Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
old-timey De 2 Zwaantjes occasionally features the mournful
songs of the late local legend Johnny Jordaan. And the Café 't
Smalle (not visible from here, a half block to the right) has a deck
where you can drink outside along a quiet canal (for details, see
“Hungry?” on the next page).
• Once you cross the Prinsengracht, you enter the Jordaan. Facing west
(toward Café de Prins), cross the bridge and veer left down...
Nieuwe Leliestraat
Here the buildings are smaller, the ground-level apartments are
remarkably open to the street, signs warn speeding drivers to
Let
op!
(Watch out!) for the speed bumps
(drempels),
and the mail slots
sport more
Nees
than
Jas
(no junk mail, please). Welcome to the
quiet Jordaan. Built in the 1600s as a working-class housing area,
it's now home to artists and yuppies. Though many apartments
have windows right on the street, the neighbors don't stare and
the residents don't care. They even invite their friends for candlelit
dinners right by the front window. The name Jordaan probably
wasn't derived from the French
jardin
—but given the neighbor-
hood's garden-like ambience, it seems like it should have been.
• At the first intersection, Eerste (1E) Leliedwarsstraat, turn right and
go one block to Egelantiers canal. The bridge over the canal is what I
think of as...
The Center of the Jordaan
This place—with its bookstores, small cafés full of rickety tables,
art galleries, and working artists' studios—sums up the Jordaan.
Look down the quiet Egelantiers canal, lined with trees and
old, narrow, gabled buildings, and scattered with funky scows by
day that become cruising
Love Boat
s by night.
Look south at the Westerkerk, and see a completely dif-
ferent view from the one the tourists in line at the Anne Frank
House get. Framed by narrow
streets, crossed with street-
lamp wires, and looming over
shoppers on bicycles, this is
the church in its best light.
With your back to the
church, look north down the
street cal l led Tweede (2E)
Egelantiers Dwarsstraat, the
laid-back neighborhood's main shopping and people street, lined
with boutiques, galleries, antiques stores, hair salons, restaurants,
and cafés. A few blocks down (but don't go there now), the street
changes names a few times before it intersects Westerstraat, a
wide, east-west boulevard with more everyday businesses. A
