April 26, 2016.  Yep, I know I just finished a whole series of posts on Turkey, and now I’m talking about Amsterdam.  Makes me sound like a real jet-setter.  But the truth is, not much happened in our lives for a good solid month.  Just the daily work grind; no time for cultural experiences.  So when Matthew’s birthday rolled around at the end of April, we were ready for some R&E (Relaxation & Exploration).  And Amsterdam seemed like the perfect combo of both.

Now to be honest, we’d made our first foray into the city last September, but I’ve just never had any time to write about it.  That’s why I thought I’d take this opportunity to tell you how Amsterdam has won our hearts and become our favorite recommendation for a weekend getaway.  Plus, I’ve provided some whopping photo galleries to give you a taste of the city’s atmosphere — be sure click on the images for bigger views.  And now, without further ado, the top five reasons you need to see this city!

1) Amsterdam’s Got More Canals Than Venice
Yup, bet that little factoid surprised you.  But it’s true.  Flying into Amsterdam, I was astounded by the Burberry Plaid pattern created by the city’s network of criss-crossing waterways.  The Dutch are fond of saying, “God made the Earth, but the Dutch Made Holland.”  And from the skies, it became perfectly clear that they’ve got a legitimate claim.

Thousands of canals neatly cleave and drain the below-sea-level landscape into perfect little pastoral parcels, although industry has clearly carved out some space.  I couldn’t help but marvel at Dutch engineering, which has used dykes, dams, locks, canals, and windmills to reclaim soil from the sea and literally double the country’s landmass.  (The Netherlands is now twice the size of New Jersey.)

Given the country’s long battle to keep the ocean at bay, it will come as no shock that the Dutch lead the world in preventing floods and preparing for the rise in sea level that goes hand-in-hand with climate change.  All this knowledge has come in handy for Americans, too.  After Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. called in Dutch consultants to brainstorm about how to rebuild New Orleans’ levee system.

But lest you think Amsterdam’s canals are purely functional, they’re perfectly picturesque, too.  Within the city proper, these waterways drop their stick-straightness and form a series of concentric half-circles, ideal for wandering along — and losing your way.  But who minds getting a little lost when you have a view of elegant 17th-century houses?  Not to mention more than 1,200 photogenic bridges (Venice has only 400).  Plus, you can always take a cruise through the canal system, or hang out on a houseboat for a closer view of the water.

I wasn’t kidding when I said Amsterdam has an extraordinary number of canals — more than 100 in the city proper. Stretched end-to-end, they’d measure more than fifty miles long. That’s one reason why Amsterdam is nicknamed the “Venice of the North,” a title it shares with the city of Bruges in Belgium.

The name “Amsterdam” refers to an old dam or dike that once re-routed the Amstel River. Amsterdam’s canals are a result of channelizing this river as it flows towards the North Sea. The canals are only about ten feet deep.

A series of locks regulates the flow of the Amstel River through the canals and into the North Sea. By the way, in 1396, the Dutch invented the first true modern lock. Called the pound lock, it uses two gates on either end of a chamber (the “pound”). Boats wait in the pound for the gates to raise or lower the water level so it matches that of the river or bay on the other side. It’s a system we’re intimately familiar with in Chicago, as this is how water levels get regulated for traffic coming down the Chicago River and entering Lake Michigan.

Most of the buildings sit atop “polders” — marshy land stabilized in the 16th century by wooden pilings. The canals themselves have wonderfully evocative names like Keizersgracht and Prinsengracht (“gracht” means canal.)

You can see why controlling the flow of water is essential to the survival of Amsterdam. Check out these basement windows. I wonder how the Dutch manage seepage and mold issues?

Every bridge seems to be bedecked with flowers and colorful bicycles.

Pictured is the “Skinny Bridge” that crosses the Amstel River. Built in 1672, it’s a double Dutch drawbridge that can be drawn up when larger boats pass beneath. It’s meant only for pedestrians and bikes, because of its narrow width.

Watching tour boats navigate the canals’ twists and bends — and biting your nails as the pilots negotiate tight squeezes beneath bridges — could be an entire afternoon’s activity.

Quiet, narrow canals like this one often harbor only small sailboats, no houseboats or tour boats.

Strolling along canals provides lovely Monet-like reflections of trees, homes, and paddling ducks.

Taking a night cruise can’t be beat for atmosphere. Bonus: you often get a great view directly into some of the most gorgeous canal-side homes.

The tour boats offer kitschy narration, snacks, and lots of liquor — what’s not to like?

Check out this nighttime view of Amsterdam. The homes’ exteriors are basically just window walls, which make them look like lanterns bobbing on the water. It just doesn’t get any better than this.

I couldn’t leave the topic of canals without a small gallery devoted to the city’s odd assortment of houseboats — more than 2,500 ply Amsterdam’s waterways.

Larger canals are home to Amsterdam’s many houseboats. Check out this nautical mansion. It barely fits in the frame.

We got a kick out of comparing neighboring houseboats. This one looks like someone parked a double-wide trailer on a raft. I think it needs a bumper sticker that reads, “My other ride is a bike.”

I’m imagining that all the neighbors raise their eyebrows when referring to this hippy-dippy-trippy addition to the block.

And I can hear everyone groan about “the day the Clampetts moved into the neighborhood.” In case you’re wondering, most but not all of the boats are hooked up to a sanitary sewer system. I’m guessing this one might be one of the negligent offenders.

Either Captain Nemo lives here, or it’s the local UFO-sighting headquarters.

2)  Amsterdam Offers Great Hiking & Biking Views of the World’s Best Collection of 17th-Century Houses 
My personal opinion is that there’s no better way to detox from a stressful life than by strolling or rolling down Amsterdam’s quiet, tree-lined lanes to check out the housing stock.  I’m always fascinated by indigenous architecture, and I’ve fallen in love with the city’s Dutch Colonial masterpieces.  Their fancy false gables remind me a bit of Charleston’s signature Single Houses, which sport fake front doors that disguise the long verandas of shotgun-style homes.  If you haven’t seen these American architectural gems and can’t manage a Euro trip, make Charleston, South Carolina, your next USA-vacay destination.  It’s a true homegrown treasure.

But back to Amsterdam.  It has more well-preserved 17th-century homes than any city in Europe.  Stately townhouses sport bogus gables that hold pulley systems meant for hoisting stuff in through steeply pitched attic roofs hidden behind the frilly façades.  The overall effect creates rows of slope-shouldered buildings that look as if they have heads topped with curled and fluffed George Washington wigs.  You could spend days cataloguing their different “hairstyles.”

The homes all sit snuggled together like packs of gossiping ladies, with the taller, spindlier old maids leaning against their squat sisters for support. That’s because the ancient wooden pilings that cradle most houses have experienced a bit of decay over time, causing subsidence and creating a “stumbling drunk” appearance for a few of the grandest old dames.

We spent several hours quaffing beer at canal-side cafés while squinting our eyes and imagining the ghosts of pantalooned men and ruff-necked women ambling in front of their erstwhile homes.  But if houses that look like they stepped straight out of a Vermeer painting aren’t your thing, you’ll also find several Belle Epoque, Art Nouveau, and Art Deco darlings scattered throughout the neighborhood.

Windows coat the facades of most canal houses to bring in as much light as possible. Merchants conducted business in their offices on the first floor, lived in their homes on the next two levels, and stored merchandise in the pitched-roofed attics. We were lucky enough to visit on the day of a historical house tour (note the long line), so we got to see inside some of the homes along Herrengracht, the poshest canal in Amsterdam.

We toured the positively palatial home of merchant Huis Bartolotti (1618). It opens out onto a lovely parterred garden in back, complete with an enormous drainage pipe that was converted into a bomb shelter in WWII. The Hendrick de Keyser Assocation purchases historically and architecturally significant homes like this one, restores them, and then repurposes and rents them out as event facilities, hotels, etc.

Pictured is the skinniest home in Amsterdam. (It’s the narrow, bright red house.) Its entrance measures only about a yard wide, but it opens up towards the back. The saying goes that “Only the wealthy can live on the inside of a canal’s curve,” because their homes had to have wider fronts to accommodate the bend in the waterway.

It’s not your imagination. The houses all lean over the street. The looming angle is by deliberate design, and not due to subsidence. By tilting the house forward, owners could use the pulleys along the gable tops to raise furniture and merchandise in through upper level windows without damaging the building’s facade. (Notice the hoisting hooks hanging in front of each attic gable.)

Check it out — we watched some folks employing the pulley system to move their furniture into an upper-level apartment. Although why it takes three guys to lift a rattan chair is beyond me. And why they couldn’t bring the tiny thing in through the hallway is also a mystery.

The Jordaan (yor-DAHN) neighborhood wins the award for most gorgeous homes. No matter how small the space, everyone has a lovely garden. Matthew and I have made a pact that we will live here one day. By the way, in this photo, it’s easy to see that the false gable and window aren’t dedicated to their own separate, livable floor. They’re merely letting light into the floor below. In other words, the third story of the house is actually the attic, which has a cathedral ceiling with a little window up top.

About those bike rides I mentioned.  There are almost as many bicycles as there are people in Amsterdam.  (The average household has four bikes but few if any cars.)  You’ll also find every possible cycle configuration your heart desires, from triplets, to tandems, to single-seaters with bins in front and buggies in back.  Especially amusing is watching a mother pedal her five kids to school, two in the bin, two on the fender, and one in the buggy.  Think of it like a two-wheeled version of a family station wagon.

Bikes even have their own parking garages and enormous, four-lane highways (complete with traffic jams) that snake through the town center.  These are incredibly intimidating for an American cyclist, but downright terrifying for a pedestrian.  Bikes always have the right-of-way, and we’ve almost lost our life more than once by inadvertently stepping into a cycling zone.  When biking, I suggest sticking to quiet side streets as much as possible, since I’ve heard more than one local yell, “Watch out, tourist!  Don’t bike if you don’t know how to ride like an Amsterdammer!”  (In general, the Dutch are friendly people, but don’t mess with their cycling habits.)

This bike highway has its own turning lane. I had to wait until an unusually quiet moment to stand close enough to get a pic without getting run over.

Three-seater, anyone? Cycling around Amsterdam is easy because the city — and the whole country, for that matter — is incredibly flat. No need to worry about the weight of chugging three people on one bike up a hill.

What I’d like to know is, how do you find your bike? It’s worse than losing your car in the parking lot.

Check out this triple-decker bike lot.

Need a baby buggy for your beagle?

3.  Amsterdam Rivals Paris for Café Culture
I’m not kidding — adorable little pubs, cafés, and restaurants populate virtually every corner of Amsterdam.  And the cheap bar snacks can’t be beat.  We tried everything: varieties of Edam and Gouda cheeses, frites (of course), a smattering of sausages, little ham-and-cheese broodjes (sammies), plus delicious croquettes nicknamed “bitterballs” (breaded and deep fried meatballs.)

But I think my favorite eateries just might be the herring stands that are the equivalent of our food trucks.  Here, you can pick up pickled herring, fried fish, shrimp, and other seafood, then tote your picnic to a canal-side park bench and watch the parade of humanity go by.  To whet your whistle, pop into one of the cornerside bars or “brown cafes” (so-called for their nicotine-stained ceilings and walls; smoking has now been relegated to the great outdoors throughout Amsterdam.)  These places serve up typical pilsners like Heineken and Amstel, but if you really want to go local, use your beer as a Jenever (gin) chaser.  This procedure is known as a kopstoot (head-butt), so don’t expect to have much of a memory of the experience later.

However, if you’re more in the mood for ethnic food, eating at one of the zillion Indonesian restaurants offering a risjttaafel (“rice table”) will leave you stuffed and satisfied.  These places are a little like gnoshing at Korean barbecue joints — about twenty small dishes show up at the table.  By the time you’ve sampled each, your stomach will be stretched to maximum capacity, and your tastebuds will have been taxed to their limits sorting between salty, sour, sweet, and bitter.  Truly a melting pot of tastes and textures, which should be topped off by trying one of a multitude of Asian teas available — more than I’ve ever seen even in San Francisco or New York. 

Amstel is always better when served from a funky porcelain tap.

I’m sampling every cheese and sausage assortment on the menu.

The herring comes with a little Dutch flag, in case you were wondering about the fish’s allegiance.

Our favorite place for breakfast is De Bakkerswinkel. The homemade pineapple-basil marmalade, lemon curd, and raspberry jam are to die for, especially when spread over one of their raisin scones. And the thick, natural yogurt goes great with homemade granola that is as hearty as it comes.

4.  Amsterdam’s Major Museums Are Totally Doable in A Weekend Visit
Let me qualify that a bit.  The enormous Rijksmuseum is a little intimidating, but if you stick to the Dutch Masters, you can totally do it in an hour without getting museum coma.  And you wouldn’t want to miss all those Rembrandts, Vermeers, Steens, and Hals, would you?  These guys make living in the 17th century look like a whole lotta fun; drinking, making merry, and posing for portraits.  Not so different from today’s college kids with their frat parties and selfies.

Vermeer’s “The Kitchen Maid” is so lifelike that you feel as if you’re voyeuristically peering through a window. In fact, it’s possible that Vermeer did just that, using a camera obscura to project a real-life image onto his canvas, then copying it almost like a paint-by-numbers. If you haven’t seen the movie “Tim’s Vermeer” explaining his probable technique, rent it today.

I’m a recent convert to Frans Hals, mostly due to his ability to capture jollity and frivolity in an age that we typically think of as fairly puritanical. Take this wedding portrait, for instance. Most painters of the day made a marriage look like a business contract, but these two people seem like they’re having a blast together.

Jumping out of the 17th century for a minute, the Rijksmuseum also currently has a fabulous outdoor display of modernist sculptures by Joan Miró. (I love the juxtaposition of the almost primitive, free-form Lunar Bird against the rather rigid and sophisticated museum exterior. The gardens here are a great place to recoup after immersing yourself in dark Dutch Masterworks.

The Van Gogh Museum is another must see, but be prepared for your own emotional meltdown while reading through heart-rending quotes from the artist, which are paired with paintings spanning his short ten-year career.  It’s amazing to think we wouldn’t even know about him if it weren’t for the efforts of his brother’s widow.  She preserved Vincent’s letters and notes, as well as all of his tools, studies, and paintings — and then worked like hell to make sure he got the posthumous attention he deserved.

Aside from these blockbuster institutions, there are dozens of smaller museums that make for quick excursions.  I particularly loved the Rembrandt House; not only do you get to see how he managed his art gallery, ran his own printing press, and kept a “cabinet of curiosities” for painting true-to-life details, but docents demonstrate his processes for making etchings and mixing paint.  Plus, you’ll hear all the sordid dirt on his personal life, from his bankruptcy to his affair with a housemaid almost three decades his junior.  Juicy.

Rembrandt started his artistic career as an art dealer. Throughout his life, he sold his own works as well as those of his students and other artists. The first level of his house basically acted as his showroom.

Here, an artist runs prints on a replica of Rembrandt’s press using copies of some of his etchings. Pretty amazing stuff.

A docent artist ground up minerals, added linseed oil, and let us mix them up to create ochre paint according to Rembrandt’s formula. I was astonished at how much the paint adhered the pestle to the mortar — it took some serious elbow grease to blend the mixture.

5.  Amsterdam’s Not Nearly as Debauched as You’ve Been Told
That statement might actually be a turnoff to some of you, who are looking for a drug-n-sex-filled weekend.  Both vices are easily acquired in Amsterdam, but they’re fairly location specific.  Sure, on some of the side streets known for their “coffeehouses,” we had to hold our breath through nauseating clouds of weed.  (Our jobsite practices random drug testing, so we didn’t want to take the chance that accidental inhalation would result in our being fired.)  But I wouldn’t say the drug culture permeates the whole city.

The requisite walking tour of the Red Light District also revealed it wasn’t as seedy as we’d expected.  Every hooker had her own narrow, rectangular display window outlined in red neon.  Most ladies simply stood face-forward, hands on hips, eyeing the the crowd defensively.  Such stiff stances and cellophane surroundings made each girl look more like an individually-wrapped, Porno-Barbie-in-a-Box than a backstreet bimbo.

By the way, Amsterdam’s prostitutes work for themselves, not for pimps, and pay income taxes just like everyone else.  It’s a job.  And it’s clear these women are earning some serious coin, as many are surgically enhanced in a variety of ways and scantily clad to show off the doctor’s handiwork.  But oddly, interspersed amongst the prostitutes are high-end restaurants and homes.  I had to laugh as I watched one guy pause to do a double take between a culinary tasting of grilled meats on his left, and a dominatrix on his right.  Clearly, he was struggling to decide whether he wanted ham on the bone or off it.

But if you’re planning to visit for a weekend or even a week, I wouldn’t worry that you’ll return home a depraved maniac.  I’d even bring the kids, just as long as you steer clear of certain streets.  Seriously, we watched tourist families take their toddlers for a stroll along the sex stalls.  How do you explain the scenario to your three year old?  “Honey, these pretty ladies are mostly naked because they’re making a living in the best way they know how.”  Now there’s a goal-setting speech for your daughter.  Nice work.

And on that note, stay tuned for my post about Amsterdam’s Flower Festival.