limegreenlimey
Active member
TLDR - If you've not been the the Dam before or live somewhere where cannabis laws are repressive, it is still worth a visit. If you knew Amsterdam as it was more than 10 years back or have easy access to good cannabis at home... maybe prepare yourself for some disappointments.
My visit - I dropped in on my way back home, having come off a long transatlantic flight, with a 6 hour layover at Schiphol. So, I grabbed about three hours in the city centre.
Where did I go? - La Tertulia coffee shop on Prinsengracht and a few other places. More about which below.
What did I smoke? Forgotten! (sorry) it was a mostly sativa for Euro17 a gram, recommended by the bud tender guy. He asked me what I wanted and I said "I don't care whether it is the strongest stuff or not. I want something well grown, with good flavour, in good condition". And that's what I got. Best weed ever? No. But I would say 8/10. I have certainly had far worse in Amsterdam and far, far worse elsewhere. It was, at a guess, a haze-indica cross, with some of the haze flavour profile and very tight, reasonably resinous buds.
Do I recommend this coffeeshop? Yes. That said, they no longer offer a Verdamper vape, or any vapes or bongs at all, and you have to buy both cannabis and a drink to sit in or outside the shop, which seems to be common policy these days in Amsterdam. More about this below. The coffee was nice. The staff were pleasant. The coffeeshop is one of the most pleasant in the city and (a rare thing) is south/east facing with outdoor seating, so you can actually sit and enjoy a smoke in the sun, which I did. Inside the shop is airy and bright and has a nice selection of pot plants (not the smokable kind). If I were to take a novice/girlfriend/etc to a coffeeshop in Amsterdam, it might well be this one.
Did I got anywhere else? Yes. Coffeeshopamsterdam Cafe, on Singel, near the station. You cannot buy weed there but you can smoke there. If you remember nothing else form this post but this, remember this place exists because its "you can smoke weed from elsewhere" policy is incredibly useful (these days).
I offer the above a gazetteer advice, what follows is a rambling set of reflections on this and past visits. It's not going to offer much of any practical value, in case you're here for "facts".
The Long Read....
I have arrived off a 9 hour flight from over the pond, where I have been working for a few weeks, with a six hour layover on my way back to Heathrow. I have had perhaps 20 minutes sleep in 24 hours, and am thoroughly jet-lagged. This is likely not the best state to be making objective judgements about anything but at least I wont be starry-eyed about this visit, blinded by adrenaline and excitement. The mission is simple: get a few smokes and a wander round in before I head home for some sleep. I haven't been to the Dam for a decade, and am keen to see how the old place has changed since I was last here. First impressions? The queue for immigration, at 40 minutes, is much longer than I remembered, and uncharacteristic of the Dutch reputation for efficiency. It passes. I could have done without the tedium or the time lost. Never mind.
On arrival at Central Station, I was immediately discombobulated by the building work. The old front of the station is being redeveloped, which means you have to loop round the ferry side and through a tunnel to get to the city centre. Prins Hendrikkade has been dug up yet again, as it seems to have been for most of the 21st century, and I dodge the bikes at the foot of Singel as I meander on my way to La Tertulia. I was pleased to see that Siberie is still open, as it's always been one of the better shops in the area, but I pass by as I am in a bit of a hurry. I wish I wasn't in a hurry. It is hot. Not "sunny but there's still a cool breeze off the Ijmeer" hot. Actually hot. And I have to carry my cabin bag from the plane, which is slightly larger and heavier than one might choose for half a day of urban route march ; thank god, I was not encumbered with a bergen and guitar, as I was thirty years ago when i first came here. There are no hippies with bergens and guitars, in fact, that I can see. Nor any touts outside the VVV selling cheap rooms in dubious hostels. Some things are the same. Cafe Joselito, the tapas place in which I have eaten many times is still there, as is Kaasland Singel. Hotel Multatuli, opposite the station, is still there. I have never stayed there but its name has always intrigued me. But the city is definitely not the same and my old man nostalgia is kicking in before I have barely penetrated the canal belt. This is going to set the tone for the visit.
It is much further than I remembered from Central Station to La Tertulia, which is towards the southern end of Prinsengracht, the outermost of the canals that loop round the old centre of the city. Visiting the coffeeshop is the main purpose of this little trip into the city. I have been here many times but always failed to visit the coffeeshop when it's open, for no reason I can explain adequately. I have passed by on what must always have been Mondays, when it's closed, and pressed my nose against the glass but I had never before been in. It's notable for having been there a log time, run by women, and for its airy, pleasant atmosphere. It is the opposite of the neon-hiphop-weedbro vibes of many of the other places in the city. There used to be a lot of coffeeshops (I call out the Old Church in the Red Light District) which were in nice buildings but had little else to offer. I am too old and cynical for that kind of establishment. I just want somewhere I can enjoy a blunt and a coffee in peace. If I were here for longer, I might have visited Yo-Yo, long my favourite of all coffeeshops in Amsterdam (mostly terrible weed but always one special variety available ; mostly Dutch customers picking up a gram on their way home ; a vibe that never lost connection with its roots as a squat in the 70s) but its too far and I don't have time. I am not disappointed by La Tertulia. I get my smoke in the sun. There are no bad vibes. It is a little pricey but that's Amsterdam for you. I recommend it. But...
We're going to dive down a rabbit hole of nostalgia and mild bitterness here. I'm sorry. There will be light at the end of this tunnel but I have some things to get off my chest first.
I first came to Amsterdam in 1993. I was 18. I was a longhair with a harmonica travelling with a friend and his guitar. We stayed in an unlicensed hotel above a launderette on Haarlemmerstraat with Mr Singh, a kindly Sikh gentleman who became a friend, over the years. I stayed there often, and came to know that part of the city very well indeed. When I first visited, you could buy skunk in the Dam, of course, and Haze, Northern Lights and White Widow but in 1993 these weren't the predominant strains. Most of the coffeeshops were still hasj centred and you could still get Purple Haze and Jamaican and other weedier weeds. In fact, that's what you mostly got. No doubt, there were fancier coffeeshops with finer strains but that wasn't the main scene. It would change within a year. So, my many visits to the city spanned what I would describe as three or four phases of coffeeshop culture, That "purple haze" phase. Then the 90s mainstream phase of, yes, skunk and widow and lights and widow (and "skuff", the first mainstream Dutch made hash, which was awful) and, later, Jack Herer. Then a phase in the 2000s when there was a lot of transatlantic influence, with American breeders like KGB and DNA and, a bit later, Barney's Farm, and the main strains seemed to be Amnesia and Lemon Haze and Sweet Tooth, and the start of the ice/water hashes like Moonshine at Dampkring, and ... I don't know what happened next because by 2010-2012, I had largely stopped visiting. All I can say is, by now the weed you get in Amsterdam seems to be mostly the same as the American strains like Girl Scout Cookies and LA Kush cake.
La Tertulia has these same American strains on their menu and some of the older kinds. I take what's recommended to me by the bud tender. I was slightly surprised to see a man working in there having understood it had an all female staff policy but he was pleasant and knew his job. There was a little tension. Not his fault. I explained that I was off a long flight and that he might have to wake me up. Also I looked fairly terrible. Not quite tramp territory but I could have done with a shower and a comb. I guess he imagined that he'd have to gently eject me from the shop if and when I passed out and started snoring into my beard. I do not smoke tobacco any more so asked for a vaporiser (they no longer offer them for use) or a bong (he offered to sell me one) and he had to explain (to me and others) the policy that you have to buy pot and a drink in the shop if you want to sit in the shop. At each stage of these explanations, he looked ever-so-slightly more embarrassed, perhaps as my eyebrow raised a notch high each time. As it turns out, almost everywhere I went had these policies. They used to be somewhat in place, somewhat informally in the past, but seldom strictly applied. It's the rule now. And such rules don't sit easy with me, I must say. I emphasise this bud tender and the coffeeshop are not to blame for this. But it grated, I have to tell you.
Two blunts and two coffees down, I decide I have to head off for a walk before I doze off and miss my flight home. So I crossed the city centre via Warmoesstraat, another old stomping ground, and the edge of the red light district, off to Nieuwmarkt, where there's a clutch of coffeeshops including Greenhouse Effect, which used to be on Warmoesstraat and has moved. On the way, I note the desolation of the old coffeeshop scene. There used to be dozens of coffeeshops on this route. Almost all have closed. Especially the good one have closed. The vast majority of girls in windows in the Red Light District are gone for good, which is likely a good thing, but the area now lack its former edge and colour, like Soho in London. They do not let me into Greenhouse Effect, pretending that it is closing. I assume I look too old and too rough but I am insulted, not least because before they moved, I used ot smoke there often. Arseholes! I am not dumb enough to be fooled by their lie or foolish enough to argue. De Jolly Joker does let me in but they insist I buy weed, so I decline and slope off, by now rather depressed, and head back on a short tour of old haunts all now closed before returning to Singel, largely because it's so close to the station and if I have to buy some more weed, it's going to be from Siberie. But on the way, I drop into coffeeshopamsterdam, which is on the site of one of the branches of the late-lamented Rokereij coffeeshops, where I used to stop for my last smoke. Old habits dies hard.
coffeeshopamsterdam saved my day. So here's you brighter ending. After the disappointments of the day, the relief that I found somewhere where I could buy just a drink and have a smoke was considerable. The staff were polite and friendly. There were people even older than I smoking a joint at a table outside and people much younger than I, some heads slightly drooping with the weight of their smoke, inside. There were even a few grinders one could borrow alongside the skins and roach card at the counter. Yes, the drinks were expensive-ish (Euro 9 for an iced coffee and an ice tea) but I didn't feel.... exploited.
And that's how I felt about Amsterdam these days. It is still absurdly civilised. It is still GREAT that you can pop into a cafe and buy some weed and a drink and smoke the former without looking over your shoulder or being made to feel like a freak. perhaps to those of you in weed legal places, this has entirely lost its novelty but I'd still little short of revelatory to me, even after 30 years. And. let's face it, with it's sparse traffic and beautiful architecture, and all the other many attractions, Amsterdam remains a great place to visit. But that counterculture vibe is now barely present. And being forced to buy weed and a drink almost everywhere, it seems is definitely not the vibe of yesteryear.
Do go, if you can. Maybe you wont be able to AT ALL if things keep changing the way they seem to have done. I'll still go there if it's on my way home and I get the chance. But I wont make any special weekend trips there again. My era or eras in Amsterdam are in the past. The tourist who go to Amsterdam now are a different crowd, not least because hotels there are so bloody expensive these days. And maybe we no longer need it the way it used to be, a mad hold out city, the (almost the only) one place o earth where you could toke in public in peace. Our American and Canadian cousins have that for themselves now, and that's only to be celebrated. On this side of the pond, we now have buyers clubs in Spain and no doubt sometime soon something similar in Germany. Roll on the good times. Farewell old Amsterdam!
My visit - I dropped in on my way back home, having come off a long transatlantic flight, with a 6 hour layover at Schiphol. So, I grabbed about three hours in the city centre.
Where did I go? - La Tertulia coffee shop on Prinsengracht and a few other places. More about which below.
What did I smoke? Forgotten! (sorry) it was a mostly sativa for Euro17 a gram, recommended by the bud tender guy. He asked me what I wanted and I said "I don't care whether it is the strongest stuff or not. I want something well grown, with good flavour, in good condition". And that's what I got. Best weed ever? No. But I would say 8/10. I have certainly had far worse in Amsterdam and far, far worse elsewhere. It was, at a guess, a haze-indica cross, with some of the haze flavour profile and very tight, reasonably resinous buds.
Do I recommend this coffeeshop? Yes. That said, they no longer offer a Verdamper vape, or any vapes or bongs at all, and you have to buy both cannabis and a drink to sit in or outside the shop, which seems to be common policy these days in Amsterdam. More about this below. The coffee was nice. The staff were pleasant. The coffeeshop is one of the most pleasant in the city and (a rare thing) is south/east facing with outdoor seating, so you can actually sit and enjoy a smoke in the sun, which I did. Inside the shop is airy and bright and has a nice selection of pot plants (not the smokable kind). If I were to take a novice/girlfriend/etc to a coffeeshop in Amsterdam, it might well be this one.
Did I got anywhere else? Yes. Coffeeshopamsterdam Cafe, on Singel, near the station. You cannot buy weed there but you can smoke there. If you remember nothing else form this post but this, remember this place exists because its "you can smoke weed from elsewhere" policy is incredibly useful (these days).
I offer the above a gazetteer advice, what follows is a rambling set of reflections on this and past visits. It's not going to offer much of any practical value, in case you're here for "facts".
The Long Read....
I have arrived off a 9 hour flight from over the pond, where I have been working for a few weeks, with a six hour layover on my way back to Heathrow. I have had perhaps 20 minutes sleep in 24 hours, and am thoroughly jet-lagged. This is likely not the best state to be making objective judgements about anything but at least I wont be starry-eyed about this visit, blinded by adrenaline and excitement. The mission is simple: get a few smokes and a wander round in before I head home for some sleep. I haven't been to the Dam for a decade, and am keen to see how the old place has changed since I was last here. First impressions? The queue for immigration, at 40 minutes, is much longer than I remembered, and uncharacteristic of the Dutch reputation for efficiency. It passes. I could have done without the tedium or the time lost. Never mind.
On arrival at Central Station, I was immediately discombobulated by the building work. The old front of the station is being redeveloped, which means you have to loop round the ferry side and through a tunnel to get to the city centre. Prins Hendrikkade has been dug up yet again, as it seems to have been for most of the 21st century, and I dodge the bikes at the foot of Singel as I meander on my way to La Tertulia. I was pleased to see that Siberie is still open, as it's always been one of the better shops in the area, but I pass by as I am in a bit of a hurry. I wish I wasn't in a hurry. It is hot. Not "sunny but there's still a cool breeze off the Ijmeer" hot. Actually hot. And I have to carry my cabin bag from the plane, which is slightly larger and heavier than one might choose for half a day of urban route march ; thank god, I was not encumbered with a bergen and guitar, as I was thirty years ago when i first came here. There are no hippies with bergens and guitars, in fact, that I can see. Nor any touts outside the VVV selling cheap rooms in dubious hostels. Some things are the same. Cafe Joselito, the tapas place in which I have eaten many times is still there, as is Kaasland Singel. Hotel Multatuli, opposite the station, is still there. I have never stayed there but its name has always intrigued me. But the city is definitely not the same and my old man nostalgia is kicking in before I have barely penetrated the canal belt. This is going to set the tone for the visit.
It is much further than I remembered from Central Station to La Tertulia, which is towards the southern end of Prinsengracht, the outermost of the canals that loop round the old centre of the city. Visiting the coffeeshop is the main purpose of this little trip into the city. I have been here many times but always failed to visit the coffeeshop when it's open, for no reason I can explain adequately. I have passed by on what must always have been Mondays, when it's closed, and pressed my nose against the glass but I had never before been in. It's notable for having been there a log time, run by women, and for its airy, pleasant atmosphere. It is the opposite of the neon-hiphop-weedbro vibes of many of the other places in the city. There used to be a lot of coffeeshops (I call out the Old Church in the Red Light District) which were in nice buildings but had little else to offer. I am too old and cynical for that kind of establishment. I just want somewhere I can enjoy a blunt and a coffee in peace. If I were here for longer, I might have visited Yo-Yo, long my favourite of all coffeeshops in Amsterdam (mostly terrible weed but always one special variety available ; mostly Dutch customers picking up a gram on their way home ; a vibe that never lost connection with its roots as a squat in the 70s) but its too far and I don't have time. I am not disappointed by La Tertulia. I get my smoke in the sun. There are no bad vibes. It is a little pricey but that's Amsterdam for you. I recommend it. But...
We're going to dive down a rabbit hole of nostalgia and mild bitterness here. I'm sorry. There will be light at the end of this tunnel but I have some things to get off my chest first.
I first came to Amsterdam in 1993. I was 18. I was a longhair with a harmonica travelling with a friend and his guitar. We stayed in an unlicensed hotel above a launderette on Haarlemmerstraat with Mr Singh, a kindly Sikh gentleman who became a friend, over the years. I stayed there often, and came to know that part of the city very well indeed. When I first visited, you could buy skunk in the Dam, of course, and Haze, Northern Lights and White Widow but in 1993 these weren't the predominant strains. Most of the coffeeshops were still hasj centred and you could still get Purple Haze and Jamaican and other weedier weeds. In fact, that's what you mostly got. No doubt, there were fancier coffeeshops with finer strains but that wasn't the main scene. It would change within a year. So, my many visits to the city spanned what I would describe as three or four phases of coffeeshop culture, That "purple haze" phase. Then the 90s mainstream phase of, yes, skunk and widow and lights and widow (and "skuff", the first mainstream Dutch made hash, which was awful) and, later, Jack Herer. Then a phase in the 2000s when there was a lot of transatlantic influence, with American breeders like KGB and DNA and, a bit later, Barney's Farm, and the main strains seemed to be Amnesia and Lemon Haze and Sweet Tooth, and the start of the ice/water hashes like Moonshine at Dampkring, and ... I don't know what happened next because by 2010-2012, I had largely stopped visiting. All I can say is, by now the weed you get in Amsterdam seems to be mostly the same as the American strains like Girl Scout Cookies and LA Kush cake.
La Tertulia has these same American strains on their menu and some of the older kinds. I take what's recommended to me by the bud tender. I was slightly surprised to see a man working in there having understood it had an all female staff policy but he was pleasant and knew his job. There was a little tension. Not his fault. I explained that I was off a long flight and that he might have to wake me up. Also I looked fairly terrible. Not quite tramp territory but I could have done with a shower and a comb. I guess he imagined that he'd have to gently eject me from the shop if and when I passed out and started snoring into my beard. I do not smoke tobacco any more so asked for a vaporiser (they no longer offer them for use) or a bong (he offered to sell me one) and he had to explain (to me and others) the policy that you have to buy pot and a drink in the shop if you want to sit in the shop. At each stage of these explanations, he looked ever-so-slightly more embarrassed, perhaps as my eyebrow raised a notch high each time. As it turns out, almost everywhere I went had these policies. They used to be somewhat in place, somewhat informally in the past, but seldom strictly applied. It's the rule now. And such rules don't sit easy with me, I must say. I emphasise this bud tender and the coffeeshop are not to blame for this. But it grated, I have to tell you.
Two blunts and two coffees down, I decide I have to head off for a walk before I doze off and miss my flight home. So I crossed the city centre via Warmoesstraat, another old stomping ground, and the edge of the red light district, off to Nieuwmarkt, where there's a clutch of coffeeshops including Greenhouse Effect, which used to be on Warmoesstraat and has moved. On the way, I note the desolation of the old coffeeshop scene. There used to be dozens of coffeeshops on this route. Almost all have closed. Especially the good one have closed. The vast majority of girls in windows in the Red Light District are gone for good, which is likely a good thing, but the area now lack its former edge and colour, like Soho in London. They do not let me into Greenhouse Effect, pretending that it is closing. I assume I look too old and too rough but I am insulted, not least because before they moved, I used ot smoke there often. Arseholes! I am not dumb enough to be fooled by their lie or foolish enough to argue. De Jolly Joker does let me in but they insist I buy weed, so I decline and slope off, by now rather depressed, and head back on a short tour of old haunts all now closed before returning to Singel, largely because it's so close to the station and if I have to buy some more weed, it's going to be from Siberie. But on the way, I drop into coffeeshopamsterdam, which is on the site of one of the branches of the late-lamented Rokereij coffeeshops, where I used to stop for my last smoke. Old habits dies hard.
coffeeshopamsterdam saved my day. So here's you brighter ending. After the disappointments of the day, the relief that I found somewhere where I could buy just a drink and have a smoke was considerable. The staff were polite and friendly. There were people even older than I smoking a joint at a table outside and people much younger than I, some heads slightly drooping with the weight of their smoke, inside. There were even a few grinders one could borrow alongside the skins and roach card at the counter. Yes, the drinks were expensive-ish (Euro 9 for an iced coffee and an ice tea) but I didn't feel.... exploited.
And that's how I felt about Amsterdam these days. It is still absurdly civilised. It is still GREAT that you can pop into a cafe and buy some weed and a drink and smoke the former without looking over your shoulder or being made to feel like a freak. perhaps to those of you in weed legal places, this has entirely lost its novelty but I'd still little short of revelatory to me, even after 30 years. And. let's face it, with it's sparse traffic and beautiful architecture, and all the other many attractions, Amsterdam remains a great place to visit. But that counterculture vibe is now barely present. And being forced to buy weed and a drink almost everywhere, it seems is definitely not the vibe of yesteryear.
Do go, if you can. Maybe you wont be able to AT ALL if things keep changing the way they seem to have done. I'll still go there if it's on my way home and I get the chance. But I wont make any special weekend trips there again. My era or eras in Amsterdam are in the past. The tourist who go to Amsterdam now are a different crowd, not least because hotels there are so bloody expensive these days. And maybe we no longer need it the way it used to be, a mad hold out city, the (almost the only) one place o earth where you could toke in public in peace. Our American and Canadian cousins have that for themselves now, and that's only to be celebrated. On this side of the pond, we now have buyers clubs in Spain and no doubt sometime soon something similar in Germany. Roll on the good times. Farewell old Amsterdam!
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