1,000 Places to See Before You Die

by Patricia Schultz

  World Famous Enclave of Royalty and the Jet Set

  MONACO

  Monaco

  Bordered by France on three sides, the tiny principality of Monaco has been a playground for Europe’s elite for more than a century—they come for its sandy beaches, luxury yachts, and hilltop Mediterranean panoramas, while the nation’s tax-free status and renowned Grand Casino in the capital, Monte Carlo, sweeten the deal. The ornate and elegant Belle Époque casino on Place du Casino was designed in 1863 by Charles Garnier, architect of the Paris Opéra; he also designed the Opera House in the casino complex. Slot machines in the casino’s lobby are free of charge if you dress nicely and carry a passport; there’s a fee to enter the front gambling rooms and those leading to the Salons Privés, the high rollers’ inner sanctum. A de rigueur stop next door is the Garnier-designed Café de Paris, where the crêpe Suzette was invented in the early 1900s.

  The Grimaldi family has ruled Monaco since the 13th century from a fortified palace on a dramatic promontory of Le Rocher, the historic core of the city also known as Monaco-Ville. Prince Albert, son of Prince Rainier III and former film star Grace Kelly, lives in the palace compound with his bride, Charlene, and visitors may tour parts of the palace and watch the daily changing of the guard. Rainier III and Kelly are buried in the grand Monaco Cathedral where they married in 1956. Nearby is the crowd-pleasing Oceanographic Museum with one of Europe’s best aquariums.

  Place du Casino is also home to the palatial Hôtel de Paris, the regal stopping place of emirs and archdukes since 1864. Its marquee restaurant is the dazzling Le Louis XV, domain of world-famous chef Alain Ducasse. Refined dishes composed of local ingredients by chef Franck Cerutti are served amid opulent Louis XV décor brimming with Baccarat crystal, damask linens, and gold-rimmed china. Across the square, the Hôtel Métropole is no less palatial albeit in a modern style, and showcases legendary chef Joël Robuchon’s first gourmet Japanese restaurant, Yoshi. Its terrace is ideal for watching the annual Formula One Grand Prix of Monaco.

  This 76-square-mile city-state is the world’s most densely populated country.

  WHERE: 15 miles/24 km east of Nice. VISITOR INFO: www.visitmonaco.com. CASINO DE MONTE CARLO: Tel 377/98-062121; www.montecarlocasinos.com. CAFÉ DE PARIS: Tel 377/98-067623. Cost: dinner $68. OCEANOGRAPHIC MUSEUM: Tel 377/93-153600; www.oceano.mc. HÔTEL DE PARIS: Tel 377/98-063000; www.hoteldeparismontecarlo.com. Cost: from $550 (off-peak), from $840 (peak); dinner at Le Louis XV $255. HÔTEL MÉTROPOLE: Tel 377/98-151515; in the U.S., 800-745-8883; www.metropole.com. Cost: from $525 (off-peak), from $680 (peak). Cost: dinner at Yoshi $150. BEST TIMES: late May for Formula One Grand Prix; Jul–Aug for International Fireworks Festival.

  “I like Amsterdam more than Venice because, in Amsterdam, one has water without being deprived of land . . . ”—CHARLES DE MONTESQUIEU

  AMSTERDAM

  Netherlands

  Amsterdam is spread out across a web-shaped network of canals, lined with five centuries’ worth of gabled buildings. It is charmingly low-rise—those decorative façades are seldom more than four or five stories high—but it’s high impact. World-class art museums, the heritage of a glorious golden age, and a vibrant contemporary culture await you at every turn. Amsterdam has all the advantages of a metropolis with hardly any of the drawbacks. The city is small enough to walk or cycle almost anywhere, but its rich cultural fare is world class, served up against a backdrop of unassuming brick houses, pretty bridges, and quiet canals that give the city a villagelike charm.

  TOP ATTRACTIONS

  RIJKSMUSEUM—The Netherlands’ greatest museum—and one of the world’s prime repositories of fine art—is a treasure trove of the country’s most notable works from the 17th-century golden age. Rembrandt’s magnificent The Night Watch (1642) is the pivotal point around which this turreted neo-Gothic museum was designed in 1885 by P.J.H. Cuypers. The enormous canvas is still the centerpiece of the largest collection of Dutch paintings in the world, including 20 other works by Rembrandt—such as his sensitive Jewish Bride (1662) and Self-Portrait as the Apostle Paul (1661)—as well as paintings by Jan Vermeer, Frans Hals, Jacob van Ruisdael, and other Old Masters. INFO: Tel 31/20-674-7000; www.rijksmuseum.nl.

  Although the highlight of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam’s one-million-piece collection is the Dutch golden age, its Asian art also impresses.

  VAN GOGH MUSEUM—With a main building based on a design by Gerrit Rietveld (perhaps Holland’s most famous architect) and a dramatic annex designed by Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa in 1999, the Van Gogh Museum is a fitting tribute to the 19th century’s most important Dutch artist. The museum provides an outstanding home to some 200 of Vincent van Gogh’s paintings, 500 drawings, and 700 letters as well as Japanese prints (many from his own collection) and other 19th-century works that influenced him. The collection—the largest of his work anywhere in the world—ranges from his earliest paintings, done in 1881 in the Netherlands, to those done just days before his suicide in France at the age of 37. Among the images painted by this anguished, visionary genius: The Potato Eaters, Sunflowers, and Wheatfield with Crows. INFO: Tel 31/20-570-5200; www.vangoghmuseum.nl.

  ANNE FRANK HOUSE—Anne Frank, the second daughter of German-Jewish immigrants to Amsterdam, was given a diary for her 13th birthday on June 12, 1942. Just weeks later, she and her family were in hiding from Nazi occupying forces. They took refuge in a small group of rooms above her father’s business, on the Prinsengracht canal in the city center. The family, joined by a few others, stayed in this “Annex” for two years. In August 1944, German police raided it; all of its occupants, except Anne’s father, died in concentration camps. Anne’s diary, left behind in the tumult, went on to become one of the bestselling books of all time. Today, the Annex is stripped bare of furniture, though some of the magazine cuttings Anne pasted on her bedroom wall remain. It is an almost unbearably poignant monument to her memory. Downstairs, a large new wing adjacent to the building holds exhibitions on tolerance and oppression. INFO: Tel 31/20-556-7100; www.annefrank.org.

  RED LIGHT DISTRICT—Amsterdam’s red light district, known locally as De Wallen (The Walls), occupies the oldest part of town, near the former city wall. At its heart is the Oude Kerk (Old Church), dating from about 1300; connoisseurs rate the church’s carillon as one of the best in the world, and the joyful sound of the bell music cascading down cobblestoned streets and across the canals and squares is one of Amsterdam’s delights. Nearby, the Catholic church of Ons’ Lieve Heer op Solder (Our Dear Lord in the Attic) is up a narrow stairway at the top of a canal house. It dates from 1663, at a time when Protestant Holland allowed Catholic worship only if churches were not visible from the street. This ancient quarter is also home to the world’s oldest profession. But in this historically tolerant city, the women who sit on display in the rose-tinted windows are registered, regulated, taxed, and represented by a union since 1984. Patiently they await their next assignation while showing off their wares to sailors, foreign businessmen, and assorted innocents abroad. OUDE KERK: Tel 31/20-625-8284; www.oudekerk.nl/infoeng.htm. ONS’ LIEVE HEER OP SOLDER: Tel 31/20624-6604; www.opsolder.nl.

  ON THE CANALS—If you think it’s too touristy to see Amsterdam by boat, then you’ll miss seeing this City of Canals the way it was meant to be seen. The waterfront town houses and warehouses built by merchants in the 17th century were high (four or five stories) and narrow (property taxes were based on the width of frontages), each distinguished by its fanciful gables. Of the five concentric semicircles of elm-lined canals and the 160 smaller canals connecting them, Herengracht (the “Gentlemen’s Canal”) is lined with the largest and most stately houses, while the trim brick homes on the smaller canals (especially in the Jordaan neighborhood) can be more engaging architecturally. Many façades are illuminated at night, and so are many of the city’s 1,281 characteristic arched bridges. Add that to the reflections of old-fashioned streetlamps in the glimmering canals and a cruise by candlelight makes for a very ro
mantic evening. HOW: Canal Company (transport/cruises); tel 31/20-623-9886; www.canal.nl.

  The “Venice of the North,” Amsterdam consists of 90 islands, connected by more than a thousand bridges.

  BEGIJNHOF—To one side of the busy city square called the Spui is a nondescript wooden door. Open it and a dark passageway will lead you to a tranquil spot of green lawn and gardens, edged by little cottages. This is the Begijnhof, once home to the Beguines, an order of lay nuns founded in the early Middle Ages. The last of the order, Sister Antonia, died here in 1971, but the court is still home to single or widowed Catholic women over the age of 30. Most of the houses were rebuilt in the 17th and 18th centuries, but at No. 34 stands one of only two remaining medieval wooden houses in Amsterdam. The small church at the center of the court is the original Begijnkerk, consecrated in 1419, and now known as the English Church, as it is here that a group of Protestant dissenters fleeing England in 1607 met for worship. They formed the core of the Pilgrim Fathers who sailed for America 13 years later. INFO: www.begijnhofamsterdam.nl.

  AMSTERDAM MUSEUM—Amsterdam has had a long and eventful history, from its muddy medieval beginnings as a settlement around a dam on the river Amstel, through the glories (and considerable riches) of the 17th-century golden age. It endured the terrors of World War II, partied through the 1960s and 1970s as a countercultural center, and became the gay capital of Europe in the ’80s. The Amsterdam Museum brings this all together in a series of richly imaginative displays and exhibitions. You’ll find a medieval child’s shoe, an extraordinary bird’s-eye view of Amsterdam painted in 1538, precious objects, and thought-provoking photographs. The museum is housed in a former orphanage dating back to 1520—in one courtyard the boys’ wooden lockers are still visible in the wall. INFO: Tel 31/20-523-1822; www.ahm.nl.

  MARKET CITY—Amsterdam is speckled with intriguing markets, all within an easy walk of one another. The famous Flower Market, with its banks of bright blooms and buckets of tulips, also sells sealed bags of bulbs with the requisite export health certificate so you can take them back home. The sprawling Fleamarket is just the spot to pick up vintage clothing, handcrafts from all over the world, even the odd bicycle part. Stretching for over half a mile, merchants in the Albert Cuyp Market sometimes boast that it is Europe’s longest; it is where Amsterdammers buy their fruit, spices, and fresh fish still flapping on ice. Across town, tucked in between the charming canals of the Jordaan, the indoor De Looier Antiques Market is the place to find old delftware tile. And over weekends, squares like Nieuwmarkt, the Spui, and Thorbeckeplein host a rotation of book, art, and collectibles markets.

  WHERE TO STAY

  THE DYLAN—For nearly 250 years, this 18th-century canalside building was the head office of a church charity. In 1998 it received a makeover under the guidance of hotel-design queen Anouska Hempel, emerging as a luxury boutique hotel with classy, contemporary décor. Rooms are arranged gracefully around a courtyard and come in a variety of styles, with clean lines, warm fabrics, and the occasional Eastern touch. Vinkeles restaurant keeps consistently high standards, and you can also get brasserie-style meals in the secluded courtyard. The Dylan lies in the heart of Amsterdam’s Canal Belt, with museums, shops, restaurants, and the pulse of Amsterdam life all within easy reach. INFO: Tel 31/20-530-2010; www.dylanamsterdam.com. Cost: from $500; dinner $96.

  HOTEL DE L’EUROPE—Built in 1896, de l’Europe is one of the oldest hotels in Amsterdam. It was renovated in 2011, but old favorites remain, such as the clubby Freddy’s Bar, once the regular socializing spot of Alfred “Freddy” Heineken (the brewery now owns the hotel). The Bord’Eau restaurant, which occupies a coveted spot beside the Amstel River, received a new lease on life under chef Richard van Oostenbrugge, who prepares unfussy yet inspired French cuisine. Genuine Old Master paintings donated by Freddy Heineken decorate public spaces. Rooms in the old part of the building retain a classic ambience, whereas a new wing of individually decorated suites is quirkier and more contemporary, with unrivaled river views. INFO: Tel 31/20-531-1777; www.leurope.nl. Cost: from $450; dinner at Bord’Eau $105.

  THE GRAND—This building, dating from 1578, was once a guesthouse for royal visitors, then an Admiralty Building, and for many years Amsterdam’s City Hall. A recent makeover of rich colors and witty detail gives warmth to the monumental public areas and an elegant coziness to the 177 rooms. Bridges Restaurant, which features the famed 1949 mural Questioning Children, by Dutch artist Karel Appel, is one of the best spots in town for fish and seafood, with a first-rate raw bar. Beautiful canal views and a calming spa with a large pool all add to the special charm. INFO: Tel 31/20-555-3111; www.sofitel-legend-thegrand.com. Cost: from $350 (off-peak), $420 (peak); dinner at Bridges $90.

  HOTEL ORLANDO—Occupying an elegant golden-age canal house, Hotel Orlando’s seven rooms are decorated with refined taste and quiet charm. In 2011, it expanded to occupy the achterhuis (“back house”), traditionally part of the main house, and reached across a garden courtyard. Breakfast is served in the 17th-century kitchen, with an old hearth and the original tiles. INFO: Tel 31/20-638-6915; www.hotelorlando.nl. Cost:$170.

  SEVEN ONE SEVEN—Revel in the experience of living in a stately Amsterdam canal house without the bother of actually owning one. The rear section of Seven One Seven dates from the 17th century, its grand canal frontage being added in 1810. Eight spacious rooms brim with period décor yet have a homey touch. Complimentary afternoon tea is laid out on a table in the library, and in the evenings wine is offered. The two executive suites at the front of the house have enormous windows, with prime views of the Prinsengracht canal; the others overlook a charming courtyard garden. INFO: Tel 31/20-427-0717; www.717hotel.nl. Cost: from $415 (off-peak), from $515 (peak).

  SUNHEAD OF 1617—The odd name of this cozy guesthouse derives from the sun image on the gable stone above the door and the year the house was built. The friendly owners have traveled extensively, so they know that little touches matter: burnished wood, rich fabrics, antique furniture, and bright modern frescoes. Just two rooms and an apartment-suite lead off a perilously steep staircase typical of many old Amsterdam houses; those at the front of the house enjoy magnificent views of the Herengracht canal. INFO: Tel 31/20-626-1809; www.sunhead.com. Cost: from $170.

  EATING & DRINKING

  CIEL BLEU—Ciel Bleu (Blue Sky) derives its name from its location on the 23rd floor of one of the tallest buildings in town, and its cuisine is appropriately haute. Star of the show is young Dutch chef Onno Kokmeijer, who made a name for himself as one of the Netherlands’ trailblazers for new and inventive cooking, with his self-proclaimed “wayward French cuisine.” A country boy with a healthy obsession with fresh ingredients and a daring turn of imagination: For example, breast of pigeon comes with pistachio cream and smoked beetroot—all with a panoramic view over Amsterdam. INFO: Tel 31/20-678-7450; www.cielbleu.nl. Cost: dinner $150.

  DE KAS—A former greenhouse dating from 1926, De Kas (the Greenhouse) is still partly given over to the cultivation of herbs, fruit, and salad greens, but nowadays these find their way directly onto diners’ plates in the designer-cool restaurant that occupies the rest of the space. De Kas also has its own private vegetable gardens nearby, and deals only with local farmers and fishermen. The menu is minimal—what’s ripe and in season shows up in dishes exquisitely prepared by chefs Ronald Kunis and Martijn Kajuiter. INFO: Tel 31/20-462-4562; www.restaurantdekas.nl. Cost: dinner $70.

  THE RIJSTTAFEL—Holland’s colonial heritage finds delicious culinary expression in the rijsttafel (“rice table”)—a spicy feast of small Indonesian dishes served with rice. This dining tradition goes back to the days when hungry Dutch settlers found Indonesian portions unsatisfying, so cooks came up with mini-banquets to keep their employers satisfied. Today, the rijsttafel is such a fundamental Dutch dining experience that people regard it as local rather than exotic. The best place to try the feast is in one of the many little family-run establishments around town. It is hard to
beat Tujuh Maret, with its plain tables, simple atmosphere, and customer care. TUJUH MARET: Tel 31/20-427-9865; www.tujuhmaret.nl. Cost:$40.

  D’VIJFF VLIEGHEN—The insalubriously named D’Vijff Vlieghen (the Five Flies) is housed in five 17th-century buildings. The restaurant dates back to 1939, when eccentric raconteur and inveterate self-publicist Nicolaas Kroese set up a bar and began selling food here. In the 1950s he became a darling of the American media, after oddball appearances in New York carrying a musical cage containing five copper flies. Intrigued by this engaging character, Walt Disney, Gary Cooper, Elvis Presley, and many more dropped in on visits to Amsterdam. The stream of the rich and famous dried up after Kroese’s death in the 1970s, but you can still get a good meal here, with favorite Dutch fare such as cod and North Sea prawns given a contemporary twist. INFO: Tel 31/20-530-4060; www.thefiveflies.com. Cost:$80.

  CAFÉ SOCIETY—Amsterdammers are very attached to the concept of gezelligheid—an amalgam of “coziness” and “conviviality”—and nowhere is more gezellig than a “brown café,” its walls and ceiling burnished by time (and, until recently, tobacco smoke). There are said to be more than 1,000 of these social sanctuaries in Amsterdam. Check out barrel-lined Café ’t Smalle, a favored watering hole since it first opened in 1786, and partake in the local habit of a glass of beer followed by a genever (Dutch gin) chaser. If you’re looking for old-world glamour, try the decidedly unbrown Café Americain, built as part of a grand hotel in 1880. Mata Hari would still recognize its ornate, albeit faded, Art Deco interior as the location of her wedding reception. If your taste is more contemporary, head to De Jaren—spacious and light-soaked, with a modern minimalist interior and two of the best waterside terraces in town. Cafés are not to be confused with coffee shops, a ubiquitous part of the Amsterdam scene since the 1970s, where mind-altering substances are legally sold in small quantities. CAFÉ ’T SMALLE: Tel 31/20-623-9617. CAFÉ AMERICAIN: Tel 31/20-556-3000; www.edenamsterdamamericanhotel.com. DE JAREN: Tel 31/20-625-5771; www.cafedejaren.nl.