Eastern of Amsterdam used to be the Zuiderzee, a shallow inlet of the North Sea, like a gigantic bay 50 Km wide and 100 Km long. This used to be a danger for The Netherlands and in fact flooded several time in the past centuries. After the last flood in 1916, the Dutch decided to build a huge dike and close the Zuiderzee. In 1932 thirty kilometers of dike running through the water were completed, closing off the North Sea and forming the IJsselmeer lake, that then turned into fresh water. During the 20th century wide chunks of IJsselmeer were transformed in polders and reclaimed to the sea, transformed in land. Moreover the IJsselmeer has been split by an additional dike, forming the Markermeer.

There is a popular saying that God created the world but the Dutch created the Netherlands, and when you traverse IJsselmeer on the dike and drive through Flevoland you really understand what this means. Reclaiming land from the sea, fighting to keep water out of the land, is an impressive endevour and makes you think about the never ending challenge between mankind and the forces of nature. There, where land, water and sky merge in a total whole, you finally feel that Planet Earth is a very big place to live.

While driving you can see people a lot of cyclers (by the way: even dikes and roads lost in the middle of nowhere have at least one lane reserved to bicycles), birds, gigantic wind power farms, fisher villages, windmills. Did you know windmills are pumps? They were used to pump water out of the polders and pushing to the sea, to reclaim land. Weren’t for the strong constant wind flowing in this place, bug chunks of Netherland would be under water. This in another impressive engineering achievement, especially if you think they began to use windmills six centuries ago. Of course nowadays they use electrical pumps.

When you tell your friends you’ve been to Amsterdam they immediately start jokes about hemp and prostitutes in the red light district. It is unfortunate this city built up such a bad reputation, because actually there are better reasons to visit it. Nowadays the red light district is more a tourist attraction than a dangerous place. At night you can see families walk there with babies and strollers, as well as crowds of Japanese elders following the guide with the flag in her hand while looking at the ladies behind windows. You immediately lose any lust or transgression will.
Amsterdam is built on canals, not so different than Venice, except that bridges in Amsterdam have no staircases and houses always have a little street between the canal and their facade. This allows Amsterdammers to easily move on a bicycle. The whole city has been developed as a series of concentric semicircular canals. While Manhattan is a Cartesian city (you identify places by street, avenue pairs, that actually work the same as x,y coordinates), Amsterdam uses a polar system (ρ,θ).  You know, I’m a geek so be patient   Put in easier words you have to think in terms of which angle you have to rotate around the Dam, and how far you are from there. By the way, New York used to be a Dutch colony and was called New Amsterdam, before being sold to the English. And moreover Harlem and Brooklyn both inherited their name from cities in The Netherlands.

The thing immediately shocks you in Amsterdam is the lack of car traffic. Everyone moves on foot, by bicycle or with public transportation. Cars are extremely rare, maybe because parking in the city centre is almost impossible. We had to park our car under the Olympic stadium, a few kilometers outside.

If you visit the city there are a few things you mustn’t miss:

• The Van Gogh Museum is impressive. You can see hundreds of original paintings ordered chronologically and accurately commented by both written and audio guides. Some of those pieces is astonishing. Close to this museum you could also visit the Rijksmuseum, that holds some of the best masterpieces by Rembrandt and Vermeer, but unfortunately it’s currently under restoration.
• You haven’t really tasted a Dutch beer until you enter a Dutch brown cafè. Imagine an old pub, where walls got brown by centuries of thick smoke and warm conversation and nobody cared to dust off the bottles. You will find sand on the floor, the barman will be very chatty and ritual while drawing your glass of beer and you will definitely feel like a travel back in time, when sailors used to meet in these places.
• You should also try a white cafè, modern stylish architecture spaces where the light dominates and elegant people have a coffee or a salad while they read a book, take the sun on the terrace, or do some business on their laptop.
• Of course you should take a look at the old buildings with their narrow and tall facade crowned by the typical gables. Most of them are built on wooden foundations and have a forward leaning facades with large windows. The best way to look at buildings is from a boat, e.g. with a canal tour.
• Try a glass of Genever, the typical local liquor, similar to gin.

And remember, the weather changes dramatically every ten minutes, so in the same day you often find yourself changing several times from t-shirt to sweater to water-proof raincoat and back.