Amsterdam (Rough Guide) - Martin Dunford [17]
Travel essentials |
Opening hours and public holidays
The Dutch weekend fades painlessly into the working week with many smaller shops and businesses, even in Amsterdam, staying closed on Monday mornings until noon. Normal opening hours are, however, Monday to Friday 8.30/9am to 5.30/6pm and Saturday 8.30/9am to 4/5pm, and many places open late on Thursday or Friday evenings. Sunday opening is becoming increasingly common, especially within the city centre, where most shops are now open between noon and 5pm.
Most restaurants are open for dinner from about 6 or 7pm, and though many close as early as 9.30pm, a few stay open past 11pm. Bars, cafés and coffeeshops are either open all day from around 10am or don’t open until about 5pm; all close at 1am during the week and 2am at weekends. Nightclubs generally open their doors from 11pm to 4am during the week, though a few open every night, and some stay open until 5am at the weekend. A handful of night shops – avondwinkels – stay open into the small hours or round the clock.
Museums are usually open from Monday to Friday from 10am to 5pm (some smaller museums are closed on Monday, the main tourist drags have longer opening hours), and from 11am to 5pm on weekends. Though closed for Christmas and New Year, state-run museums adopt Sunday hours on the remaining public holidays, when most shops and banks are closed. Galleries tend to be open from Tuesday to Sunday from noon to 5pm. Precise opening hours are quoted throughout the guide.
Public holidays (nationale feestdagen) provide the perfect excuse to take to the streets. The most celebrated of them all is Queen’s Day – Koninginnedag – on April 30, which is celebrated throughout the Netherlands but with particular gusto in Amsterdam. The rest are as follows: New Year’s Day, Good Friday, Easter Sunday and Monday, Liberation Day (May 5), Ascension Day, Whit Sunday and Monday (seven weeks after Easter), and Christmas (December 25 and 26).
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Phones
The international phone code for the Netherlands is 31. Numbers prefixed 0800 are free; those prefixed 0900 are premium-rate – a (Dutch) message before you’re connected tells you how much you will be paying for the call, and you can only call them from within the Netherlands. Phone booths are rapidly disappearing as a concomitant of the irresistible rise of the mobile phone, but there is a light scattering at major locations, like Centraal Station. Phone cards can be bought at outlets like tobacconists and VVV offices, and in several denominations, beginning at €5. The cheap-rate period for international calls is between 8pm and 8am during the week and all day at weekends.
There is good coverage for mobile phones/cell phones all over the Netherlands. You need to use a mobile with 900 and 1800 MHz bands. Prepaid SIM cards are available in telephone shops (on the Rokin and around Kalverstraat) and in some supermarkets.
To speak to the Operator (domestic and international), call 0800 0410; for Directory Enquiries, dial 0900 8008 (domestic), 0900 8418 (international).
The Dutch phone directory is available (in Dutch) at www.detelefoongids.nl.
Travel essentials | Phones |
Calling home from abroad
Note that the initial zero is omitted from the area code when dialling the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand from abroad.
UK international access code + 44 + city code.
Republic of Ireland international access code + 353 + city code.
US and Canada international access code + 1 + area code.
Australia international access code + 61 + city code.
New Zealand international access code + 64 + city code.
South Africa international access code + 27 + city code.
Travel essentials | Phones |
The VVV
Once in Amsterdam, any of the city’s tourist offices, the VVVs (pronounced “fay-fay-fay”), will be able to help with practical information.
There’s a VVV on platform 2 at Centraal Station (Daily 11am–7pm) and a second, main one directly across from