Bargain Shopping in Amsterdam
|
||
The Tax-Free Shopping Center at Amsterdam International Airport-biggest and best in Europe-is the chief shopping draw of this surprising city. A survey conducted by Life Magazine confirmed that "Amsterdam Airport is possibly the best in Europe for a variety of dutiable items at the lowest prices. Dutch gin and BOIS Geneva are available for low prices, Dutch Schimmelpenninck cigars are less than half the price of the cheapest Havanas.
Perfume prices are as good as those in Paris, in some cases a few cents less. Precision goods are among the cheapest in Europe." Liquor, particularly, is a stunning value at Amsterdam Airport for such brand-name Scotch as Johnny Walker Red Label, Vat 69, Haig & Haig, Grant's, White Horse, others. And thus, by ending your trip in Amsterdam, rather than in other European cities, you can save on a purchase of liquor (that being the number of duty-free bottles a couple can lawfully import).
In the city itself, low-cost diamonds and prints are the top buys. Obviously, we'll- pursue the latter item only. A wide variety of really superb reproductions are sold at a store caIled A. Jongkind Wellner, on the important avenue, Leidsestraat, No. 78, just half a block from the Leidseplein square. A similar collection, with some different items (Marc ChagaIl's, especially) is available at the second-floor shop in the Stedelijk Museum, the magnificent modern art gallery at Paulus Potterstraat 13. Rembrandts, on foot-square slabs of beaver-board at the Rijksmuseum, Stadhouderskade 13. These lay easily in your suitcase; the others must be roIled into a long cardboard tube...
Elsewhere in town, there are establishments which sell Dutch wooden shoes not as souvenirs, but for actual use by Dutchmen!
My favorite is A.W.G. Otten, 102 Albert Cuypstraat (between Bol Straat and le van der Helstraat), which stands right in the heart of the colorful Albert, Cuypstraat street market. Here, large, adultsized wooden shoes, smaIler ones, and they are sold with the rubber or leather inners that real people, wearing wooden shoes, use. I doubt that you can find better, or cheaper, wooden shoes anywhere else in town...
For hand-painted Dutch tiles, try the shop of an old gentleman named Rijkers, at 64 Nieuwe Spiegelstraat (between Prinsengracht and Kerkstraat), where relatively-new, multi-colored tiles, blue-and-white ones, and some especially ancient (and sometimes fashionably chipped) tiles; this is the best selection of tiles I've found in town.
More centrally located, perhaps, is Kunsthandel Rembrandt, 61 Rakin, where a selection of tiles from the province of Friesland are always available. That's only 100 yards away from the V.V.V. office on the Rokin... Don't, by the way, fail to visit the Amsterdam "flea market." In most other cities, the "flea market"-an assemblage of push-cart vendors selling second-hand goods of every type-takes place but one day a week. In contrast, Amsterdam's flea market, on the nondescript Waterlooplein, operates every day of the week except Saturday; its offerings include old clothes, books, records and paintings, all kinds of food, furniture and antiques. See it even if you're not planning to buy a thing...
Elsewhere, on the Albert Cuypstraat, starting at the comer of Ferdinand Bolstraat, two blocks from the Heineken's Brewery, a several-square-block-long street market takes place every day but Sunday, and is one of the city's top sightseeing attractions. The goods here are merely cheap, not second hand, but they're just as varied as those offered on the Waterlooplein: ties, socks, vegetables, herrings, dothes, corsets, flowers, fish, hardware. Don't miss it. The pushcarts are colorful, the shoppers even more colorful and volatile, and the entire setting is a picture straight from Breughel!
|
   Beauty Health Fashion TravelBargain Shopping in Amsterdam
|
|
