Travelling like a tourist is so 2009. Experience Amsterdam like a local with our collection of A-list addresses.
Lovely girls riding bicycles along canals illuminated by Vermeer light. Cheese shops with gabled roofs and vivid orange awnings. Yellow tulips in glass bottles on tables in sidewalk cafés. This is the Amsterdam of the Nine Little Streets — just one of the city’s many storybook neighbourhoods. (Even the infamous nearby Red Light District is getting a makeover — see “Tough Customers.”)
Home to designers like Viktor & Rolf and the up-and-coming Bas Kosters, Holland’s capital is in the midst of a style surge. ELLE shares the city’s top spots so that you can drink, dine, shop and spa like an insider.
Best spot for people-watching
Café Luxembourg (luxembourg.nl) This iconic institution offers everything you could want in an Old World café: a cool and eclectic clientele, an impressive selection of international newspapers on the polished wood bar and tall windows framed with crimson curtains that offer views of the beautiful people pedalling through Spui Square. Start your day here with the International Herald Tribune and a quintessentially hearty Dutch breakfast: a croissant, toast and a crusty French roll with butter, jam and cheese, a boiled egg and a pot of strong coffee with cream.
Strangest concept hotel that actually works
Lloyd Hotel (lloydhotel.com) Located in the up-and-coming Eastern Docklands area, the Lloyd has been both an “immigrants hotel” (a place for penniless new arrivals to stay in Amsterdam) and a prison. Today, it’s a concept hotel that takes its artistic pretensions seriously, hosting frequent readings, concerts and screenings. But the hotel’s true masterpieces are the rooms themselves. With ratings ranging from one to five stars, the rooms have been designed with surrealist gusto. One boasts a four-metrewide bed that stretches the length of the space; another offers both a swing and a bed that hover a foot off the floor.
Find out how to spend an afternoon in Amsterdam on the next page ...
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