An Amsterdam Good Time |
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Amsterdam is perhaps the most unique city I visited while in Europe. It goes without saying that Amsterdam’s reputation precedes it, with its liberal policies on soft drugs and prostitution. More than merely the sum of its smoke shops and window girls, Amsterdam is a very picturesque city, with marvelous old brick and stone buildings flanking scenic canals. It is also a very inviting city, with a generally warm and friendly populace that definitely knows how to have a good time.
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A good place to start your exploration of Amsterdam would be the area in front of the photogenic Central Station that overlooks the waterfront. From there, you can walk along the main avenue known as the Damrak, where you may see street artists recreating famous masterpieces in colored chalk on the sidewalk, and up to the large cobblestone square where the locals tend to gather and street musicians sometime set up for an impromptu concert (there was a three-piece trio there with portable practice amps doing a nice cover of Jackson Browne’s Running On Empty one afternoon.) Of equal walking distance from Central Station is a rather impressive cathedral, though I was a bit put off by the amount of graffiti that was scrawled on the walls of it and some of the other buildings. On some of the side streets, you’ll also find some of the famous coffee shops, that legal offer a large variety of types of marijuana and hash behind glass display counters, which is a bit of a novelty.
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Of course, there is the famous red light district. As you walk from the square back to the station along the Damrak, turn right as you reach the waterfront and follow the street that crosses the canal. You’ll soon notice that the sex shop windows are uncovered and that everything is in plain sight. The brick building on the corner before you get to the bridge houses the Museum of Torture, which is a bit bizarre but seems to fit right in…especially with the sexy leather-clad dominatrix sitting in the ticket booth. Across the canal you’ll find the sex clubs and the buildings with the ladies of the evening (or anytime) sitting in the windows that run the gambit from young and innocent-looking to old and rode hard too many times-looking.
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Rijksmuseum, Van Gough Museum, Heineken Brewery
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Delphi Hotel
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Amsterdam has some great Indonesian food. The place I went right along the canal served up a 10-course meal with just enough of each dish for everyone to get a good sample, but with every dish a little hotter than the last. I went through a lot of Heineken and ice water that night.
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Published on Tuesday July 16th, 2002 by el2995
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