← All articles · Netherlands · 30 November 2012

Amsterdam

Amsterdam in November 2012: canal walks, the Anne Frank Huis, coffeeshop neon, cheese by the wheel, clog carving and windmills at Zaanse Schans.

Amsterdam in November 2012 gave us three cold days, Christmas lights strung over every street, and more to look at per square metre than any city has a right to.

Canal country

The canals run the show here. We crossed bridge after bridge, and every one of them insisted on a photo stop.

Canal cruise boats moored near Amsterdam Centraal under a blue winter sky, a round modern tower and hotels behind — A rare patch of blue sky over the cruise boat piers near Centraal. We logged it and moved on before it changed its mind.

Inga in a pink knitted hat and dark fur coat smiling on a canal bridge, moored boats blurred behind her — Inga on yet another bridge. The camera around her neck barely got a rest.

An Amsterdam canal lined with brick gabled houses, parked cars, small boats and an orange houseboat on grey water — Gabled houses, houseboats and water the colour of old pewter. November suits Amsterdam.

The daytime rounds

Inga in a pink hat and scarf standing outside the glass front of the Anne Frank Huis — Outside the Anne Frank Huis. Cameras stay in your pocket inside, and honestly the visit needs your full attention anyway.

A tall Amsterdam house on Spuistraat painted red, yellow and white with a giant green snake mural winding across the facade — De Slang, the snake house on Spuistraat. Some cities commission murals; here a whole facade volunteered.

The giant I amsterdam letters on Dam Square at night with the National Monument and Christmas lights behind — The letters on Dam Square, wet cobbles and all. Inga is the small figure holding up the letter I.

After dark

Amsterdam at night is a different city, lit in neon and that particular shade of red.

The neon-lit corner of Baba Coffeeshop at night, with carved wooden deity figures set into the cream facade — Baba, one of the famous coffeeshops, looking more like a temple than a cafe. We stuck to admiring the woodwork.

Belle, a bronze statue of a woman standing tall in a doorframe, on a dark cobbled square with red-shuttered windows behind — Belle, the bronze on the square by the Oude Kerk, honouring sex workers the world over. Amsterdam does not hide its history; it casts it in bronze.

A window glowing deep red at night with an empty chair inside, next to a door with a red lantern and the number 83 — One window, one chair, nobody home. The quietest corner of the loudest neighbourhood.

The cheese and clog day

We gave one day to the countryside north of the city: a cheese factory museum, a clog workshop, and the windmills we had been promised by every picture book since childhood.

A maturing room with wooden shelves full of yellow cheese wheels and young cheeses floating in a brine bath — Young cheeses doing lengths in the brine bath before earning a place on the shelves.

Inga in a fur coat holding a cheese wheel prop the size of a table, painted with Welkom Cheese Factory Museum Demonstration — Inga and the welcome committee at the Cheese Factory Volendam museum. Sadly a signboard, not a sample.

A demonstrator in a red traditional Dutch vest holding up a freshly carved pale wooden clog in a workshop — A clog fresh off the lathe, still pale and damp. The demonstration takes minutes; our disbelief lasted longer.

Inga and Dileep standing together by a white railing with a row of Zaanse Schans windmills and green wooden houses across the water — Both of us at Zaanse Schans, windmills lined up on cue. Cold hands, worth it.

A Dutch railways departure screen reading 05:17 Intercity Utrecht Centraal — The 05:17 to Utrecht Centraal. Amsterdam sent us off before it was even light.

Three days, one city, and a departure board at dawn. We left with cold feet, a head full of cheese vocabulary and a standing promise to come back when the tulips are up.