Amsterdam beyond the canals: the city the Dutch live in

It’s a Tuesday morning in November, raining steadily, and a man in a long coat is cycling past me on the Prinsengracht with a small bouquet of yellow tulips wedged into the handlebar basket and a baguette under one arm. He’s not in a hurry. The rain doesn’t seem to register. The bicycle is the same bicycle he probably had thirty years ago. This is what I keep coming back for. Not the canal houses. The mood.

Why I keep coming back

Amsterdam was the first European city I lived in, briefly, in 2006 — a sublet in De Pijp, three months, working on what was supposed to be my first book and what eventually became my first abandoned manuscript. The city did the manuscript a favour by absorbing my attention. I have been back at least once a year since.

The Dutch have a particular gift for the not-quite-perfect — for getting infrastructure 90% right rather than 100%, for cycling that is universally practical rather than performative, for design that knows itself but doesn’t shout. The cities reflect this. Amsterdam is not beautiful in the Italian sense. It is beautiful in the way a well-made wooden chair is beautiful, which is to say the beauty improves the longer you sit in it.

Where to base yourself

De Pijp, south of the centre. The Albert Cuyp market on weekdays, terraces facing the morning sun, the Heineken Brewery (which you can skip), and a Metro stop that connects you to everywhere. The most liveable neighbourhood for a visitor.

The Jordaan for the classic Amsterdam canal feel without the worst of the centre. Smaller streets, antiques shops, brown cafés that have been serving the same locals since the 1970s. The Westerkerk bells from the Anne Frank House tower carry.

Oud-West if you want a hipper, younger, slightly cheaper version. The cafés are good, the Vondelpark is at your back door.

Amsterdam-Noord if you want to stay across the water, on the formerly industrial north bank, accessed by a free ferry that runs every five minutes. Quieter, more architectural, and very contemporary Dutch.

Avoid: anywhere east of the Dam between the Old Church and the Centraal Station, which is the Red Light District perimeter and noisy from 10 p.m. onwards.

What to actually do

Spend half a day at the Rijksmuseum. Not the whole day — half. Go straight to the Gallery of Honour. Stand in front of The Night Watch for as long as you can stand. Then go and find the small Vermeer rooms, where The Milkmaid is. The rest of the museum is, frankly, optional. Half a day, properly done, is enough.

Go to the Stedelijk afterwards. The modern museum next door is consistently underestimated. Its De Stijl rooms — Mondrian, Rietveld, the original red-blue-yellow chair — are some of the most influential rooms in 20th-century art. The crowds are a third of the Van Gogh next door.

Rent a bicycle and ride to Durgerdam. A small village fifteen minutes north of Amsterdam Noord by bike, on a sea dike, with a single excellent pancake-house terrace looking out over the IJ. Half-day round trip, almost entirely on dedicated cycle paths.

Walk the Begijnhof, then the Spui bookshops. The Begijnhof is a thirteenth-century courtyard of small almshouses in the middle of the city — silent, hidden behind a small door on the Spui, easily missed. The bookshops nearby — Athenaeum, the American Book Center — are the best browsing in the city.

Eat herring at a stand, properly. Pickled, with raw onion and pickles, swallowed whole if you want to look Dutch. Stubbe’s on the Singel does it the original way. Two euros. Don’t think about it.

Where to eat

Amsterdam has, slowly, become a serious food city — not in the sense of having a destination chef on every corner, but in the sense of cooking honestly and well.

Foodhallen (Oud-West) — A converted tram depot, multiple counters, a beer hall feel. Useful when you can’t decide.

Restaurant De Kas (East) — A working greenhouse, the produce grown on site, a single set menu. Lunch is the move.

Café de Klepel (Jordaan) — Bistronomic, candle-lit, small. Reserve.

Toko Joyce (Centre) — A take-away Indonesian counter near the Nieuwmarkt. The Dutch colonial relationship with Indonesia gave the country its greatest cuisine; a rendang and nasi kuning combo is six euros and will spoil you for the upmarket rijsttafel places.

Brown café for the late afternoon: Café Chris (Jordaan), Hoppe (Spui), or De Sluyswacht, a 17th-century lock-keeper’s house that leans visibly and serves cold beer and bitterballen. Bitterballen — crispy beef-ragout balls with mustard — is the national bar snack.

When to come

May and September. The light is long, the cycling is easy, the city is not yet overheated or overcrowded.

February if you want the city back at its most local — quiet, grey, lit by café windows in the late afternoons.

December (tulip myth notwithstanding — tulips bloom in April, not Christmas) is pretty if you can handle the short days. Avoid Kingsday (27 April) unless you specifically want a giant orange citywide party.

Practical notes

• Visa: Schengen.
• Money: Card universally; many places no longer take cash at all.
• Transport: Walk, cycle, tram. The OV-chipkaart system is being replaced by simple contactless tap-in/tap-out on cards and phones.
• Cycling rules: They are real and unforgiving. Don’t stand in the bike lane to take a photo; the bell is a warning, not a greeting; the bikes have right of way at almost every intersection.
• Cannabis: Legal in licensed coffeeshops, of which the better ones are in the Jordaan or Oud-West. Tourist coffeeshops are dwindling under tightening rules; check before you go.
• The Red Light District: A working district, not a theme park; do not photograph the women in the windows. They will, justifiably, confront you. The new ordinances ban many group tours and most photography. Walk through if you must, then leave.

A final thought

The Dutch have a word, gezellig, that is famously hard to translate. It’s usually rendered as ‘cosy’, which it isn’t. It’s closer to the feeling of being in good company in a small, well-lit room while it rains outside, and of being not in a hurry to leave.

That, I think, is Amsterdam’s gift. Not the canals — although the canals are beautiful and you should walk one at dusk — but the small, well-lit rooms scattered all over the city. A brown café on a corner you weren’t planning to be on. A bookshop on the Spui where the proprietor is reading. A pancake house in Durgerdam with the wind off the IJ. Gezellig is the verb tense of slowing down. You can have an excellent week in this city if you spend most of it slowing down. Most visitors don’t. They have eighty hours and a list. The list is the wrong tool. Throw it out.