Put it down to youthful overexuberance but as the Dutch cool on British stag and hen parties a personal message… don’t be a dope in Amsterdam.
The stag do was a few years off and as a first holiday away as a couple.
The wise thing to do would be to make an impression.
But then as a twentysomething in hip Amsterdam you want to appear with it.
And that meant playing it loose like a long-necked goose and swaggering into a brown cafe.
Pulling up a menu and making as if you know the diff between Colombian and Moroccan.
Neither, of course, which are coffee.
Of course what transpired was less brownie and more whitie as my head started spinning.
And I headed to the loo only to find that it was activated by the owner.
With a button behind the counter.
Without going through the gory details I went full Procul Harum (a whiter shade of pale) as I fell through the door.
Don’t have to put on the red light
Multiply that by a dozen boozed-up Brits and you can see that that brown cafe owner’s floors would begin to look a pastel of colours.
The truth is that the best fun to be had in Amsterdam is in the narrow bars and on the bikes, the creperies and the canals.
Leave the Red Light district then for the museums, and Amsterdam has the quirkiest of anywhere I’ve visited, and soak up the art of the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum.
While no visitor to Amsterdam, regardless of the occasion, should leave without paying pilgrimage to Anne Frank at the Anne Frank House.
Best Brown Bar none
Our friends at Iamsterdam have kindly given us a rundown of Brown Bars, very different from brown cafes.
With the brown coming from the tobacco smoke that caked the walls over the centuries.
Amsterdammerphiles will have their own favourite watering holes.
Where their barkeep will pour you glass of Amstel or Heineken but only after slicing some foam from the head, a la the Dutch style.
Van der Valk this way
But in truth, most of us only Dutch bars from our go-to Dutch-based tec series, Van der Valk.
Which has been expertly recreated by Marc Warren from the iconic Barry Foster series of the Seventies.
Today’s Piet drinks with his team in the Cafe Restaurant Scheltema.
It’s an old-fashioned drinking establishment without music or other diversions.
And it is said to have been beloved of journalists so I reckon there must be a seat there for me too.
It’s just the way we like it, a proper brown bar rather than a brown cafe and away from stag parties.
And you should go because don’t be a dope in Amsterdam.
