The major world city of Amsterdam offers visitors more than just its renowned red- light district, it also the home of jenever and the tulip
Angus Begg
St Annen Straat, Amsterdam. A moment’s eye contact with the dark, flabby and scantily-clad woman in the window makes me feel like the small boy who was caught at the bathroom window so many years ago, spying on my sister. Oddly enough, it also brings back memories of my first visit to New York, where literary fiction and the movies came to life through huge trucks, Central Park and Bangladeshi cab drivers.
About 150m from the woman in the window, behind a lamp-post alongside the canal Oude Zijds Agteburgwal, I fit a 300mm lens on to the camera body in preparation for a long shot. The pouting whore and her co-workers in the three neighbouring, ground-floor windows whip their respective curtains shut.
Defeated in my quest I continue, ambling along canals lined by blossoming elm trees and pavement cafes, stopping for the odd coffee verkeerd (caf latte) and occasionally passing a Rasta-coloured coffee shop, where rolled joints of marijuana can be bought and smoked. All around are well-preserved buildings, whether shops or apartments, dating back to the 1600s.
I remember the words of a tour guide: “In the Protestant 17th century [when many of the houses were built] society displays of wealth were frowned upon, so the merchants of the day showed their wealth by surrounding the window frames with white stone.” These very examples line the myriad of canals that appear at every turn, and armed with such knowledge, tales of strife between the Catholics and Protestants and the city’s history of commercial expansion through maritime conquest, I am better able to appreciate the living history that is Amsterdam.
The merchants made this city, and the concept of trade is integral to its establishment and very existence.
More than 11E000km from Johannesburg and even further removed in culture, Amsterdam is in reality an introduction to the history of the world and the influences that shaped the “modern” globe, back in what most Dutch see as the glorious 17th century. It was the time of the Dutch East India Company and its ships that spent endless months on unknown oceans, searching for spices, herbs and trade relations with countries as far east as Japan.
And it was the time when the Dutch “grand masters” – the likes of Rembrandt, Hals and Vermeer – painted profiles and landscapes in a country that had also at long last done away with the Catholic influence of Spain and embraced the somewhat frugal nature of Protestantism.
Such is the atmosphere and tone in the splendid Rijksmuseum, a grand and superbly preserved period piece in itself, a stone’s throw from the Van Gogh Museum, which is for the first time exhibiting the works of the 17th-century masters. Gathered from galleries around Europe, these remarkable works are on display until the end of August.
Amsterdam is best discovered on foot, and I soon learn that the distance from A to B can almost always be walked, although the wait for a tram is rarely longer than five minutes. Cold and wet weather precluded my intended trip around the canals, which must be a superb way of seeing the city when the sun can do justice to its flowers and colours.
A major world city would be somewhat incomplete without a commercial shopping street – in Amsterdam it is found just off Rokin Street that leads to the major intersection in the city centre. About 200m from my picture postcard hotel, the Golden Tulip Doelen (a favourite haunt of Sarah Bernhardt), it’s known as Kalverstraat, and in it the likes of Burger King, Hemmes and Moritz (H&M) – a major department store in Holland – and a host of cafs and rave clothing outlets jostle for space.
As in any city, the markets also reveal a great deal about its people, their tastes, ways and habits. The Albert Cuypstraat market is about as good an example as any, with clothes, electronics and cheese – and aproned fishmongers singing the praises of their revered herring among the attractions.
The cafs and coffee shops of Amsterdam deserve some scrutiny: those coffee shops decorated in Rasta colours (red, yellow and green) and bearing a marijuana leaf certificate in the window are licensed to sell marijuana. Those specialising in coffee tend to be of the classic and contemporary style found in modern world cities, where you can order anything from lager to apple tart and cappuccino and take the newspaper from the rack.
“Brown” cafes are the traditional, older and atmosphere-filled bars, of wooden floors and unpretentious dcor. It was in a proeflokaal (traditional bar), one of only eight in the city, that I discovered the local tipple, a short called jenever.
Wynand Focinck was one of Amsterdam finest distillers, by all accounts a master craftsman when it came to making this local brew, which is remarkably similar to our own peach brandy.
Attached to a quaint, very local and wooden establishment called the Wynand Focinck Lunchtime Caf’, tucked away behind the landmark Hotel Krasnapolsky, is the Wynand Focinck Proeflokaal, and it is here that local jenever enthusiast Cees Bierpot tells how the drink is making a comeback in the city.
Around us, in this tiny, antiquated room of no chairs and warped wooden shelves weighed down by bottles of nothing but jenever, enthusiasts stand, talk and taste.
Outside, three shops down, is one of the two distilleries in the city. A lone character sits doing paperwork behind a desk, the traditional barrels and copper pipes of the tiny distillery going through their paces behind him. The scent is one of mashed banana.
Getting the taste, feel and atmosphere of a city in three days – because you certainly can’t absorb it in that time – entails often having to drink and eat regardless of mood.
It’s 6pm, and at a restaurant called Haesje Claes long tables of locals and visitors are already tucking into hearty traditional dishes, like stamppot, a hugely popular dish that originated during the lean times of World War II, when the women of the house had to become creative with leftovers like potato and carrot.
A 20-minute walk from the Spui area is Leidse Plein, which, at night, with its neon lights and bars, has the slightest tinge of a mini Leicester Square, although the rows of caf chairs in the square by day soon put that image to bed.
On the edge of the square, near one of the numerous Bulldog franchise bars seen all over the city, is a long-running theatre establishment called Boom Chicago, an American improvisation of the theatre/supper club that pulls in full audiences, made up of tourists and locals, every night.
It’s fast and punchy comedy and a fine introduction to Amsterdam for the first- timer, who is introduced to the nation and all its quirks, from stolen bicycles to tram-deaths. As you can imagine, much fun is also had with the name of the Dutch Prime Minister, Wim Kok.
Speaking to two of the entertainers afterwards, both residents of the city for four years, I found the fact that neither of them had any intention of returning to the States said much about Amsterdam – novel and fascinating,Eone of the world’s great cities.