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One of Amsterdam's best neighborhoods for walking and shopping is called the Nine Streets.
Amsterdam is among the world's great cities for walking. There are so many neighborhoods in this city that are wonderful to explore on foot, or perhaps on a bicycle, as so many locals get around, including entire families.
There's an excellent website put together by the merchants of the area that describes in great detail everything that you'll find in the Nine Streets, with a listing of the shops, with photos, maps and a brochure you can download. So take a look at that website de9straatjes.nl/nl/home
Among all of the favorite spots in Europe for walking through a town, this has to rank among the best. It's right next to the Dam, Amsterdam's main square. It looks like it's three streets, but each one has three parts, so that's a total of the nine streets.
I'm going to take you on an organized walking tour through all of those main streets from south to north. You will be delighted to see how friendly it is to pedestrians, and how many little independent shops there are here. And we will also be looking at the beautiful canals that run throughout this district - four major waterways that add to the special character of the Nine Streets.
Singel is one of the main streets along the canal of the same name, and this is part of that great charm of the neighborhood - you've got waterways along with these pedestrian lanes lined with shops, with an old pissoir, part of that historic heritage of the neighborhood.
Here you also find apartments, offices, and some hotels. It's a complete neighborhood, very attractive for both the visitors and the local residents.
This is a compact zone with basically a square shape, just 400 meters from one end to the other, making it so easy to walk and see all of it in a day. The paving is great, you're welcome to walk in the street and the terrain is flat.
There are quaint and picturesque neighborhoods throughout the Netherlands, and in other sections of Amsterdam, indeed all over Europe there are hundreds of charming towns with wonderful places for strolling, but it's hard to find one that has all of these characteristics in one place: sidewalk cafés, major canals, pedestrian lanes, a thick concentration of independent little shops, amid a large collection of attractive historic buildings, with a central location that's easy to get to. This is clearly someplace very special.
From the very beginning 400 years ago, this charming neighborhood was dominated by trade and culture, and still it has a great bustling atmosphere full of quirky little shops, designer boutiques and hidden cafés.
There are 60 boutiques, 40 places for food and drink and sleep, 5 for vintage 12, shops for shoes and bags, 16 for accessories and jewelry, 14 for hair, health and beauty, 18 home and lifestyle, 8 art, culture and books, and 25 specialties.
Most of the shops here are unique little boutiques.
There are hardly any tourists, souvenir shops, but you'll find plenty of places to buy a keepsake to bring home.
In the old days, these streets served the merchant families and businesses who worked along the canals. There were milking establishments, gas and fire shops, and liqueur distilleries. In the 60s, the hippies discovered the neighborhood. They not only came to live there, but also started shops selling secondhand clothes, furniture, lamps and curiosities, some of which can still be found today.
As you've noticed there are no shopping malls or big department stores here. It's just not that kind of place, but instead it's laced with authentic shops and picturesque scenes. There are big department stores elsewhere in Amsterdam, of course, you can find them along some of the main boulevards, but don't look for them here.
Most shops are open every day from about 10 or 11 in the morning until six or seven in the evening, all year round. While this neighborhood is a slice of heaven for shoppers, it's fun even if you don't intend to buy anything. Just walking around through these streets is a pure pleasure. And we have the added bonus of seeing row after row of houses along the canal.
There are thousands of boats of all shapes and sizes here, including quite a few houseboats, some of which are available as vacation rentals, although Amsterdam has been reducing the number of vacation rentals available to protect the housing market. There are several excellent hotels in the Nine Streets that have converted rows of canal houses into deluxe accommodations, including the Pulitzer, the Dylan, the Hockston and the Andaz. You can get a room with a view looking out over the canal, or a quiet room at the back looking out over a garden.
Another way to get around is to rent a bicycle, which makes a great way to see this neighborhood and the rest of town, one of the most bicycle-friendly cities in Europe.