Christmas in Amsterdam

To think, we weren’t even going to go to Amsterdam…Yet each time we think of the city now, we ask each other the same question:

“Why on Earth don’t we live there?”

We visited Amsterdam for three days in December 2003 (including Christmas), our second stop on a 3-week tour of European cities that also included Brussels, London, and Paris.

We were pleased to discover that my persuasive father was right, and most of Amsterdam is ill-deserving of the gossip we’d heard — that it’s a tourist trap overrun with crime and vice.  Walking along the residential canals, we found Amsterdam elegant, friendly, and quiet.  Elegant, narrow houses, each one with a different roof detail, line the neat and tidy cobblestone streets in a smooth, flat plane.  Glass-topped boats drift by under soft gray skies, and golden lights shimmer on the water after dark.

We had a blissful stay at the refurbished 17th-century Canal House on the Keizersgracht Canal.  (It’s apparently being updated once again, and will re-open in the spring of 2009.)  Canal House had once been the fashionable residence of a local merchant; our airy top-floor room not only had a view of the stair-stepped roofs of the houses across the way, but a huge wheel and pulley in the ceiling that had long ago been used to haul up goods from the canal below.  There’s a fluffy six-toed cat in residence, and the breakfast room looks out over a sweet little garden that’s spare in winter, but full of flowers in spring.

The Dutch traditionally celebrate Christmas as Sinterklaas’s (St. Nicholas’s) Day on December 6, but we were pleased to see that Amsterdam also embraces December 25 as a day of celebration; by the time we arrived, Christmas decorations were still up all over town.

For instance, Canal House wasn’t far from the Nine Alleys, nine small shopping lanes that are blazingly lit for the Christmas season; each lane is overhung with a cheery, lit-up number 9.  Wander Keizersgracht to where it meets Runstraat, and there you are.  You can wander each street back and forth over small bridges, which pedestrians share politely with (thankfully) skilled bikers.

After putzing around the Alleys, we stopped into De Doffer (Runstraat 12-14), where we happily snacked on “old cheese”/brown bread sandwiches and, to warm up from the outside cold, oude junever (sweet, aged local gin).  De Doffer is unique in that it’s both a white (food/coffee) and a brown (marijuana) cafe, with each side separate from the other. Weed’s not our thing, so this was a fun way to experience this part of Amsterdam’s culture without, um, experiencing it.

Wandering the city’s downtown, we were charmed by graceful old hotels from the late 1800s, exciting art nouveau architecture, and huge willow trees draping down towards the canal waters. Students lounged everywhere

We marveled over the absurdly vast 17th-century royal silver collection at the massive, looming brick palace of art and history known as the Rijkmuseum; the 1885 building has long been in a state of construction, but due to be fully renovated by 2013.  A few blocks away, we had a dazzling visit to the Van Gogh Museum.  Turns out that not only did the ill-fated Dutch artist create hundreds of paintings that have never left Holland, but you pronounce his name Van Gockh.

We found dozens of travel-approved tulip bulbs at the Bloemenmarkt, a sprawling series of floating flower and bulb shops tethered to the dockside of the Singel Canal.  In the market-adjacent galleries, we pored over well-edited shelves of traditional blue-and-white Dutch pottery, known as Delftware.

We ventured only once to the infamous Red Light District, at the decidely un-sexy hour of 4pm, and saw the hands-down most curious thing we’ve yet seen in Europe:  A brunette, thirty-something prostitute clad in frilly black lingerie, perched in the garland-trimmed window of her house of legalized repute…knitting to pass the time. I’d love to have a photo of this for you, but taking pictures of the women in this area is verboten; pimps have been known to strong-arm nosy tourists with cameras.

As an antidote to all the Christmas-ness in the air, we attended an afternoon tour through the soaring, glowing Portuguese Synagogue, the oldest Jewish house of worship in the city.  Amsterdam was one of the only places in Europe where persecuted Sephardic Jews from 16th/17th-century Portugal and Spain could openly practice their religion, and this 1665 synagogue was the center of their fresh start.  Later in the day, we looked away quietly from the tower of the Westerkerk (West Church), a 1631 church on the Prinsengracht, which can be seen from the attic of Anne Frank’s House.

Our favorite part of Amsterdam, besides just strolling the pretty streets and pining for a canal house to call our own, was unexpected.  We meant to spend one hour in the Amsterdam Historical Museum (Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal 357, Kalverstraat 92)…but after almost three, were still mesmerized.  Turns out that during the spice and tea trade boom of the 17th century, Amsterdam was the wealthiest city on Earth. Room by room, this museum tells the city’s whole story, before and after its heyday.  This is a great place to see Dutch ships, maps, and find out who all those starch-ruffed aristocrats are that the Masters were always painting.

On our way out of the museum, we enjoyed a moment of perfect quiet in the nearby Begijnhof, an achingly beautiful residential courtyard that dates from the Middle Ages and long served, loosely, as a convent; we were excited to discover that the oldest house in Amsterdam is here.

Of course, we didn’t subsist on sightseeing alone.  While Amsterdam isn’t known for its food, we managed to dine beautifully for the holidays.

On Christmas Eve, we dined cozily at De Luwte, a warm, organic-focused restaurant on the Leliegracht canal.  While they do offer fish and poultry, it’s the perfect place to not only get friendly service and some tourist advice from locals, but to go vegetarian — not always easy in Europe.

On Christmas itself, we celebrated with the unofficial cuisine of the Netherlands:  the Indonesian rijsttafel, or rice table. At Sukasari, near Dam Square (Danistraat 2628, 31-20/624-0092), we were greeted at the door by a sweet young woman in traditional Indonesian batik; she gave us each a flower to symbolize the fact that we’re married and welcomed us to a huge and detailed feast.  A parade of colors and tastes, the rijsttafel is an endless array of sauces and condiments that you add to chicken and fish cooked in peanuts, coconut, and curries, and pair with rice.  Gorgeous.

Amsterdam is delightful at Christmas, to be sure.  Someday we hope to weigh that assertion against Amsterdam itself…in every other season.

*To see more of our photos from Amsterdam, click here.