Table Of ContentAmsterdam
D I R E C T I O N S
written and researched by
Martin Dunford and Phil Lee
Rough Guides New Media
New York · London · Delhi
www.roughguides.com
Publishing Information
This 1st edition published August 2004 by Rough Guides Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL.
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© Rough Guides, 2004
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ISBN 1-84353-306-5
The publishers and authors have done their best to ensure the accuracy and currency of all the information
in Amsterdam DIRECTIONS, however, they can accept no responsibility for any loss, injury, or
inconvenience sustained by any traveller as a result of information or advice contained in the guide.
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Contents
Introduction
Ideas
The big six sights
Brown Cafés
Restaurants
Art galleries
Coffeeshops
Hostellers’ Amsterdam
Green Amsterdam
Clubbers’ Amsterdam
Kids’ Amsterdam
Gay Amsterdam
Festivals
Canalside Amsterdam
Markets
Special shopping
Rembrandt
Designer bars
Traditional architecture
Modern architecture
Churches
What to eat
Clothes
Tearooms
Hotels
Museums
Musical Amsterdam
Getting around
Places
The Old Centre
The Grachtengordel
The western canals and the Jordaan
The Old Jewish Quarter and Eastern Docks
The Museum Quarter and the Vondelpark
The Outer Districts
Day-trips from Amsterdam
Accommodation
Hotels
Hostels
Essentials
Arrival
Red tape and visas
City transport
Information and maps
Banks and exchange
Communications
Opening hours
Public holidays
Festivals and events
Entertainment and nightlife
Drugs
Directory
Language
Small Print
A Rough Guide to Rough Guides
Rough Guide Credits
Help us update
The authors
Acknowledgements
Introduction
This is as easy and engaging a capital city as you’ll find – a compact,
immediately likeable place, small enough to explore easily in a weekend, and
with an intriguing combination of the parochial and the international. Just about
everyone speaks good-to-fluent English, and more often than not more than a
smattering of French and German as well.
Amsterdam is a thoughtful city too, with a long-standing liberal tradition that
has given it a distinctive character, beginning with the obvious – the legalised
prostitution and dope-smoking coffeeshops – through to the more subtle,
encapsulated by Amsterdammers themselves in the Dutch word gezellig, which
roughly corresponds to a combination of "cosy", "lived-in" and "warmly
convivial". Nowhere is this more applicable than in the city’s unparalleled
selection of gezellig drinking establishments, whether you choose a traditional
brown café or one of the newer, designer places. In addition, the city boasts
dozens of great restaurants, with its Indonesian cuisine second-to-none, and is at
the forefront of contemporary European film, dance, drama and music.
Amsterdam has several top-rank jazz venues – the Dutch have long had a soft
spot for jazz – and the Concertgebouw concert hall is home to one of the world’s
leading orchestras. By comparison, the club scene is restrained by the standard
of other big cities, although gay men are well catered for in the many gay bars
and clubs, partly justifying Amsterdam’s claim to be the "Gay Capital of
Europe".
When to visit
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 Amsterdam 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 tourists, 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.
Indeed, Amsterdam has more than its fair share of cloudy days at any time of the
year, but even in January and February, when things can be at their gloomiest,
there are compensations – wet cobbles glistening under the street lights and the
canals rippled by falling raindrops. In the summer, from around June to August,
mosquitoes can be bothersome. At any time of the year, but particularly in
summer, try to book your accommodation well ahead of time.
The layout of the city is determined by a web of canals radiating out from an
historical core to loop right round the centre in a "Girdle of Canals", the
Grachtengordel. This planned, seventeenth-century extension to the medieval
town makes for a uniquely elegant urban environment, with tall gabled houses
reflected in black-green waters. This is where the city is at its most beguiling, a
world away from the traffic and noise of many another European city centre, 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.
Amsterdam at a glance
RedLight District
Once upon a time this area was on the edge of the city. Now it’s perhaps
Amsterdam’s most notorious neighbourhood, thronged with tourists and gangs of
men here to ogle scantily clad prostitutes sitting in windows. It has to be seen,
but it’s worth bearing in mind that this is a business – rather than a tourist –
district, with a solid bedrock of sleaze beneath the veneer of good, clean fun.
De Pijp
The increasingly gentrified heart of working-class Amsterdam is worth visiting
for its vibrant daily market and growing number of cool bars and eateries.
Grachtengordel
The ultimate in thoughtful city planning, the Grachtengordel – basically the ring
of canals that was dug around the medieval centre in the seventeenth century –
tripled the city in size, and made Amsterdam what it is today. When anyone
thinks of the city, it is these elegant waterways, crisscrossed by bridges, and
flanked by tall quirkily gabled houses, that they have in mind.
Old Jewish Quarter
Amsterdam’s Jewish Quarter is not what it was – most of its inhabitants were
deported during the Nazi occupation, and it’s been unsympathetically
redeveloped since then. But it holds a few fascinating corners of Jewish and
wartime history as well as some key one-off attractions like the Rembrandthuis
and the city’s zoo.
Outside Amsterdam
Don’t forget that Holland is a small country and that there are plenty of
compelling attractions very close at hand – not least the small town of Haarlem,
with the great Frans Hals Museum, and the stunning Keukenhof Gardens, among
others.
Museum Quarter
Unsurprisingly, this area, just south of the city centre proper, is home to the
cream of Amsterdam’s museums. It is also one of the city’s plusher
neighbourhoods, with leafy streets and apartment blocks and upscale shops and
restaurants. There are quite a few moderately priced hotels here too.
Western Canals and the Jordaan
In many ways this is the city centre's most appealing and restful area, with some
of the most graceful stretches of the main canals, the more ramshackle small
waterways of the Jordaan, and the tall warehouses of the former harbour area.
All without pesky trams and traffic.
Ideas
The big six sights
Brown Cafés
Restaurants
Art galleries
Coffeeshops
Hostellers’ Amsterdam
Green Amsterdam
Clubbers’ Amsterdam
Kids’ Amsterdam
Gay Amsterdam
Festivals
Canalside Amsterdam
Markets
Special shopping
Rembrandt
Designer bars
Traditional architecture
Modern architecture
Churches
What to eat
Clothes
Tearooms
Hotels
Museums
Musical Amsterdam
Getting around
