Jordaan

Neighborhood · JordaanAmsterdam,Netherlands

A quarter of crooked lanes and canals west of Amsterdam's canal ring, built for the trades the ring shut out, now among the priciest addresses.

The Jordaan is the quarter of crooked lanes and small canals immediately west of the grand canal ring. Its streets follow old drainage ditches rather than a surveyor's arc, so nothing runs quite straight, and the water in it is narrow enough to feel domestic. Behind unmarked doors along the pavement are hofjes: almshouse courtyards, planted and silent, still lived in. The brown cafés are the other inheritance, dark wooden rooms with no reason to hurry. It was laid out in the seventeenth century for everyone the canal ring did not want: artisans, dyers, tanners, immigrants and the noisy trades. For three centuries it was poor, crowded and famously loud, with its own accent, its own sentimental songs and a reputation for rioting when pushed. It gentrified hard from the 1970s and is now among the most expensive addresses in the Netherlands. Saturday brings the farmers' market at the Noordermarkt and Monday a cheap fabric market on the Westerstraat, and neither is put on for visitors.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Push on the unmarked doors — several hofjes open on weekdays, roughly ten to five and not on Sundays. People live in them, so the rule is in quietly, look, leave.
A brown café is a room, not a bar — dark wood, sand on the floor, no music to speak of. You sit for two hours over one beer and nobody comes to move you along.
The lanes run at an angle to the ring — they follow drainage ditches that were already there, so they stay parallel to each other but never line up with the surveyed canals beside them.

Things to do

1
Go through a hofje door
Find one of the plain doors on the Egelantiersstraat or the Palmgracht and push. Behind it is a garden ringed by low houses, a pump or a well in the middle, and total silence about six metres from the street. Go in quietly, stand a moment, and come out again.
2
Spend two hours in a brown café
Pick a small one with a cat in it. Order a small beer with a finger of foam, or a jenever served so full you bend to the first sip rather than lifting it. Then stay. The entire point is that nothing further is expected of you.
3
Follow the small canals instead of the big ones
The Bloemgracht and Egelantiersgracht are about half the width of the Prinsengracht and lined with lower, older houses. Walk them and the scale drops from merchant to neighbour, and the water comes close enough to see into.