canalized centre is still surrounded by its moat, and holds a cluster of impressive medieval buildings, but Alkmaar is perhaps best known for its much-touted cheese market, an ancient affair that these days ranks as one of the most extravagant tourist spectacles in Holland. Cheese has been sold on the main square – the Waagplein – since the 1300s, and although it’s no longer a serious commercial concern, the market remains popular and continues to draw the crowds. If you want a good view be sure to get here early, as by opening time the crowds are already thick on the ground. The ceremony starts with the buyers sniffing, crumbling, and finally tasting each cheese, followed by intensive bartering. Once a deal has been concluded, the cheeses – golden discs of Gouda mainly, laid out in rows and piles on the square – are borne away on ornamental carriers by groups of four porters for weighing. The porters wear white trousers and shirt plus a black hat whose coloured bands – green, blue, red or yellow – represent the four companies that comprise the cheese porters’ guild. Payment for the cheeses, tradition has it, takes place in the cafés around the square.

  From Alkmaar’s train and bus station, it’s about ten minutes’ walk to the centre of town: keep straight outside the station along Spoorstraat, take the first right down Snaarmanslaan and then left at busy Geesterweg, which leads over the old city moat to St Laurenskerk. From the church, it’s another five minutes’ walk east along Langestraat to the
VVV (tourist office), housed in the Waag on Waagplein.

  Restaurants

  Het Hof van Alkmaar

  Hof van Sonoy 1, Alkmaar; tel 072/512 1222.

  Occupies delightful premises just off Nieuwesloot. During the day this restaurant offers inexpensive sandwiches, snacks and pancakes, and at night they serve up tasty Dutch cuisine – it’s the best place in town.

  Restaurant La Plume

  Lange Veerstraat 1, Haarlem; tel 023/531 3202.

  A popular and very affordable restaurant with a range of tasty dishes from pastas through to traditional Dutch.

  Cafés and bars

  Café 1900

  Barteljorisstraat 10, Haarlem.

  With an attractive early twentieth-century interior, this has long been a popular café-bar, serving drinks and light meals.

  Proeflokaal ’t Apothekertje

  Vismarkt, Alkmaar.

  An old-style bar, open till 2am, with an attractive antique-cluttered interior and a laid-back atmosphere.

  Accommodation

  Hotels

  Hostels

  Hotels

  Hotel accommodation in Amsterdam can be difficult to find, and is often a major expense, especially in the summer. The city’s compactness means that you’ll almost inevitably end up somewhere central, but if you arrive without a reservation you’ll still need to search hard to find somewhere decent. At peak times of the year – July and August, Easter and Christmas – you’d be advised to book well ahead; hotel rooms can be swallowed up remarkably quickly. You can do this direct or through the Netherlands Reservations Centre (tel 0031/299 689 144, fax 0031/299 689 154, www.hotelres.nl) or www.bookings.nl, both of which allow you to view availability and prices before making a booking.