Amsterdam: Find a rhythm in the streets or on canals

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THE SUNDAY OREGONIAN • MARCH 16, 2008
THE SUNDAY OREGONIAN • MARCH 16, 2008
T5
To see a video of canals and other Amsterdam sights, go to
http://blog.oregonlive.com/multimedia
Locals and tourists mix happily on the fringes of Amsterdam’s red-light district, left,
where prostitution is legal and tightly regulated. Marijuana is also available legally in
“coffee shops” such as Rokerij, where a customer, above, lights up. Local youths, such
as those below riding a commuter train, stay busy with school, iPods and sports,
unfazed by the sex-and-drug trade that profits mainly from foreigners.
Photos by TORSTEN KJELLSTRAND/THE OREGONIAN
Amsterdam
Getting there
Northwest Airlines begins its daily nonstop flights on Saturday, March 29.
Northwest 92 departs PDX at 4:05 p.m.
and takes about 10 hours, arriving at 11
a.m. the next day, local time, at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport. Other major
carriers offer one-stop service. A spot
search for April showed starting fares of
about $830.
Where to stay
Accommodations range from the grand
Art Deco-style Amsterdam American
Hotel (rack rates starting at $320),
www.amsterdamamerican.com, to
cramped but charming canal-house hotels, such as Seven Bridges Hotel,
www.sevenbridgeshotel.nl, or the Hampshire Inn Prinsengracht, www.prinsen
grachthotel.nl, where I paid $120 for a
single.
Where to eat
For a sunny sidewalk table: Hans en
Grietje, Spiegelgracht 27, tel. 011-31-20624-6782
For seafood: Visit restaurant Lucius,
www.lucius.nl
Shopping
Upscale shopping streets are Leidsestraat and Kalverstraat. Markets are
lively, including Noordermarkt and De
Looier for antiques, art and book markets, and Waterlooplein flea market.
Clogs, cheese, diamonds and vintage
clothes are plentiful.
Museums
Musts include the Van Gogh Museum,
http://tinyurl.com/2236zo; Rijksmuseum,
www.rijksmuseum.nl; and Anne Frank
Huis, www.annefrank.org. Also visit the
Houseboat Museum, www.houseboat
museum.nl
Amsterdam:
Find a rhythm
in the streets
or on canals
Continued From Page T1
bulbous craft with pedals and a wildly
unpredictable rudder. Tomas, an aspiring airline pilot at the counter,
charged me 8 euros — about $12 — for
an hour’s self-guided tour. “Pedal
harder and it won’t go faster,” he said,
reflecting Amsterdam’s relaxed pace.
I was in a pensive mood, having just
visited Anne Frank Huis, a place of
sadness and spirit. The museum
showcases the house where its namesake — a 13-year-old in 1942, when
she and her family began hiding from
the Nazis — kept the iconic diary that
was published after she died in a concentration camp.
The paddle wheel swished, launching a tiny wake that splashed an eclectic array of skiffs and houseboats
moored along the narrow waterway.
“Blaaah!” I looked up in horror as a
sleek, glass-encased boat packed with
gawking tourists motored straight toward me, blasting its horn. Slamming
the cranky rudder shaft to one side, I
swerved out of its way as smiling passengers waved and shot video.
I pedaled on in peace, finding a
rhythm and savoring aromas that
wafted down from crowded sidewalk
cafes. Above me on both sides, narrow
17th-century houses loomed like
crooked teeth.
Leaning houses
Canal Bikes
www.canal.nl
Cautions
Some restaurants accept only cash.
Dollars don’t buy many euros these
days, so take plenty.
On the Web
The Internet Guide to Amsterdam:
http://tinyurl.com/fhrmr
— Richard Read
I imagined the houses as ships with
prows leaning toward me. In fact they
were built leaning forward slightly,
with jutting beams that bear blocks
and tackles. The tilt gives furniture
clearance as it’s hoisted through windows, avoiding narrow doors and impossibly steep stairs. Walk past these
homes in the evening and glance inside at stuffed bookcases and neatly
set kitchen tables; few residents bother with curtains.
Amsterdam has more than 60 miles
of canals and 2,500 houseboats, not all
of whose occupants welcome pedal
crafts, judging by a sticker on one window displaying a crossed-out Canal
Bike.
The canal I floated was the Prinsengracht, the waterway fronting my hotel. Like the Hampshire Inn Prinsen-
gracht, the canal is named for William
the Silent, who was prince of Orange
and forefather of the royal family. My
tiny single room at the friendly inn cost
$120 a night — a bargain, for Amsterdam — with buffet breakfast $10 extra.
One morning in front of the hotel, a
photographer and I had knocked on
the door of a shipshape 60-foot houseboat. Inside we found Walter Jacobs, a
sprightly man who told us he had lived
there 36 years. Jacobs offered tea, and
soon his partner — spouse, actually —
Ruud De Hoogt, joined us around
their cast-iron heater.
Rich and poor
Jacobs, 76, bought the 19th-century
sailing boat, now worth $380,000, for
less than $5,000. He’s enjoyed canal
life, because rich and poor have always lived together.
But Jacobs described the balance
between tolerance and tradition shifting like the city’s wavering foundations. Now, he said, officials are waging a clean-up campaign, requiring
removal of his sidewalk garden and
levying a $15,000 sewer-connection
assessment.
“They want to attract upscale
tourists, Rembrandt people with
money,” Jacobs said. “They say it’s terrible we get these hordes of drunk
English boys and girls who immediately go into the red-light district and
the (marijuana) coffee shops.”
Jacobs was born in Eindhoven, a
high-tech town south of Amsterdam
that today makes a nice day trip by
train; I had attended boisterous Carnaval festivities there earlier in the
week. As a child, he survived World
War II bombing, hunger and illness.
Later in Amsterdam he joined a secret
society that went on to become the
nation’s original gay-advocacy organization.
“That’s the thing about Holland,”
Jacobs said. “It’s a small country, so
we live right in front of each other, just
like here, on the canal, and there, on
the land. If an issue comes up like euthanasia, we don’t hide it away.”
Completing the loop
A few days later, I pedaled past Jacobs’ boat in another Canal Bike,
which I had rented to complete the
loop I’d begun at the Anne Frank museum. As someone who has worked
for decades to penetrate Asian cultures, I considered how special it was
to have been invited without notice
into the couple’s home for such direct,
personal conversation.
I began my second voyage from the
museum district, awed by the Van
Gogh Museum, which gives full range
to Vincent van Gogh’s prolific talent
and mental demons. The Rijksmuseum was breathtaking in a different
way, its collection condensed during a
renovation, culminating in Rembrandt’s mesmerizing “Night Watch”
painting.
I passed beneath low arched
bridges as cyclists crossed above. I
spotted “brown cafes,” centuries-old
pub-restaurants renowned for convivial conversation. I had eaten in a
few of these, my favorite being the
candlelit Cafe Kalkhoven, sunken into
the ground under the weight of centuries, with its thick brimming pea
soup and dark barrels of beer, orange
bitters, cognac and Curaçao.
In search of camera batteries, I
moored my craft and entered a toy
store. There, I struck out; the shop carried not a single electronic gadget. Ah,
Old Europe.
Amsterdam offers plenty of shopping, of course, with goods ranging
from superb chocolate and cheese to
the latest Euro fashions. Dining can be
sublime, for a price, whether you want
seafood, Indonesian and Surinamese
fare, or traditional Dutch dishes culminating in apple tart.
Tips are included. Service, in fluent
English, is efficient — although waiters consider it rude to bring the check
before being asked, causing many a
misunderstanding.
My pedal-boat loop took me past
the historic Amsterdam American Hotel, where I had enjoyed lunch in the
Art Deco-style Cafe Americain. There,
patrons dine on chicken sateh with
Amsterdam fries below towering
arched ceilings and 1930s oil paintings
from Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer
Night’s Dream.”
I chugged past the Hard Rock Cafe
— every cosmopolitan city claims one
of those — with its long deck lining the
waterway. Ducks, eager for crumbs,
paddled up. High above, gray clouds
sailed by and luckily saved their rain
for the vast reach of farmers’ fields beyond town.
Amsterdam is one of Europe’s easiest cities to navigate, with loudly
clanging trams whose drivers — once
Life in Amsterdam revolves around its
canals. A boatman, below, poles a
gondola — a rare sight, actually, despite
the city’s nickname, “Venice of the
North” — along a quiet waterway.
Traditional Italian fare, right, awaits a
diner at Segugio Restaurant nearby. At
far right, bicyclist Marie-Claire Mulder
stops on a canal bridge, tending to 4month-old daughter Melle, while son
Mats rides behind.
again — speak English. For tourists,
it’s entirely family-friendly.
Sure, there’s the red-light district,
where working women, willing to tell
anyone what they can do for 15minute intervals, stand behind glass
doors. There’s the Sexmuseum, a
whole museum devoted to, you
guessed it, the history of making
whoopee. If you end up in a “coffee
shop,” be prepared for something far
more potent than a triple vente latte
— Super Silver Haze marijuana, for
example, or Special Moroccan
hashish.
But travelers with children, and others willing to resist the siren sales song
of sex and drugs, can inhabit an entirely different plane as a result of Amsterdam’s uncanny sense of balance.
The main hazards are straying into a
busy bike lane, falling prey to a pickpocket or — watch out — stepping in
dog poop.
No need for a car
Oh, and parking tickets. Don’t rent a
car, as my uncle did once, only to have
it expensively towed. There’s no need
for one.
I confess to leaving the various hallucinogens to other adventurers. I didn’t
want to crash my trusty pedal boat,
which had required a $76 deposit.
I returned to the same Canal Bike
counter where Tomas had waved me
off on my original voyage. Another attendant welcomed me with a smile,
refusing payment for the extra halfhour I had taken.
It was late afternoon, time for a
Wieckse Witte (Dutch white) beer at a
canal-side cafe.
I sat, captivated, as slanting northern sunlight played on the cobblestone street, highlighting the rainbow
hues of Holland’s ubiquitous tulips.
A woman in a business suit with her
ear pressed to a mobile phone pedaled past on a black bicycle.
A guy in a stained sweatshirt rowed
by in a dirty orange lifeboat.
A man in a crisp captain’s uniform
spun the wheel of a gleaming teak
cruise vessel fitted for dinner.
It was all there, just as Jacobs had
said, right in front of me.
•
Richard Read: 503-294-5135;
richread@aol.com
“That’s the thing about Holland. It’s a small
country, so we live right in front of each other,
just like here, on the canal, and there, on the
land. If an issue comes up like euthanasia, we
don’t hide it away.”
Walter Jacobs