Amsterdam (Rough Guide) - Martin Dunford [79]
The Amsterdamse Bos
The main entrance to the Bos is in the northeast corner of the park, just off Amstelveenseweg at its junction with Van Nijenrodeweg – and around 500m south of the main southern ring road. To get there by public transport from Centraal Station, take tram #16 or #24 and get off one stop before the terminus, which is at the hospital. Walking into the park from Amstelveenseweg, it’s a couple of minutes to the visitor centre, the Bezoekerscentrum het Bosmuseum, at Bosbaanweg 5 (daily noon–5pm; 020/545 6100). They have exhibitions on the park’s flora and fauna; sell maps and dispense advice on walking and cycling trails; and will tell you where to rent bikes, canoes and pedaloes (April–Nov only) – there are outlets close by. From the visitor centre, it’s also the briefest of walks to the Grand Café Bosbaan (daily 10am till late), which serves drinks, snacks and full meals, and whose terrace overlooks the Bosbaan – a dead-straight canal, over 2km long and popular for boating and swimming. Elsewhere in the park there are children’s playgrounds and spaces for various sports, including ice-skating, as well as an animal reserve, where a small herd of Scottish Highland cows is allowed to roam in relative solitude.
The outer districts | The Nieuw Zuid | The Amsterdamse Bos |
The Museumtramlijn
It’s a little more convoluted, but you can also get to the Amsterdamse Bos on the vintage trams of the Museumtramlijn (Easter–Oct daily 11am–5pm; every 20–30min; 020/673 7538, www.museumtramlijn.org; €4 return). The trams depart from Haarlemmermeer Station, about 500m south of the western tip of the Vondelpark. The Museumtramlijn trams, imported from as far away as Vienna and Prague, clank south along the eastern edge of the Bos to the suburb of Bovenkerk on its southeast corner – a thirty-minute (7km) journey in all, although you can get off earlier at the main entrance to the park or at other stops along the way.
The outer districts | The Nieuw Zuid |
The CoBrA Museum of Modern Art
The CoBrA Museum of Modern Art (Tues–Sun 11am–5pm; €9.50; 020/547 5050, www.cobra-museum.nl), located well to the south of the Amsterdamse Bos entrance, close to the Amstelveen bus station at Sandbergplein 1, can be reached from the centre by bus #170, #171 or #172. This soothing white gallery, its glass walls giving a view of the canal behind, displays the works of the artists of the CoBrA movement, founded in 1948. The movement grew out of comparative artistic developments in the cities of Copenhagen, Brussels and Amsterdam – hence the name. CoBrA’s first exhibition, held at Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum, showcased the big, colourful canvases, with bold lines and forms, for which the movement became famous. Their work displayed a spontaneity and inclusivity that was unusual for the art world of the time and it stirred a veritable hornet’s nest of artistic controversy. You’ll only find a scattering of their work here in the gallery, but there’s enough to get an idea of what CoBrA were about, not least in Karel Appel’s (1921–2006) weird, junky bird sculpture outside, and his brash, childlike paintings inside – in many ways Appel was the movement’s leading light. Upstairs, the museum hosts regular temporary exhibitions of works by contemporary artists. There’s a good shop, too, with plenty of prints and books on the movement, plus a bright café where you can gaze upon Appel’s sculpture at length.
The outer districts |
Amsterdam Oost
Next door to Amsterdam’s Oud Zuid (Old South), Amsterdam Oost (East) is a rough-and-ready working-class quarter that also stretches out beyond the Singelgracht. The area begins with Amsterdam’s old eastern gate, the Muiderpoort (pronounced “mao-der-port”), overlooking the canal at the end of Plantage Middenlaan. In the 1770s the gate was revamped in pompous style, a Neoclassical refit complete with a flashy cupola and