Where: Amsterdam, Netherlands
When: May 5-8, 2017
With: Dave
The Dutch love their cafés, but not like what Americans are used to. The Dutch café is considered a "brown café", with panelled wood and tobacco smoke staining the walls and ceilings. The best ones have been around for centuries, their wooden beams crooked and exposed. Instead of coffee, the drink of choice is more likely beer. And most importantly, they are super cozy.
Over our time in Amsterdam, we popped into a lot of these places, usually for a drink, sometimes for food. Often at night, we'd stop in expecting to have one drink and then before we knew it, time had flown by and we were closing the place down (they usually shut at 1am though, for the record). However, there were two particular cafés that stuck out over our trip.
On our first night, in an attempt to fight jetlag, Dave took me to Café 't Smalle. Opened in 1780, this was everything we wanted to kick off our café experience: lots of locals, beer, stained glass and old, uneven floors. The beer was delicious, the clientele was happy, and it was the perfect way to kick off the trip.
When: May 5-8, 2017
With: Dave
The Dutch love their cafés, but not like what Americans are used to. The Dutch café is considered a "brown café", with panelled wood and tobacco smoke staining the walls and ceilings. The best ones have been around for centuries, their wooden beams crooked and exposed. Instead of coffee, the drink of choice is more likely beer. And most importantly, they are super cozy.
Over our time in Amsterdam, we popped into a lot of these places, usually for a drink, sometimes for food. Often at night, we'd stop in expecting to have one drink and then before we knew it, time had flown by and we were closing the place down (they usually shut at 1am though, for the record). However, there were two particular cafés that stuck out over our trip.
On our first night, in an attempt to fight jetlag, Dave took me to Café 't Smalle. Opened in 1780, this was everything we wanted to kick off our café experience: lots of locals, beer, stained glass and old, uneven floors. The beer was delicious, the clientele was happy, and it was the perfect way to kick off the trip.
We stopped in the other notable café of our trip on our last night in Amsterdam. Café PapeneiLand couldn't have been a better spot to spend it. A small group of locals were the only other people in the bar, exchanging laughs with the weathered old bartender who lived upstairs. Old photos and paintings of the places adorned the walls, showing how the place has looked since it opened in 1642.
It was so snug and cozy in here, I imagine I'd easily be a regular if this was in my neighborhood. And to top it all off, the apple pie they serve is meant to be "the best in the world". Amazing.
These cafés were so cozy and homey and added to the time-capsule-feel of the city of Amsterdam. I could go every night and never get bored!
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