An afternoon in Jordaan, on foot

The Jordaan is not the most beautiful neighbourhood in Amsterdam, but it is the neighbourhood that has aged into itself most successfully. The houses are crooked, the canals are dark even in summer, and the cafés do not announce themselves. There is a kind of city that wants to be photographed and a kind of city that wants to be walked. The Jordaan is the second kind.

I walked it on a Tuesday in late September, starting at Westerkerk and finishing four hours later at the Noorderkerk market, which had already begun to pack up. The walk was not a tour. I had no map. The route described below is approximately what I did, presented as if it were a plan.

From Westerkerk to Bloemgracht

Westerkerk is the easiest landmark in the western canals — its tower is visible from most of the city. I started at its south side, walked north along Prinsengracht for two blocks, and turned left onto Bloemgracht. Bloemgracht is the first canal of the Jordaan proper, and it is the canal that locals send you to when they want you to see what they grew up with. The houses on the north side are the small ones; the south side is the showy ones. The cafés are on the south side; the bookshops are on the north.

The Jordaan does not announce itself. You have to be walking already.

I stopped at the second bookshop — a small place that sells nineteenth-century maps and twentieth-century cookery — and bought nothing. I have never bought anything from that shop. The owner does not seem to mind. I think he prefers the visits.

The middle hour

From Bloemgracht I drifted east, into the smaller canals — Egelantiersgracht and Lindengracht — without keeping track of the exact route. This is where the walk becomes the point. The streets are short, the canals are narrow, and you end up in courtyards you did not mean to enter. The courtyards in question are called hofjes, and there are around thirty of them in the Jordaan. Some are open to the public, some are not, and the difference between the two is not always obvious. I have learned to push a door gently and back out if it resists; the residents of the closed ones have decided that they would prefer to be left alone, which is fair.

The middle hour is when I usually have lunch, and on this particular walk lunch was at a café whose name I will not give, because if I give it the place will be over within a year. It is on a corner. It has six tables, a small bar, and an espresso machine that has not been replaced since the late eighties. Lunch was bread, cheese, and an apple I had not ordered.

To the Noorderkerk

The Noorderkerk market is what I aim for at the end of every Jordaan walk, partly because I like the church and partly because the walk takes long enough that by the time I arrive, the market is closing and the stallholders are giving away bread. I do not need bread. I take it anyway.

The square in front of the Noorderkerk is the only part of the Jordaan that feels touristic. You can stand at the right corner and see five separate tour groups at once. I stand at that corner long enough to remind myself why I do not lead tours.

What I would do differently

If you have only one afternoon in Amsterdam and you have already done the obvious things — Anne Frank, the museums on Museumplein — then this walk is the best alternative to doing those same things again. Bring a notebook. Don't bring a guidebook. Don't bring an umbrella; if it rains, find a café. The Jordaan has solved the problem of rain by being mostly indoors when it matters.