Amsterdam: A Week in the Summer

It is a cinch to self-plan incredible day tours in this Venice of the North. Walk the canal rings of Nieuwe Zidje (New City) to enjoy the hustle-and-bustle of the modern city center's shops, museums, and churches. Enjoy a stroll through the cobblestone yards of the Historisch Museum. Make your way to Kalverstraat's (named for the medieval Livestock markets) shops, bars, and cafés, and then see Nieuwe Kerk's (New Church) fabulous carvings and stained-glass windows that escaped the fire that razed the city in 1645.

A few steps away, slip into the Jordaan District, where a Bohemian calm saturates the shops and cafés lining the beauty of peaceful canals. Wander around Weterkerk, where the church boasts the crown of Maximillian atop its spire and the most commanding views of the city from its tower. On Mondays, the square around Noorderkerk (North Church) hosts a great flea market, and on Saturdays, the Dutch version of a farmer's market. The famed gables of Amsterdam’s buildings are not to be missed on the canals of Brouwersgracht, named for the original breweries that stood sentinel here in the 17th century. Today, it is one of the most affluent areas in the city.

The Museum Quarter can fill days on calendars, so don’t worry about running out of things to do. At Rijksmuseum, spend a day in the home of the great masters, Rembrandt in particular. They are great company. The renovated Van Gogh (really pronounced Van Gochch, as if you are coughing up a hairball) Museum exhibiting paintings and other of his works, including letters that shrinks can have a field day with, should not be missed under any circumstances. Get there early to avoid the lines.

The nightlife, clubs and outdoor cafés in Leidse Plein Square and the surrounding areas on Leidestraat itself make it easy to smile and share beers and stories while meeting people from all over the world.

Ride a water taxi or rent a peddle boat and explore the rings of canals from the water. Grab a bike (there are more bikes than people in the Netherlands!) and ride through Vondel Park. However you do it, Amsterdam is a custom-tailored adventure!

Quick Tips:

Best Way To Get Around:

The train from the Airport to Central-Station takes about twenty minutes.

Taxi's run a bit more, about 35 Euro with tip. Very clean and mostly Mercedes.

If you opt for the train there are taxis, trams and buses at Central-Station that network across the city.

Once in the city all is reachable hoofing it, excepting disabilities preventing walking. Inebriation does not count.

Trams run from 6 am to midnight and are fun to take if you miss NYC subway cars at rush hour. Best Euro savings is the Strippenkaart, the multiple use ticket which needs to be punched before each use.

Bicycle shops are found through out the city. Rentals run approx. 5 Euro a day and 25 Euro a week.

Boats stop along the canals at taxi-docks. Canal bikes are embarrassing if you are a novice and bump into boats, which is followed with being screamed at by people you don't know. People I do know scream at me often so it was no big deal. Available from a company called … Canalbike.

I put together walking tours on-line before arriving but any city map will provide more than enough info to create them on your own.

Right behind a large fountain surrounded by cobblestones, where a canal meets a colorfully busy street, the Hotel American towers above its equally famous café of the same name. If you have never stayed in a castle, the Art Nouveau Hotel American delivers this feeling as its turret-like features and Gothic overtones welcome you through her arched doorways. Step inside and you are whisked into an immaculate lobby, where all the chic modes of a modern five-star hotel take over.

On March 4, 2005, Intercontinental Hotel Group sold this exquisite landmark built at the turn of the last century to the Dutch-owned Eden Hotel Group for 37 million euros. My trip was several months prior, so whether boxes of chocolates and complimentary drink vouchers are waiting in the rooms upon check-in remains to be told.

What I do know is, boxes of candy or not, this Art Deco-style stay is a great value for the dollar. Traveling in the land of the Euro, using "dollar" and "value" in the same sentence is quite an accomplishment lately. I had prebooked a room with a king-size bed at 160€ prior to leaving the States. I did this on the Inter-Continental’s Priority Club website, which, at the time, listed the lowest Internet rates possible.

The warm, courteous staff wore contagious smiles on my check-in. A copy of my passport was taken, and the manager on duty personally returned it, with an upgrade to the William Shakespeare Suite. She wished me a happy birthday!

The rooms are luxuriously large and very well furnished, if not necessarily plush. Deco pink motifs abound, with cool and curvy track lighting, and a big pillar in the room is bit over the top, but there is an undeniable "hipness." The beds are incredibly comfortable, and the bedding is top-notch. Requesting accommodations overlooking the canal and the private boat dock below your window will give you several advantages. Bay windows afford views over Singelgracht’s glassy waters of the Museum Quarter, upscale residences, and the greenery of park lawns. This soothing sight serves to sweeten the first cup of room-brewed java every morning!

Amenities are bountiful. Data ports, wireless Internet, and satellite TV come standard. There are granite-topped vanities, and the closets are part of a wall-unit armoire with an iron and board, plus plenty of hanging room and drawers. The set-up also houses a sink, fridge, and coffeemaker - tea, coffee, and hot chocolate included. The bathroom was meticulously clean and the tub large enough for long soaks after walks through the neighboring Museum Quarter and shopping districts.

A block away, trams at Leidseplein Square offer expedient access to all points of the city on your map . The middle of the square is complemented by an ocean of outdoor seating among the many bars, cafés, and restaurants. It provided me the best opportunities to relax and meet scores of fun-goers after each adventurous day.

You will have trouble finding a better place to digest the day's or evening's Amsterdam experiences than at the Café Americain at the American Hotel. The brasserie’s terrace spills to the fountain fronting Leidsestraat and is adorned with faux granite tables and stainless steel framed canvas director style chairs. It provides chic juxtaposition against the backdrop of the original café’s almost 15-foot-tall stained-glass windows.

Inside one of the oldest grand cafes in the country (built in 1902), high Venetian arches, Tiffany chandeliers, and art-deco paintings of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream scenes land you in an era gone by. Outside, I noticed many local businesspeople joining friends and colleagues in midday lunch escapes under the café’s sun umbrellas. Writers push pens, tap laptops, sip lattes, and meet friends in one of the most relaxed settings in town.

My favorite dish, which can be ordered for breakfast, lunch, or dinner , is the Salmon Croq: finely sliced smoked salmon grilled between delicate slices of crusted toast, with a spread of creamy cheese, lemon, and garnishes. It became a daily addiction. Dutch fare met an American staple in the club sandwich and tantalized my palate in a way that just doesn’t happen at most diners State-side. The average price for any of the above, including a plate of cookies and a salad — those may serve better to accent your other food than to stand on their own merits — runs about 15 to 18 euros. Throw in a coffee and iced tea, and you are more in the 25-euro area. Remember: there are no such things as refills here.

There is a morning buffet station in the center of the café. Fifteen euros – 2004’s price; it is now eighteen, I am told - welcomes you to an abundantly scrumptious all-you-can-eat affair. Plenty of meats, eggs, fruits, cereals, and fish, especially herring, prepared in a variety of ways — schmaltz, creamed, kippered, and pickled — make it worth the price.

Located where Leidseklade meets the Singelgracht, adjacent to Leidseplein Square, bordering the Museum Quarter,
shopping district and Vondelpark, Café American proves to be a great "refueling" station for the day’s activities. The high ratio of outdoor tables to amount of staff available may make service a game of patience during the breakfast and lunch rush hour. The ambience more than makes up for this. The suggestion I have is to enjoy a cup of cappuccino the minute you sit down to help soothe the appetite and pass that relaxing take-it-all-in type of time which Café Americain is perfect for.

Historically informative as well as brooding and solemn, my tour experience was fed by diary excerpts, personal belongings, letters, historical documents, and video presentations. At the risk of losing credits on ratings, I do not find photos appropriate for this tour. I was that affected. It is located at 263 Prinsengracht and accessed by walking through number 265, the adjacent building.

Anne Frank and her family spent a tad over two years hiding from the Nazi occupiers of Amsterdam at this address. Anne kept a diary of this experience while living in an upstairs secret annex of this house. I could feel the fear of deportation to the death camps still lingering in the walls.

Fleeing Germany and the rising tide of anti-Semitism in 1933, her father Otto moved the family to Amsterdam, where they were safe until Holland was invaded in 1940. In 1942, her mother, father, and sister, as well as several others, went into hiding in the top floors above the warehouse, accessible only by a hidden passage behind a bookcase.

Winding my way up through the warehouse and into their secret lair, I notice display cases with family items, photographs, and notes that bring home the reality of what happened here six decades ago.

The workers in the warehouse below had no idea of the family living secretly above. The office staff did, helping with food and other survival essentials. In August 1944, they were betrayed and shipped to Auschwitz. More than one-half of the 1,000 people transported on the train died in the gas chambers on arrival. Out of the eight people deported, only Anne’s father Otto survived. To this day, the identity of their betrayer remains unknown.

The tragic and fearful story is branded on the visitor at every turn. Feelings of terror are brought alive by many of Anne's diary excerpts. The senses are overwhelmed by documents, official papers, and other genuine artifacts from the years in hiding. Reflections of persecution and man's inhumanity to man remain omnipresent. A mix of emotions, from anger to disbelief, are pervasive.

Anne kept the diary on over 300 loose pages.
I quote: "You've known... I'd like to publish a book called the Secret Annex."
Otto fulfilled his daughter’s wish by publishing the diary in 1947 under the title The Secret Annex. Made into a movie starring Shelly Winters, the Hollywood icon promised that if she won the Academy Award, she would place it in what is now the Anne Frank House. It is available for viewing at the tours end in a display case.

The melancholy which may settle over the rest of day should be considered when taking the tour. I would suggest an exciting and fun follow-up activity to lift the spirits, especially when taking children with you. The connection to human rights and freedom for all people is quite inspirational. It should not be missed.

The Red Light, or Walletjes District, meaning "little walls," sits in the oldest part of the city. As the sun sets, it becomes a hive of junkies, pickpockets, and tourists galore. Most of your guidebooks tell you to avoid it. I recommend it as a Disneyland of taboo for the American puritanical mind.

It is simple to grab a walking tour specifically designed for this area if you like walking through the seedier parts of a city following families and a tour guide. Pay up and you can tread along with mom, dad, little Mike, and three generations of extended families on tour and see the Sex Museum and glass-walled carnal kennels of Amsterdam. It is more expensive for a family of three to have a guided "look and see" than it is for Dad or little brother to have a "look and touch." To each their own; more bizarre has been witnessed on these canals.

Fascinating is an understatement as the artists of the world’s oldest profession paint the most sordid murals on the mind of passers-by. They come from all walks of life: school teachers, students, flight attendants, disgruntled housewives, nymphomaniacs, frigid non-orgasmic women, multi-orgasmic women, women of means, destitute women, women of destroyed dreams, sociopaths, abused victims of horrible childhoods, women who love men, women who hate men, some looking for a thrill, and some who have stopped looking for anything at all.

Two months solo, crossing nine countries, I invent ways to amuse myself. Today, I want to understand why these women resort to selling their bodies. (Yeah, right.) Going against me from the start is that talking is not considered profitable. Answers to any question, other than the pricing menu, they want to be paid for. I realize after 15 minutes this idea of soul searching the harlots of Amsterdam is better left with journalists and their expense accounts.

You have to be leery of services in which there is no competitive pricing. Fifty euros gets you passage through the door into any of the dens of devious deeds. I pondered the 50-euro pricing system. For the lasciviously inclined, would you trust your physical health at a price that would not get you through three of five courses in a good French restaurant?

Beautiful, ugly, short, tall, thin, fat, 18 to 80, blind, cripple and crazy: all prices are fixed by the government, probably in line with town-hall salaries. In 1990, the city's fathers made the activity here a legal, and more importantly, taxable event. Relationships seem taxing enough, so I find it unsettling when the ultimate act is as well!

Half-naked women beckon from open doors of booth-sized rooms where black lights cast their fluorescent-purple, hippie haze. We all know what lint looks like under the glow of these lamps. You have to be scared of what else then may be visible. To top it off, the hint of antiseptic from recent room cleanups seems to spill from behind each doorway to the street. Not a "yeah, baby" moment. Some doors are always closed, red lights outside burning their busy signals. Now and then, some gorgeous model-type appears in one. The "diamond in the rough," but you have to ask, "If a warm public toilet seat gives me the creeps…" Opposed to closed doors, the "much less young or pretty" stand in open ones. They make small talk with other "less blessed" standing adjacent. It’s a cornucopia of languages.

Idea. New game. I want to ask each girl what country they are from. No matter where they are from, my response is to shake my head and keep on walking, unless asked what I was looking for. My answer: an Alaskan Eskimo woman who will bark like a dog. It seemed a no-lose proposition, so I begin.

The countries stated were Estonia, Romania, Germany, and Russia. When I informed the Russian that I was looking for an Alaskan, she asked me to wait. I was momentarily overcome with the fear. She disappeared into the back and returned with a matronly woman in her 50s and gold tooth-capped smile saying,

"Siberia! Siberia colder… better than Alaska!" You want two girls? Two for an hour? You make a dogsled with them! Two girls, two times, you get off! 100 euro only!" Dangerous game.

Next were Ethiopia, Uganda, Poland, Hungary, Czech, Germany, France, Spain, Jamaica, Germany, Brazil, Chile, Canada, Argentina, Germany, Denmark, and England (which I found hard to believe. She pronounced it "Oonklunt."). No one was from the US or Alaska, saving me from my twisted dogsled fantasy. I soon tired of this game.

Even after 20 years of living in San Francisco, I was still stunned by the sex-store window displays. It was fascinating to watch couple’s reactions to double-headed toys the size of PVC tubes; large black latex, warhead missile-sized things I still don’t understand; and run-of-the-mill zipper-over-the-mouth leather face masks with eyeholes. My wad of euros was not burning a hole in my pocket.

There is a limited amount of eye candy to be found every few windows if you walk by at a brisk pace and don’t take a second glance. Allow the mind’s eye and faulty memory to make it a semi-memorable experience to recall over a beer later in life.

I hurry towards what I hope is the way I entered the district. More middle-age women and grandmothers line more glass-paneled, wooden-framed doors in the narrow alleys crisscrossing these streets. I am lost. Turning a corner, positive I had reached calmer borders, there are now S&M signs over doors. I stand stupefied and staring at thigh-high, black-leather boot-clad women. Legs spread supine and heels pressed against windows, they leer furtively at you in that dominatrix way, mouthing their price from stools. Another wrong turn.

I am back where I started 15 minutes ago in front of the Black Tiger Coffee shop. I enter and extract my pocket-fold map, which finally tears at the seams, spawning four mini maps. That must happen a lot here.

I order a Coca-Cola. Patrons climb the stairs in front of the bar to a man with a scale. A menu hangs with samples of different buds in a couple of dozen marked bags and priced according to how exotic the name sounds. It is hard to believe the amount of different "herbs" really exists and demands a spread in price. Bearing names like Cali-mist, White Haze, Rainbow, Thai, Purple Passion, and a dozen others, they should be more aptly named big buds, little buds, smaller buds, and shake. Call me a cynic.

I am reminded of a BBC story about countries that host summer soccer games should allow for the smoking of pot while banning alcohol. The premise: After a game, riots proliferate due to drunkards. But no one to date remembers potheads rioting en masse. More aptly, they would be trying to remember what sport was on the field, let alone who is playing or if they win or lose. The urge to find access to chocolate, ice cream, and other munchies would probably be their most pressing objective.

I am light-headed and think that the Coca-Cola alone could not have put me in such a state. Having made a case for second-hand smoke, I get up and leave. After all, it’s not like you can drink a bottle of soda and not inhale, so I decide to return to Leidesplein Square via the few familiar streets I find on the mini-maps. Using the old Heineken Brewery and the Europa Hotel as landmarks, I take pictures of both. A purple-and-black velvet sky mats the back of their brilliant rainbow-colored signs and should make excellent pictures. I wonder how many of the colors I see are actually in the shot as I mull over the second-hand smoke question, amazed at the potency of sitting in a den just sipping a soda.

I walk along the Tulip market greenhouses on the Singel Canal and get back on Leidestraat. Better than 3 hours has passed since I left the Crown Plaza. Amsterdam is providing a true respite from all the hustle of the first 3 weeks. The journal is staying more in my hip pocket than on café tables in this city. I find a table at the Bulldog Café, Bar and Coffeehouse. Understandably, you will not be surprised that, though I am told that where I sit is just across the street from my hotel, it could possibly take me an hour or so to find it once I get up to go, if I am lucky. So I flip open the journal and begin to write…