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| One of the stones in the facades of Amsterdam explaining the original function of the building |
After last Sundays’ experience, where I will tell you about in a minute, I can totally agree with the beauty of this city, but I will definitely encourage them to take the opportunity to see it from another point of view and book an Old City Food Tour.
Every person has its own preferences when it concerns
discovering unknown cities. The easiest way is to pack a Lonely Planet or any
other printed tour guide and pick out the highlights indicated by a journalist.
However, these kind of guides are suited ‘for everyone’ and might turn out not
to be your kind of thing. It would be a pity if that makes your precious and maybe
expensive weekend something you rather forget than remember.
Especially in the more wanted cities like Rome, Paris or
Amsterdam it is quite difficult to avoid tourist traps as restaurants that
offer real-food-from-that-country, which tastes horrible and is way overpriced.
Luckily, there is now a bottom-up solution for this called Spotted by Locals: an online
platform on which local experts get you the most up-to-date info on activities
and hotspots in their city.
And these Spotted by Locals almost gets me to the topic of this blog. The beauty of Amsterdam
would not exist without its history starting with the reason that exactly here
a city was founded in the 13th century: a dam in the Amstel river
grow into a centre of commerce thanks to its vicinity to waterways that
connected the city with the rest of the world. One of the first commercial
successes of the ‘Hollanders’ was the monopoly in the import and trade of cereals.
With the money made with this business, the famous VOC or United East-India Company could be founded and the so-called golden ages and there with an
important capitol of the Dutch food traditions took off.
As you might have understood, food has been very important
for the development of Amsterdam (and other Dutch cities). Unfortunately,
during the years this has lost in importance as you can see in our ‘traditional’
dishes which generally have a history of not even 100 years old.
Also the visible part of our history is hardly considered.
As a Dutch, I can confirm that I do know not much about the history of our country
and the why, what and how of the Dutch cities. Like most I appreciate the beauty
of the medieval city centres but at the same time I do take it for granted.
Until last week thus.
Thanks to the Old Amsterdam Food Tour, organized by Amsterdam based Farming the City, I got to see Amsterdam from another point of view. It really opened my eyes and made me appreciate even more the beauty of its streets, canals and buildings. I learned that small details, which are usually overlooked, could tell you a lot about what happened long ago but what is still important today. No reason to only look forward thus: a look at the past might help you to think about the future.
Thanks to the Old Amsterdam Food Tour, organized by Amsterdam based Farming the City, I got to see Amsterdam from another point of view. It really opened my eyes and made me appreciate even more the beauty of its streets, canals and buildings. I learned that small details, which are usually overlooked, could tell you a lot about what happened long ago but what is still important today. No reason to only look forward thus: a look at the past might help you to think about the future.
