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European cities


AMSTERD AM


Te Dutch capital is built on concentric rings of canals, with water, cobbles and bridges at every turn. Te canals are lined with tall, red brick merchant houses, many of them with elaborately decorated gables topping their facades. Tere are no skyscrapers and trams run clanging down narrow streets alongside streams of cyclists, so this is a city that manages to be intimate while being big. It has its cultural landmarks, of course, particularly with the Rijksmuseum and adjoining Van Gogh Museum on the museum square, but this is also a city famous for prostitutes openly on view in the windows of the red light district, and for coffee houses that legally sell marijuana and hashish.


From left: Canalside cafe in


Old Town, Amsterdam; picnic at the Eiffel Tower, Paris


Be y ond North of Amsterdam is the Ijsselmeer, an inland lake which was once part of the North Sea. On its banks are Hoorn and Enkhuizen, fascinating, beautifully preserved trading towns that once did business with all corners of the Dutch East Indies, and which still have fleets of old sailing ships in their harbors.


P ARIS


Highlights include the biggest art gallery in the world, the Louvre, and the most unmistakable iron structure in the world, the Eiffel Tower. Like many great cities, Paris has a river running through it; there are unforgettable night-time river cruises on the Seine, as searchlights pick out the architectural details of wonderful buildings such as the cathedral of Notre Dame. In the north of the city, the hill of Montmartre, topped by the white domes of the basilica of Sacré-Cœur, is a lovely, moody artist’s center, with lots of little neighborhood restaurants and galleries. And, down by the traffic-filled Place de la Concorde are the grand boulevards (particularly the Rue Saint- Honoré), rich with designer shopping and fashion boutiques.


Be y ond Versailles, to the city’s southwest, is the elaborate palace of the Sun King Louis XIV, set in vast landscaped parkland. On the other side of Paris, also reachable on the transit system, stands another very different kind of pleasure dome: Disneyland Paris. ▶


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