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plenary Holland: Amsterdam and The Hague CONVENE ON SITE
Going Dutch: Five Days, Four Cities
I
t started small, with a simple inquiry to see if NBTC Holland Market- ing would be interested in hosting
Convene at the World Justice Forum conference in The Hague this past July. NBTC agreed enthusiastically, and also suggested we visit some of the country’s other meeting destinations while we were there. The end result was a barn- storming tour of the lovely northern European country, covering four cities in five summer days — Amsterdam, The Hague, Maastricht, and Rotterdam — including time at the World Justice Forum, which we’ll be profiling in our November issue. Seeing four destinations one right after the other helped me get beyond what to an international traveler can seem like the monolithic culture of a foreign country and appreciate each city’s differences, highlighting its strengths and idiosyncrasies. It was an ambitious and at times exhausting itinerary, and a lot of fun. Here’s some of what I experienced.
AMSTERDAM: BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG CITY I landed at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol on a brilliant Monday morning — a jewel of a day that locals welcomed after a long winter and a rainy spring — and was driven to my host hotel, the Hotel Okura Amsterdam. From the car I got quick, enticing glimpses of Amsterdam’s capital — the concentric half-circles of canals ringing the city center, the skyline mashup of classic and modern architec- ture, and, everywhere, people on bicycles. I freshened up at the Okura.
Located along Amstel Canal, a short walk from the Amsterdam RAI conven- tion center, it’s a gorgeously modern property, sleek and angular, with 300
20 PCMA CONVENE SEPTEMBER 2013
Water Town Three concentric half-circles of canals ring the city center in Amsterdam.
guest rooms and 27,000 square feet of meeting space. Then it was a quick cab ride to Café-Restaurant Dauphine, where I met my hosts from Amsterdam Marketing (iamsterdam.com). And, after a coffee on Dauphine’s spacious streetside patio, we were off for a day- long tour, conducted almost entirely on foot, through Amsterdam’s compact, lively urban core. Our first stop was the Hotel Casa
400 Amsterdam, a squat, sturdy cube of floor-to-ceiling windows that sits a three-minute walk from Amsterdam Amstel railway station. Casa 400’s 520 guest rooms and 13 meeting and conference rooms are all splashed with light, due in part to the serene open-air garden that sits in an atrium-like space at the center of the property. At EYE Film Institute Netherlands,
a striking white building that juts over the IJ river on the north side of Amsterdam’s waterfront, we wandered through a dazzling array of spaces, from museum exhibits to theaters to meeting rooms, to the soaring EYE bar-restau- rant and its riverside terrace. From there we hopped a ferry back across the IJ — a free, 24-hour
service from Amsterdam’s GVB public- transportation company — and made our way to the Beurs van Berlage, just a few minutes from Amsterdam Central train station. Built as a commodities exchange at the turn of the century, the Beurs’ red-brick construction, stone columns, and iron-and-glass roof recall the industrial age even as the facility offers 55,000 square feet of thoroughly modern event space, including the 17,000-square foot Great Hall. Several blocks away, the 402-room
Renaissance Amsterdam Hotel offers more than 15,000 square feet of event space — including, just across the street, the 17th-century Koepelkerk, a former Lutheran church whose beautiful cop- per dome is an area landmark. Just a few blocks farther, three 17th- century canal houses that once hid a clandestine church today operate as De Rode Hoed (“the redhead”), a charm- ing red-brick venue with a foyer and bar, sitting rooms, boardrooms, and a lecture hall. Buried at the center of De Rode Hoed is the main hall of the old wooden church, a three-story, in-the- round space that can accommodate up to 450 people for seated gatherings.