Discover Amsterdam and Incredible Places

The word on everyone’s lips is “Venice”. It starts as a whisper, some time in early spring, when the lines in front of the Rijksmuseum get a little longer, and the weekend shopping crowds on the Negen Straatjes start to test your bike navigation skills. Right now in July, these streets are flooded.

You don't even try to get through the crowd. You'd be like Moses, except God is not on your side, the Red Sea will not be on your side, and the crowd will carry you away: the middle-aged couples of the EUA and Germany, here for the museums; and farewells from Spain, Italy and the UK, here in their epic attempt to drink all the beer and smoke all the pot.

So you learn to take the long way to your destination and skip entire areas of Amsterdam – which means that maybe once every summer you'll find yourself on the sidewalk after hitting an oblivious tourist who walked in front of your bike. . , and the whisper becomes a curse: “Fucking Venice!” (The Dutch like to swear in English).

“Venice” is shorthand for a city so inundated with tourists that it no longer looks like a city. In the famous 2013 Dutch documentary I Love Venice, a tourist asks: “What time does Venice close?” It's very funny, except, of course, it's not funny at all.

In his 1998 Booker-winning novel Amsterdam, Ian McEwan describes his protagonist walking in the thought of Brouwersgracht: “Such a tolerant, open, grown-up place: the beautiful brick apartments, the modest Van Gogh bridges, the understated wooden furniture. street, the smart, scruffy-looking Dutchman on their bicycles, with their heads-down children sitting behind.

Even the shopkeepers looked like teachers, the street sweepers like jazz musicians. “Well, once upon a time, maybe.

This year, Amsterdam's 850.000 residents will see around 18,5 million tourists flock to the city – 11% more than last year. In 2025, 23 million are expected. Last week, the city's ombudsman condemned the red light district as no longer under government control on weekends. Criminals operate with impunity; the police can no longer protect citizens; ambulances struggle to reach victims in time. The narrow canal streets are simply too crowded. But at least, as McEwan noted, our street furniture remains undervalued.