A jaunt to Amsterdam is easier than ever
‘MY NAME,’ said Sjoerd, the captain of our Art Deco canal cruiser, ‘means “brave guardian” in Dutch.’
It was reassuring to have such a man at the helm of the Iris — with its woodpanelling and tulips in Delft china vases — as we coursed along Amsterdam’s Herengracht and Prinsengracht canals.
Mills and Boon could not have invented a more dashingly Dutch hero: blonde, blue-eyed, so tall he had to stoop below the boat’s canopy, a bottle of Chanel Allure Homme behind its wheel.
‘He’s even taller than I am,’ said my fiancé Andy. Knowledgeable, too.
Sjoerd guided us through Amsterdam’s history, through ‘dancing’ houses that lean on their rotting wooden stilts; to the frontage tax that led to tall, narrow terraces — the wider the house, the more you paid; and the Eighties opera house nicknamed ‘Stopera’ — a portmanteau of st’adhuis (city hall) and opera, hijacked by protesters against its ugliness into: ‘Stop The Opera’.
Ugly sights are rare in Amsterdam. Plot your walks carefully and you need never pass the red light district or a dubious ‘coffee shop’.
The city centre is much as it was when Johannes Vermeer, Gerard Ter Borch and Jan Steen painted it. On a blistering May day, Dammers spill out onto raised stoops and allow glimpses of cool, dark entrance halls, unchanged since Pieter de Hooch’s 17th-century scenes. The only sound to shatter the tranquillity is the shout of ‘bike lane!’ as cyclists bellow at tourists to get off their paths.
Eurostar now goes from London direct. In just over three-and-a-half hours, you can be ordering Dutch pancakes —
pannenkoek with jam and raisins are a good ballast for a day’s gallery visiting.
We saw the superlative Van Gogh & Japan exhibition at the Van Gogh Museum, and visited the Rijksmuseum. Rembrandt’s The Night Watch is worth the selfie-hustle, while Jan Steen’s guzzling scenes of beer, oysters and sweetened loaves make you hungry.
Mango ice-creams at IJscuypje gelateria? Steaks, asparagus and hollandaise at Buffet van Odette? Pale ales from the organic grocers, Marqt? Between us, Andy and I had the lot. Blame Jan Steen.