Netherlands
Long a Mecca for lovers of the depraved and oft buried among the throngs of suburbanites come to partake of drugs and whores, behind the sleaze the country can be a rewarding destination. Just don't bring the kids.
Essential facts
The national language is Dutch, though you'd never know it from looking at Amsterdam. Dutch is a Germanic language, which has been likened to speaking German with your mouth full of marbles. It seems the entire country speaks fluent English - you'll likely never need to ever speak Dutch. The currency is the Guilder, stable at about 2 to the USD. Cirrus/MasterCard ATMs are plentiful, and costs are average for Western Europe, although the price for "Fine American Crack" in the Red-light district was quite high. And yes, Prostitution, Marijuana, and Hashish are legal, though contrary to popular opinion it is not legal to smoke the latter two anywhere in public, and harder drugs are illegal. It seems to be common practice to use the canals as public urinals, at least in the Red-Light district.
Getting there and away
Reclaimed from the sea, the country is the northernmost of the Low Countries. |
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Schiphol airport, outside of Amsterdam is one of the MAJOR European gateways for travel from the states - you can (and I have) found tickets into Schiphol from Chicago or New York for under $400 at the beginning of the summer. Train connections from Amsterdam to virtually anywhere else in Europe are very plentiful and the country makes a great gateway to the continent.
Behind all the sleaze, Amsterdam is actually a very attractive city, but your enjoyment of the city is directly correlated to your desire to party. If you have a moral objection to drug use or prostitution, just stay away. You will despise Amsterdam to no end. If you are in the right mood, the city can be fun, if you've not just don't go.
Attractions
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Downriver along the canals of Amsterdam. | |
There are some guidebooks (especially the up-market ones) that give the impression that the sleaze is basically confined to the Red-light district. They are wrong. The whole city is one big red light district, while the "Red Light district" proper just has a higher concentration of the sleaze that permeates everything. The district has to be taken with some comedy: tourists gawk at the women gyrating in their windows, drunken people relieving themselves into the canals and the most humorous the juxtaposition of the Oude Kerk, Amsterdam's oldest church, right next door to the Prostitution Information Center, bathed in the red neon glow from the windows of the prostitutes.
Traditional Dutch architecture - stone house on the banks of the numerous canals that run through city and country. |
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If you do only one thing in Amsterdam, make it the Heineken brewery tour. For 2 guilder, you get a moderately interesting tour of the brewery, and free beer! | |
The staff (right) dishes out all the free beer and cheese you can eat in the time allotted, usually about 30-45 minutes, though it varies. Get there early - tours fill up real fast. |
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Most of the other attractions don't hold water next to the Brewery. The Rijksmusuem has lots of Dutch art for a steep admission charge. The Torture Museum, near Centraal Station on Damrak is just plain lame - a bunch of rusty torture devices in an apartment painted black. The Tropenmuseum purports to showcase the peoples of the tropics. I found the displays patronizing and uninteresting, although the gift shop has a good selection of books.
Food and Lodging
There is a booking office at Centraal Station - highly recommended to avoid wandering around the city hunting for an empty room. They can book anything from hostel to luxury room. Many of the hostels in the city (especially in the Red-light district) cater to tourists who are just there to smoke. If that's not your reason for visiting, you might want to spring for a cheap hotel to get a decent night's sleep and save your lungs. We ate at a restaurant in one of the rings near the Station which I forget the name of, but the food was god-awful, and gave my friend food poisoning. The heralded Vlaams Frites Huis is overrated - you get a cone of French fries smothered with numerous different kinds of sauce and eat them with a little fork/mini-spear. You eat in the street and are virtually attacked by diseased city animals coming to feast on the dropped remnants. For the na�ve - Coffeeshops are not places to go to drink coffee, but to smoke. Most are decked out in Rastafarian iconography and sell weed and hash for personal consumption. Follow your nose.
Leiden
A pleasant town about an hour or so outside Amsterdam, Leiden makes a nice alternative when you tire of the hordes of the capital, and is certainly more Dutch feeling. There's not a lot to see or do. The University is one of the finest in the world, and there is a museum honoring the Pilgrims, who fled here before coming to Plymouth. We stayed with my friend's aunt, so I don't have information regarding accommodations, but there is a hostel, and the University dorms may be available when classes are out of session.