Amsterdam travel guide
Few cities are as distinctive as Amsterdam. Put the traveller down here, and you could be nowhere else in the world. It is the capital of the Netherlands, but not the seat of government, which is in The Hague, also the Queen’s Official Residence. Perhaps this lack of an authority figure has led to its relaxed and tolerant atmosphere, which is just one of its many charms.
The Amstel Dam
Amsterdam’s location means that its history is mainly about its geography. It stands on the edge of a low-lying country, in the place where land merges with lake, river and sea. Amsterdam arose out of a battle between the people and the water, to see who could reclaim and retain the land and survive. In the 13th century the fishing community that had settled here built a dam and a bridge to try to control the shifting River Amstel, and so both founded the city and gave it its name – the Amstel Dam.
The battle with the city’s watery foundations goes on, even today. The railway station where most people arrive, the Centraal Station, is built on three artificial islands and supported by stakes. Thousands of wooden piles also support the Koninklijk Paleis, the country’s official Royal Palace on Dam Square in the very centre of Amsterdam.
The city’s beautiful canals can hide dark secrets, and the water must be sluiced out constantly or the city would never survive.
A tolerant city
Amsterdammers are a fascinating mix of the tolerant and the traditional. Like the rest of the Dutch people, they can be both liberal and conservative at the same time. The city is famous for its relaxed attitude to sex and drugs – prostitution and cannabis are both legal here – but the market for both is primarily the city’s visitors, not its inhabitants. Only about 5 percent of Dutch people use drugs, and only about 5 percent of the trade in Amsterdam’s notorious Red Light District is from locals.
The Dutch are simply more pragmatic than most, and accept that it’s impossible – undesirable, even – to try to eradicate man’s desires, so it’s better to deal with them openly than drive them underground. This aspect of life in Amsterdam can be both shocking and refreshing to the unwary visitor, though you can spend all your time in the city without going near the Red Light District, and hardly aware that you’re passing one of the notorious coffeeshops where cannabis is on the menu.
This relaxed attitude is part of Amsterdam’s appeal, but so too is its contradictory nature. Toleration isn’t the same as approval, and not all the people who live here are wildly enthusiastic about its reputation for sex and drugs. The laws and social rules concerning both are complex, and it’s not a place where you can simply walk along the street smoking a joint.
Nor can you make assumptions about what anyone thinks about anything. Luckily, they do like to debate things here, with a strong café society that’s based not around coffeeshops but the old bars known as brown cafés.
The Immigrant Mix
In the centre of the city, apart from the mix of Indonesian, Indian and other ethnic restaurants, there is little sign that Amsterdam’s population is made up of over 50 different nationalities. About half the city’s people now have a non-Dutch background, as its worldwide reputation for tolerance led to many people from overseas coming here to start a new life, especially from the former Dutch trading empire.
As you venture further into the suburbs you’ll see the city’s more cosmopolitan side, with communities of Indonesians, Cambodians, Vietnamese and Surinamese. There are migrant workers from North Africa and Turkey too, and large numbers of Britons, Germans and North Americans living and working in the city.
There are inevitable tensions if you look below the surface, but for the average visitor Amsterdam is not only a safe but a stimulating city to visit.
See our top 5 highlights of Amsterdam...
