Amsterdam

NIGHTLIFE & THE ARTS

2009-08-20T06:30:00.000-07:00

Amsterdam’s entertainment scene is wonderfully easy-going and remarkably diverse for a city of its size. It may not be as sophisticated as some European cities – minimalist interiors are still a fairly new concept – but the soft entry to most venues, apart from a few nightclubs, is refreshing. Dress is for the most part casual, and people won’t blink if you wear jeans to the opera. This place always feels familiar, like a cosmopolitan village where everyone knows one another.There are loads of big concert halls, theatres, cinemas and other performance venues. Generous subsidies help support a flourishing arts scene with world-renowned orchestras, as well as ballet and opera. The city really comes alive when there’s open-air entertainment in the parks and streets, and along the canals.

CLUBBING

2009-07-16T03:32:00.000-07:00

Much of the action takes place in the city centre and Southern Canal Belt, but locals may prefer the large, glitzy venues outside town. Most nightclubs close at 4am on Thursday and Sunday and 5am on Friday and Saturday. Looking for the after-party? Keep an eye out for flyers at record shops and clubwear stores.If there’s a bouncer, you may have to pass muster; entry rules are supposed to be posted after a member of the Dutch parliament was recently denied admission. Entry fees can be as much as €20. Others are free, in which case you should slip the doorperson a couple of euros as you leave.

EARLY TRADE

2009-06-29T06:41:00.000-07:00

Farming was tricky on the marshland, and with the sea on the doorstep, early residents turned
to fishing. But it was commercial trade that would put Holland on the map. While powerful
city-states focused on overland trade with Flanders and northern Italy, Amsterdam levelled its
sights on the maritime routes. The big prizes were the North and Baltic seas, in the backyard
of the powerful Hanseatic League, a group of German trading cities. Ignoring the league, Amsterdam’s clever vrijbuiters (booty-chasers) sailed right into the Baltic, their holds full of cloth and salt to exchange for grain and timber. It was nothing short of a coup. By the late 1400s, nearly two-thirds of ships sailing to and from the Baltic Sea were from Holland, mostly based in Amsterdam.Already strained to capacity, the original harbour on the Damrak and Rokin was extended north into the IJ river, near what is now Centraal Station. Canals were dug to the warehouses in today’s Medieval Centre. By this time sailors, merchants, artisans and opportunists from the Low Countries (roughly present-day Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg) made their living here. At the time, Amsterdam was unfettered by the key structures of other European societies. With no tradition of Church-sanctioned feudal relationships, no distinction between nobility and serfs, and hardly any taxation, a society of individualism and capitalism slowly took root.

FROM THE BEGINNING

2009-06-24T05:10:00.000-07:00

Originally, the region that spawned a giant trading community was an inhospitable patchwork of lakes, swamps and peat, at or below sea level; its contours shifted with the autumn storms and floods. The oldest archaeological finds here date from Roman times, when the IJ river lay along the northern border of the Roman Empire. Too busy elsewhere, and no doubt put off by the mushy conditions, the Romans left practically no evidence of settlement.Isolated farming communities tamed the marshlands with ditches and dykes. Between 1150 and 1300 the south bank of the IJ was dyked from the Zuiderzee westwards to Haarlem. Around 1200, a fishing community known as Aemstelredamme – ‘the dam built across the Amstel’ – emerged at what is now the Dam. On 27 October 1275, the count of Holland waived tolls for those who lived around the Amstel dam, allowing locals to pass the locks and bridges of Holland free of charge, and the town of Amsterdam was born.

When to visit

2009-05-22T06:39:00.000-07:00

Amsterdam enjoys a fairly standard temperate climate, with warm, if characteristically mild summers and moderately cold and wet winters. Theclimate is certainly not severe enough to make very much difference to thecity’s routines, which makes Amsterdam an ideal all-year destination. Thatsaid, high summer – roughly late June to August – sees the city’s parks packed to the gunnels and parts of the centre almost overwhelmed bytourists, 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 shareof cloudy days at any time of the year, but even in January andFebruary, when things can be at their gloomiest, there arecompensations – wet cobbles glistening under the street lights and the canals rippled by falling raindrops. In thesummer, from around June to August, mosquitoes canbe bothersome. At any time of the year, but particular-ly in summer, try to book your accommodation well ahead of time.

Amsterdam

2009-05-06T06:08:00.000-07:00

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 thought ful 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 them selves in the Dutch word gezellig, which roughly corresponds to a combi nation of “cosy”, “lived-in” and “warmly con-vivial”. 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 greatrestaurants, with its Indonesian cuisine second to none, and is at the forefront of contemporary European film, dance, 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”.