Amsterdam, etc - what the guidebooks don't tell you

During our recent 3 week house exchange to A'dam, we used a number of
guidebooks. Here's some things we discovered that weren't mentioned.

Museum card
You can buy a museum card for €30. It gives you free or highly
discounted admission to over 400 museums throughout the country (see the
list attached to the application form). Visit just four places and the
card has paid for itself. At some, like Van Gogh, you bypass the long
line of people waiting to buy tickets. It's also a great way to see
places in bite-size pieces: visit VG for a couple of hours on a
Wednesday morning, then leave to go to the Concertgebouw to relax at a
lunchtime freebie, then return later or on another day to take in more
of Vinnie. Same with the Rijks. You'll also find yourself dropping
into surprisingly good museums that you might have thought weren't worth
the price, but "free" is always worth it.

This card is really directed at residents, though they're happy to sell
it to tourists. You have to fill in an application, available in Dutch
only, asking for simple info like name and address. (Museum info desk
staff is happy to help.) A photo used to be required, but no longer.
The card is issued on the spot and is valid for a year.

Speaking of museums, if you want to go out and return the same day, go
to the info desk. They will give you a special ticket with today's date
which allows re-entry. Your original ticket already has exactly the
same info, so it's not clear why this extra ticket is needed, but that's
the way it's done.

Garderobes (coat check)
Almost every museum has one. It's always free and the staff don't put
out a tips plate. Many places have lockers. Sometimes you need to
insert a €1 coin, but it's returned when you open the locker. Put your
stuff away; you don't need to carry the weight and the museum would
prefer you didn't carry coats, umbrellas and other potentially damaging
objects.

Transport
Unlimited travel passes are not a good buy unless you make more than 4
trips a day or need to travel through multiple zones (unlikely). Use
the stripcard. Note that you can buy one with 45 punches for slightly
less than 3 @ 15. Negligible savings, but could be convenient for
longer, out-of-town trips (e.g. to Vollendam, Edam, etc.).

Note that the punches give you not just a ride but an hour of usage -
from the time on the punch. The machines are pretty accurate but
conductors and drivers have to reset their punch times manually. To
make life easier for themselves they usually set the time forward. You
could find yourself with 1.5 or even 2 hours of available time. It's
quite possible for you to travel to, say, the Anne Frank house, visit
the place, then travel back (or to some other place) on the same
punches, legally.

OpStapper - a fantastic transport secret. This is a small (9 seats)
white bus, flying two red flags with its logo (a smiling bus with an
upstuck thumb, like a hitchhiker). It travels the length of the
Prinsengracht from Central to the Stopera (opera house/city hall),
passing right in front of the Anne Frank house, close to the Jewish
museum and other places of interest. If nothing else, the large windows
make for a great canal tour. Unlike trams and buses, you just wave when
you see it coming and the driver will stop anywhere safe. You can also
get off anywhere. Best of all, it's part of the municipal transit
system so your strip card is good here, just like the other vehicles.

Bus to/from the airport. The train gets all the publicity but there's
also a bus, #197. Taking 5 punches (worth about €2), it comes in
cheaper and may be more convenient, depending on where you're staying.
It goes right through the museum district, so if your hotel is in that
area, or in Leidseplein, the bus will take you practically to your door
in 20 minutes from the airport. And you avoid all the pickpockets in
Central Station. Note that there is also an airport bus that will take
you right to the door of your hotel. This can be convenient, especially
if you have too much luggage, but not cheap: €10.50 per person.

Tourist info office - VVV
You might think this agency exists for the purpose of proving info to
tourists. Think again. Its purpose is to sell you stuff. Which bus to
take to Vollendam? They'll try hard to sell you a tour. Want to buy
stripcards? They try to sell you a poor value transit pass. What
special events are on this month? They'll sell you an ad-filled
brochure for E1.50 that tells you almost nothing. When will the Queen
open Parliament in The Hague? They give you the phone number and
address of the VVV there. Which way to turn to get to the centre (in
The Hague)? They try to sell you a map. Having said that, if things
aren't too busy and you are insistent, they can provide lots of valuable
info. You just have to be prepared to pull a few teeth to get it. As
everywhere, friendly smiles and a polite attitude help.

Road rules
Every place has informal rules of the road that you won't find in any
book. Amsterdam is no exception. Watch out for the trams. They're a
great, fast means of transportation because they yield to no one. They
expect you to get out of their way. Unless you're driving a tank, don't
argue.

Bicycles have their own complex informal rules. Sit down in a café at
some busy corner and watch them for a while. You'll see evolution in
action: small children riding on the back fender hanging on for dear
life. Those who failed to do so in centuries past fell off and didn't
reproduce. Thus all Dutch today are brilliant bikers. But this makes
you, the rookie rider on a rental, a serious hazard, as you haven't
grown up with the rules. So, if you're going to rent a bike, get
something prominent and obvious. That way the citizenry can make
allowances for your inexperience and give you a wide berth.

Cafés
There are plenty of places to sit and have a coffee or beer and watch
the world go by. In Amsterdam this is time well wasted. Our
favourites:
1) In the northwest, Papeneiland, at the corner or Brouwersgracht and
Prinsengracht
(http://www.xs4all.nl/~dekei/gifs-jdaan/papeneiland.html). This is a
very busy corner with heaps of bicycle, pedestrian and vehicle traffic
coming over the canal bridge. But it's not too noisy. Nice seats on
benches outside, with a separate platform for your drink. A good choice
on Saturday morning during the nifty market at Noordmarkt, around the
corner. (There's a lot of history here. Legend has it that this 17th
century place was started by a coffin maker who sold beer on the side
and went full-time when it made more money. The name means "Pope's
island" because there is a tunnel (now closed) from the café under the
canal to what was then a clandestine Catholic church.)
2) In the centre/east, http://www.cafe-de-jaren.nl, sandwiched between a
couple of ritzy hotels by the Muntplein. The outside area overlooks a
busy intersection of canals; many people come to this place by boat.
You'll never find a seat there, but just go upstairs. There's another
outside terrace whose view may be even better, yet usually has tables
available. With the great location and view, you'd expect lofty prices,
but they're about the same as anywhere else, with the same no-rush
approach. You could pick up a free paper and nurse a coffee for some
time without being bothered (and many people do).
3) At Museumplein, Small Talk is a café and restaurant on the corner
across from the Stedeljk museum. Some major bicycle lanes, tram lines,
busy roads and sidewalks intersect here. Sit here for a while and watch
the people interweave as they cross and witness the miracle of this
happening without collisions. A couple of good food choices he
goulash soup and grandmother's apple pie (especially with whipped
cream).

Restaurant prices
At first glance this is a very expensive country in which to dine. It
is pricey at current exchange rates, but not quite as bad as it
appears. Remember to compare how much actually leaves your pocket, not
simply the menu price. In the USA and Canada you'd have to add around
6%-15% for taxes and about 15% tip, inflating the menu price as much as
30%. In Holland, the taxes and service charge are already included and
any extra tip is token.

Normal water level
At Waterlooplein, go into the passageway between the opera house and
city hall. There's a display of three glass water columns showing the
current level of high and low tide at the sea. Note that you'd be
swimming if not for the dikes. A third column shows the level that
floods reached during the 1953 disaster - well above your head.
Explanations in six languages are in baskets by the wall. On the wall
is a representation of a section of Holland, showing the levels compared
to the sea.

"United Europe"
The houses at 23-30 Roemer Visscherstraat were designed by an architect
to portray various countries. You'll see England, Russia, France,
Germany, Italy, Spain and, of course, Holland represented, side by
side. The street is the first one northwest of Vondel park, if you're
coming along Van Baerlestraat, or from Leidseplein, cross the road south
of the canal (Stadhouderskade) and go down Tesselschadestraat (arrow to
Byzantium parking lot) half a block. At that corner you'll see another
interesting sight: a swimming pool occupying the front lawn of a
house/hotel. No swimming allowed, but you wouldn't try: it's only about
a foot deep. Supposedly this is some kind of modern art. Anyway, the
United Europe houses are just down the street to the left.

Special events
These can be a lot of fun but are generally not well-advertised to
tourists. The first Saturday in September is the day of the massive
flower parade. With 1.5 million flowers decorating imaginative floats,
it's a lot more interesting than you might think. Some guidebooks
suggest that Dam Square is the best place to see it. Better idea: the
parade goes right up the road in front of the Van Gogh museum. There
aren't a lot of people hanging around to watch it in the area, so you
can very easily get a look and take photos.

The second weekend in September is Monument Day. Other countries have a
similar event, often called Doors Open. On this weekend, 50 or so
buildings not normally open to the public invite visitors, and some
(lesser) museums waive admission charges. This event is not advertised
to tourists and brochures are available only in Dutch. But that's good
enough to get the addresses. Once at a place, people will happily speak
English to you. Those that offer tours may even give you your own
private one, in English. The only chance you'll have to see the inside
of the mayor's house, Trip House and some private residences.

The third weekend features the highly overrated Jordaan festival and
car-free Sunday - a great day to walk around downtown. It's also the
beginning of the week-long antiques doors open-type event. This takes
place in and around Spiegelgracht, the road running north from the
Rijks. Look in the handouts. One of them features a coupon for free
entry at an outdoor reception. Get a free glass of wine or two and a
few hors d'ouvres and get a glimpse of some Dutch high society.

The third Tuesday in September gives The Hague its only excitement of
the year when the Queen parades through the streets to open Parliament.
The whole city turns out to cheer the monarch and it's quite interesting
to watch the pomp and ceremony. The best way to see things is to wait
until the main event is over. Everyone crowds to see the Queen arrive
but then, as she gives her boring speech, the people mostly dissipate.
When she leaves Parliament to return to her palace, it's the same parade
in reverse, but most of the people have gone.

Note that you won't be able to cross the parade route for most of the
day, so be sure you're on the side you want to be. The VVV gives out
maps of the route. Note also that the Mauritshuis museum is closed till
about 3:30 that day as the diplomats and other people who think they are
better than you get the place to themselves. That evening the marching
bands play a free tattoo in the Parliamentary square, but you can see
much of the show earlier in the nearby square across from the
Mauritshuis. Of particular note is the Scottish highland bagpipe band.
Don't believe me? See: http://www.hhpb.nl/en/

Theft
This comes to me courtesy of an Amsterdam judge. You'll see many
warnings about pickpockets, but the thieves are even more
sophisticated. Some of their favourite ploys:
1) Someone spies your PIN at an ATM. When you get your money out, he
drops a paper or even a €5 bill on the ground and calls your attention
to it. As you bend over to pick it up, he takes out your card and
replaces it with a similar one. Concentrating on your money you don't
pay much attention to your card. The cash is all there, plus your
windfall, but the thief is at another ATM getting out as much as
possible. You might not discover the theft for days.
2) The thief is beside you on a tram, with a jacket over his arm. His
other hand, shielded from you by the jacket and from others by his body,
is busy rifling through your bag. It's especially easy on trams as they
are forever rocking and bumping.
3) On busy streets, noteably the Kalverstraat and Damrak, a team will
work to distract you in some way, perhaps with the old trick of bumping
into you with messy food. One member then picks the fanny pack. People
have a sense of security with fanny packs worn on the front; these
thieves specialize in them. Easy money.
Based on arrest and trial records, most of the perpetrators will be
Arabic, but bad guys can look like anyone. If you catch them in the
act, don't try to make an issue of it; they just want to move on to the
next victim, but can react violently if confronted. If you're nailed,
chalk it up to experience. The police will do nothing and have no
interest. They will, however, zealously tag your car the moment your
very expensive parking meter ticket expires.

Smoking
No discussion would be complete without this subject. While some parts
of Europe seem to be finally getting the message, the Dutch remain in
the dark ages. I have a theory: the Dutch language requires a lot of
heavy duty throat-clearing every few words. Thus in order to speak
properly, a large and constant supply of phlegm is necessary. Without
it, Dutch sounds almost like a dialect of English. (Note that the Dutch
don't smoke when speaking English. A coincidence? I think not. :-) )

Anyway, the really bad news is that a lot of men (mostly) like to smoke
cigars. There you are, in a nice, cozy and fairly pricey restaurant,
enjoying your meal, and some jerk trying to make up for his inadequate
penis lights up a cigar big enough to choke a horse. Even the
chain-smokers are gasping, and it smells worse than Galoises. But the
oh-so-tolerant Dutch would rather swallow broken glass than say anything
to a smoker (including in no-smoking train cars). Apparently it's
everyone else that needs to be tolerant, not the pig with the cigar.
Their country, their rules. But you're entitled to know before you
commit to spending your cash.

Environmentalism
Proving once again that an ounce of image is worth a pound of
performance, the Dutch are considerably less environmental than they'd
have you believe. Supposedly they want organic produce, but the regular
stuff far outsells it in the supermarkets. And it makes the whole
concept into a joke when they insist that every lungful of air must be
filled with proven carcinogens and other harmful substances. It might
be of interest to the tourist, though, to know that those boxes marked
Glass and Paper at the end of some streets are for recycling those
substances. They're quite small, barely big enough to contain the
output from a couple of houses, and never seem to have much in them.
You'll occasionally see people drag their stuff down the street for
deposit there, but most of it (plus the metals, plastics and
compostables) just goes into regular trash.

In article , (Lynn Guinni)
wrote:

Terrific, informative post - thanks.

Speaking of museums, if you want to go out and return the same day, go
to the info desk. They will give you a special ticket with today's date
which allows re-entry. Your original ticket already has exactly the
same info, so it's not clear why this extra ticket is needed, but that's
the way it's done.

Possibly to prevent people picking up and reusing discarded tickets?

Lynn Guinni wrote:

Road rules
Every place has informal rules of the road that you won't find in any
book. Amsterdam is no exception. Watch out for the trams. They're a
great, fast means of transportation because they yield to no one. They
expect you to get out of their way. Unless you're driving a tank, don't
argue.

The right of way trams enjoy is not an "informal" rule. It is the law.
AFAIK everywhere in Europe where there are trams they always have the
right of way. Running into a tram can be very expensive. A car driver
hitting a tram might be fined for every minute the tram is stopped (and
any tram behind that one). Hit a tram on a busy line and it can cost you
a fortune...

Normal water level
At Waterlooplein, go into the passageway between the opera house and
city hall. There's a display of three glass water columns showing the
current level of high and low tide at the sea. Note that you'd be
swimming if not for the dikes. A third column shows the level that
floods reached during the 1953 disaster - well above your head.
Explanations in six languages are in baskets by the wall. On the wall
is a representation of a section of Holland, showing the levels compared
to the sea.

Also if you take the stairs down there you will find an unassuming
conrecte collumn set in the soil, with a big steel plate on top. This is
the official "zero" level of the Netherlands. All heights in the
Netherlands refer to this point...

--
Krist

Krist wrote:

Lynn Guinni wrote:

Road rules
Every place has informal rules of the road that you won't find in any
book. Amsterdam is no exception. Watch out for the trams. They're a
great, fast means of transportation because they yield to no one. They
expect you to get out of their way. Unless you're driving a tank, don't
argue.

The right of way trams enjoy is not an "informal" rule. It is the law.

Thanks for pointing that out. I was in fact making two unrelated points
but put them into the same paragraph. Very careless of me. Apologies
to the readers.

wrote:

Speaking of museums, if you want to go out and return the same day, go
to the info desk. They will give you a special ticket with today's date
which allows re-entry. Your original ticket already has exactly the
same info, so it's not clear why this extra ticket is needed, but that's
the way it's done.

Possibly to prevent people picking up and reusing discarded tickets?

I never thought of that. Good point. I'll amend my document. Thanks!

I love Amsterdam.

That being said- I found simply walking on the sidewalks sometimes a
dangerous and frightening experience. Zillions of people ride bicycles,
many on the sidewalks. A number of times they were so close, I could
actually feel the clothing of the rider brush against my leg!- at top
speed- or what seemed like it. I once jumper out of the way of what was
a sure collission between me and a bike rider who didn't seem like there
was any chance he was going to avoid me otherwise.

I like that they use bikes so much- but BE ALERT!!!

Susan

In article ,
Susan Wachob wrote:

I love Amsterdam.

That being said- I found simply walking on the sidewalks sometimes a
dangerous and frightening experience. Zillions of people ride bicycles,
many on the sidewalks. A number of times they were so close, I could
actually feel the clothing of the rider brush against my leg!- at top
speed- or what seemed like it. I once jumper out of the way of what was
a sure collission between me and a bike rider who didn't seem like there
was any chance he was going to avoid me otherwise.

I like that they use bikes so much- but BE ALERT!!!

Susan

what you thought was the sidewalk was probably the bike lane -- there
are many areas where the tram, the bike lane and the sidewalk are all
not separated in any obvious way

Susan Wachob wrote:
That being said- I found simply walking on the sidewalks sometimes a
dangerous and frightening experience. Zillions of people ride bicycles,
many on the sidewalks. A number of times they were so close, I could
actually feel the clothing of the rider brush against my leg!- at top
speed- or what seemed like it. I once jumper out of the way of what was
a sure collission between me and a bike rider who didn't seem like there
was any chance he was going to avoid me otherwise.

I don't think they were riding on the sidewalk (almost never happens). More
likely you were walking in the bike path.

If you see that part of the paved area is red, chances are that's the bike
lane. Also look for blue signs with a white bike, or "fietspad".

miguel
--
Hit The Road! Photos and tales from around the world: http://travel.u.nu
Site remodeled 10-Sept-2003: Hundreds of new photos, easier navigation.

On Sat, 04 Oct 2003 21:11:07 GMT, Susan Wachob wrote:


I love Amsterdam.

That being said- I found simply walking on the sidewalks sometimes a
dangerous and frightening experience. Zillions of people ride bicycles,
many on the sidewalks. A number of times they were so close, I could
actually feel the clothing of the rider brush against my leg!- at top
speed- or what seemed like it. I once jumper out of the way of what was
a sure collission between me and a bike rider who didn't seem like there
was any chance he was going to avoid me otherwise.

I like that they use bikes so much- but BE ALERT!!!

Thanks ;-)

You probably were in 'Hoogstraat' or 'Damstraat' near damsquare. Those are the most 'dangerous'
streets for pedestrians. When I 'do' those streets on my bike I keep screaming and ringing my bell
all the time :-) It's just not obvious, but since bikeriders don't want to hit walking persons and
amsterdammers are used to bike in crowded streets, collisions are very rare :-)

Anyway, sorry for the inconvenience....





Adiós,

Cheche.