Amsterdam is still the wonderful, welcoming place Anthony Horowitz remembers from his student days.
It's been years since I was last in Amsterdam. I used to go often when I was at university; I studied Rembrandt and Dutch art as part of my degree. But walking down the Damrak from Centraal station on a bright September afternoon, I was shocked at how little of it I remembered and how different it all seemed.
It wasn't just the new buildings (the casinos, Hudson's Bay department store and the extravagant opera house, which opened in 1986), the streets and squares seemed larger and more spacious, though somehow more crowded. The trams appeared brand new as they swished around the corners with rattling wheels and chiming bells. There was no metro service until 1977. Now it serves the entire city.
I'm sure Amsterdam used to be shabbier. Cannabis became legally available in coffee shops in 1976 and I have memories of bug-eyed backpackers sprawling in corners, on park benches and around the national monument in Dam Square. Returning, I still got the unmistakable whiff of marijuana every 20 paces or so but, generally, everyone seemed very clean and healthy. The square outside the station was as noisy and as chaotic as I remembered, but otherwise Amsterdam seemed to have cleaned up to the point where it was almost sanitised.
National Monument and Bijenkorf at the Dam, Amsterdam. Photo / Marie Charlotte Peze
Curiously, it was my old university — York — that had invited me back to give a talk to a group of academics on James Bond. They put me up at the five-star Hotel De L'Europe, overlooking the River Amstel, certainly not somewhere I could have afforded as a student.
There are more modern and chic hotels in the city but this was comfortable, old-fashioned and centrally located.
I must have walked miles: everything here can be reached on foot, provided you're careful not to be mown down by a tram or, more likely, a cyclist. This is the main glory of Amsterdam. With the sun shining through the trees on to the bridges and cobbled pathways, everything is as it was and as it should be. I wandered into the attractive shopping district of Nine Streets, and from there, another five minutes into the Jordaan neighbourhood for lunch.
Later, quite by accident, I found myself in the red-light district, which is as I remember it, with garish neon signs, unhappy young women behind the windows and throngs of young men with presumably more testosterone than brains. Why is it still there? As a student, I thought it was funny. Forty years later, I couldn't wait to get out.
I was much happier visiting the wonderful museum district. The square behind the Rijksmuseum is such a lively, happy place, with cafes and shops, fountains and sculptures, which have captured the public imagination.
The Rijksmuseum reopened in 2013 after a renovation, which cost $625 million, and the result is gorgeous. I happily reacquainted myself with masterpieces by Rembrandt, Vermeer and — an old favourite — the Dutch genre painter Jan Steen. The artworks are displayed in spaces that add to the sense of drama — you cannot approach The Night Watch, for example, without a sense of awe.
The Stedelijk Museum (modern art) has also had a makeover and looks fabulous, but frankly offers considerably less value for the same €17.50 entrance fee. More disappointing was the Van Gogh Museum, which I loved when it first opened in 1973.
Now the grey walls, the crowds and the light, dimmed for conservation, had me gazing at these extraordinary works as if through a miasma. I found the room titles ("Artistic Flourishing", "New Perspectives") arbitrary and the commentaries a touch rudimentary. So Van Gogh "felt anything but calm due to all his hard work". Really?
Amsterdam is a wonderful, welcoming place: I have never seen so many young people out in the streets having a great time. And once, long ago, one of them was me.
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Photo / Edwin van Eis
Checklist
GETTING THERE China Southern flies from Auckland to Amsterdam, via Guangzhou, with return Economy Class fares from $1250.
