Atlantica - 01.09.2002, Blaðsíða 22

20 A T L A N T I C A
BUT IT WASN’T ACTUALLY LIKE THAT for me the first time I went there
a few years ago. I only stopped for a short while, one afternoon or
so, on my way to Brussels, and I wasn’t at all impressed. It was mid-
winter and because I didn’t know my way around the city, I wan-
dered from Centraal Station, down the cobbled pedestrian streets
Nieuwendijk and Kalverstraat, two of the city’s main shopping
streets. Then I went for a sightseeing tour around the red-light dis-
trict, like every tourist that comes to Amsterdam for the first time. It
was all rather depressing – the shopping streets were uninteresting,
with the same stores as in most other European cities, and the red-
light district was somehow completely overwhelming. I was glad
that my stop in the city was a short one. Later I discovered that
Amsterdam has a much warmer and more pleasant side, and that
visitors should not let its more notorious face cloud their opinion.
But it’s impossible to ignore the fact that prostitutes and drugs are a
prominent part of the city, and so it is best to get the discussion
about them out of way first.
Twenty-six years have passed since the Dutch government
decriminalised the use of cannabis. Now there are cafés all over
town called coffeshops, which specialise in the legal sale of
hash and marijuana. Most of them can be easily recognised,
painted in the colours of Bob Marley’s homeland, Jamaica, with
all kinds of smoking paraphernalia displayed in the windows
and that distinctive “oregano smell” flowing into the street. All
of this, of course, being very normal and run of the mill. Even
mainstream guides like TimeOut have a whole chapter dedicated
to the best coffeshops around the city.
The red-light district is a whole other chapter. It is the most
popular tourist destination in Amsterdam and you can see peo-
ple of all ages touring the district. The atmosphere there is
something like at a zoo; people come to look at those on display
behind glass doors, but unlike in most zoos, visitors can, if they
wish, interact with those in the cage.
My advice is, just as you would go to see the Eiffel Tower in
THE OLD AMSTERDAM. OVERLOOKING THE CITY CENTRE’S MAIN FUNCTIONAL WATERWAYS FROM THE BANKS OF AMSTEL.
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