MOON METRO AMSTERDAM

Moon Metro Amsterdam
1st Edition
ISBN 1-56691-564-3
$16.95
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Amsterdam defies both convention and narrow classification. Asked to describe the city, a historian might relate Amsterdam’s love-hate relationship with the sea: Its residents have profited wildly from maritime trade, yet must constantly dig canals to keep the city on solid ground. An art lover might expound upon the museums filled with Rembrandts, van Goghs, and Mondrians as well as the lively gallery scene. An aging hippie might reminisce about the Provos, the playful anarchists of the 1960s, and the liberal policies toward social issues, from housing to sex to policing, that they helped promote. A young backpacker might recall the city’s unpretentious, welcoming nightlife and the marijuana-vending “coffee shops.” And an urban planner might laud the bicycle-mad populace and the city’s efficient tram system.

Settle for just one of these perspectives and you’ll miss the true Amsterdam. It’s a city where high culture and low breathe side by side, where carefully preserved relics of the past blend easily with contemporary concepts and modern trends, where a population of just 800,000 people (and an estimated 600,000 bicycles) can share a relatively small area of skinny, gabled houses and picturesque canals and make it one of the most thriving, vibrant cities in the world.

A veritable wonderland for its beauty, small scale, and unique attitude toward life, Amsterdam hums with daytime activity. Yet even in this realm, the city defies convention. Lacking a single business district, offices are spread out all over the city, tucked in old mansions or canal-side warehouses. And still, the Dutch economy remains one of the strongest in Europe. Nighttime in Amsterdam can be a quiet affair—a stroll along a canal lit with the twinkling lights that trim the delicately arched bridges—or it can be a raucous party of any imaginable variety.

As liberal as Amsterdam is in many respects, the populace remains conservative in the most basic sense: Amsterdammers are skeptical of change. They value gezelligheid, that warm feeling you get when you walk into the neighborly bar or corner café. As a result, Amsterdam has lovingly preserved its historic, highly gezellig core as a thriving mixed-use zone (not as a frozen museum piece, as in Venice, which Amsterdam is often inaccurately compared to simply because of its canals).

This tension between conservative and progressive reached a horrible climax in May 2002, when controversial parliament candidate Pim Fortuyn was assassinated ten days before national elections. A particularly Dutch conundrum, Fortuyn was an openly gay former Marxist whose anti-immigrant invective sounded dangerously right-wing yet he primarily criticized foreigners for bringing intolerant attitudes with them. The election gave Fortuyn’s backers a significant share of Parliament’s seats—but it also gave several seats to the socially and economically conservative Christian Democrat party, which has criticized state policy on gay marriage, euthanasia, and soft-drug tolerance.

But a national turn to the right may never make a dent in this freewheeling city’s liberal attitude. (Even under the most rigid Calvinist rule in the 17th century, Amsterdam still ran free presses, harbored revolutionaries, and saw the world pass in and out of its port.) Its openness and cosmopolitan attitude distinguish Amsterdam as one of the most pleasant and accessible cities in Europe. The friendly, largely English-speaking population is unsurpassed in its ability to enjoy life, whether over dessert in a cozy “brown café” on a grim winter night or sprawled out on the sidewalks through a long summer day—all with a casualness and lack of pretense that makes everyone feel welcome.