"The Venice of the North (or is it Hamburg?)" Amsterdam by bzh

Amsterdam is the capital city of the Netherlands. It historical centre is built from the harbour in concentric circles delimited by canals. Further out is the more modern part of the town. You are never far from water and the whole place gives you a felling of tranquility.

Amsterdam is well known for a number of things. It has the most famous red light district in the world. Its coffee shops are also particularly reputed due to the drugs law in the Netherlands which means that they can sell soft drugs like cannabis. And also, Holland is a prime producer of flowers and cheese. As the ad goes in France: "La Hollande, l'autre pays du fromage".

Typical narrow houses

One very particular feature of amsterdam are the colourful narrow houses along the canals. Most of them are so narrow that they are equiped with hoists to lift furniture up and down when people move because the stairs inside are hardly wide enough for people, let alone bulky furniture. This unusual building practice is due to the fact that at the times those houses were built, the owners were taxed according to how wide they were.

Bicycles, bicycles everywhere!

Like the rest of the Netherlands, Amsterdam is very flat in terms of geography. No steep slopes. This means that cycling is a pleasure on sunny days and can be enjoyed by everybody, fit or not. Residents of amsterdam surely take advantage of this and everybody has to have a bicycle. The whole town is meant to be cycled in, with cycle lanes everywhere and places to leave the bike in every street. You even have multi-storey bicycle parks! The most usual question on the lips of the Amsterdam resident is not "where did I park the car?" but "where did I leave the bike?".

One last word about the Dutch and the Amsterdamers. They all speak perfect English so there is absolutely no problem to get understood. This doesn't preclude you trying to learn a few words of Dutch but beware that it is reknown for being a very harsh language to speak so make sure you only expriment in pubs where you can relieve your throat with a beer afterwards.

• Pros:The relaxed atmosphere of the town
• Cons:None that I can think of
• In a nutshell:Canals, bicycles, flowers and coffee shops