Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Amsterdam City Walk
a series of concentric canals.
A head of you stretches the
street called Damrak, which
leads to Dam Square a half mile
away. To the left of Damrak is
the city's old
(oude)
side; to the
right is the new
(nieuwe).
The big church towering
above the old side (at about
10 o'c loc k) is St. Nic hola is
Chu rch, bu i lt in t he 1880s
when Catholics—after about
three centuries of oppression—
were finally free to worship in
public. The church marks the
beginning of the Red Light
District (for a tour of that
neighborhood,
J
see my Red
Light District Walk on page
88). The cit y 's biggest bike
garage, a multistory wonder,
is on your right in front of the Ibis Hotel. Parking your bike in
the garage is free—courtesy of the government (they want to
encourage biking).
•We'llbasicallywalksouthfromheretotheRijksmuseum.Theart
museum and the train station—designed by the same architect—stand
like bookends holding the old town together. Follow the crowds south on
Damrak, walking along the right side of the street.
Damrak
Stroll past every Dutch cliché at the tourist shops: wooden shoes,
plastic tulips, Heineken fridge magnets, and windmill salt-shakers.
Listen to a hand-cranked barrel organ. Order french fries (called
Vlaamse frites,
or Flemish fries, since they were invented in the
Low Countries), and dip them in mayonnaise, not ketchup. Eating
international cuisine (Indonesian rijsttafel
,
Argentine steak,
Middle Eastern
shoarma
—pronounced SHWAHR-mah) is going
local in cosmopolitan Amsterdam. And you'll find the city's most
notorious commodity displayed at the Damrak Sex Museum (see
page 58).
This street was once a riverbed, where the Amstel River flowed
north into the IJ (eye) River behind today's train station. Both riv-
ers then emptied into a vast inlet of the North Sea (the Zuiderzee),
unique geography that turned Amsterdam into a major seaport.
Today, the Amstel is channeled into canals, its former mouth cov-
ered by Central Station, and the North Sea inlet has been diked off
