While Amsterdam is a big city, it's not a metropolis on the scale of London or Paris, so it doesn't have an equivalent of, say, Harrods. But what it does have is an independent and vibrant sense of style, and hundreds of great shops to prove it. There's Hoofstraat, also known as the 5th Ave of Amsterdam, which has literally hundreds of high quality clothes shops in it, then there's the more conventional department stores in the centre of town. One of the best places I've been clothes-wise is Look Out, which sells the kind of decent designer gear that's for real people - Paul Smith, Stone Island etc.

Amsterdam also excels in its antique shops, I'm told, but beyond passing a few of these shops in the street, I've not got much experience of them, not being much of an antique freak. The markets in Amsterdam are uniformly excellent - as you'd expect from mainland western Europe, with special emphasis on typically Dutch specialities such as the flower market. Supermarkets aren't particularly varied in terms of operators, the main one being the Albert Heijn chain, which is reasonably cheap (if you're from the UK you'll find the price of beer in Dutch supermarkets to be agreeable), well stocked and has friendly staff who pretty much all seem to speak perfect English.

Another type of shop that I'm unfamiliar with (you'll just have to trust me on this) is the Coffee Shop. They are dotted around here and there, maybe with slightly more in the De Wallen area. But despite Amsterdam being well known for its liberalised laws in allowing coffee shops, you wouldn't notice them had you not been told of their existence.

All in all I'd rate Amsterdam extremely highly for its retail - it definitely has more to offer than most cities of comparable size elsewhere. Might need to get cheap ferry tickets - leaves all the more money to spend when when I get there...

As any traveller knows, communication can often be a problem. A bit of learning the local language can go a long way though, especially in countries where there aren't that many native speakers. People in, for instance, Sweden really appreciate people giving their language a shot.

But in The Netherlands, what I've found is that everyone speaks English, and not only do they speak English, they speak it so well that Holland should surely be classified as an bilingual country. From the girl at the Albert Heijn checkout to the airport staff to taxi drivers - everyone speaks English. And maybe it's just me, bit when I try out a bit of Dutch, it's like I'm wasting everyone's time - you suddenly think "Come on, everyone hear speaks good English, just quit the terrible attempt at Dutch".

All of which makes visiting Amsterdam even more of a pleasure. Not because I don't want to converse in foreign languages, but because Dutch is really difficult to pronounce.

Tot ziens...!

It's pretty cool how the internet has made the world smaller. If you want to take a 'virtual' trip- somewhere then just by looking up a webcam you're there in seconds seeing the place as it really is.


As a Netherlands obsessive I'm always checking out the country on various tourist sites and there's often a webcam or list of webcams at various famous areas. There's something exciting about seeing a city street from afar, traffic and pedestrians in motion, all watched by a tiny camera that nobody ever thinks about or notices.

The other thing about the internet is that it's also made booking holidays very easy. No need to go into town and queue at the travel agents, you can get everything from cheap ferry tickets to  detailed maps online, putting you in a position where you can plan a trip and buy tickets without any effort at all. And if you have a smartphone or a netbook, you can even do so on a whim while you sit in your favourite coffee outlet, sipping a cappuccino and dreaming about your upcoming adventures!

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam