Amsterdam has a rich, so called street art scene, where graffiti plays an important role. Much of this young people activity is closely connected to some sorts of music as hip hop, a few sport disciplines as skating and BMX biking, selected video games and a specific fashion. Groups of graffiti artists call themselves crews. Amsterdam crews exist now for about fifteen years.
In Amsterdam, Cannabis consumption is generally kept off the streets. The coffeehouses are the most common place to smoke the substance. Coffeeshops, not to be confused with cafés, have been a part of Amsterdam since the 1970s, when the Dutch government made a clear distinction in the law between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ drugs.
Unlike Amsterdam’s fully legal smart shops, coffeeshops have always existed in a legal grey area. Today, Amsterdam’s City Council, through agreement with the coffeeshop union Bond van Cannabis Detaillisten (BCD), allows coffeeshops to operate with the provision of set, non-transferable licences – shown by the display of an official, green and white sticker in the window.
Cannabis foods (including hash brownies and space cakes) are food products made with cannabis in herbal or resin form as an ingredient. They are consumed as an alternate delivery means to experience the effects of cannabinoids without smoking marijuana or hashish. Instead, the cannabinoids are put into cake, cookie, brownie, or other foods, and are consumed for recreational or medicinal purposes.
If you’re interested to learn more and take a voyage of discovery through the past, present and future of Cannabis sativa L. – also known as hemp and marijuana, you can visit one of many Marijuana museums in Amsterdam.
The Amsterdam Red Light District covers a large area of the oldest part of the city. The buildings are tall, thin and crowd together, overlooking the tree lined canals. The Red Light District Amsterdam is a beautiful area and the later it gets, the busier it gets. And the darker it gets, the more obvious the glow of the fluorescent red lights above the many windows in the area becomes.
From brothels to sex shops to museums, the Red Light District leaves nothing to the imagination. It is very likely that you will have heard about this neighbourhood and to be frank, everything you will have heard is probably true , but to really put rumours to rest, you have got to check it out for yourself.
The Rossebuurt, as the locals know it, is unlike any other place. Guaranteed. Certainly, the Red Light District that everyone knows about is the one where women, of all nationalities, parade their wares in red-fringed window parlours, many ready to offer more than a school boy peep-show in a private cabin. Being there brings to mind a new dimension to window shopping!
This post is one of an 10 part entry of our trip to Netherlands and Belgium. See all the places we visited on this trip below:
- Zaanse Schans – Windmills & Cheese
- Volendam & Marken – Seafood & Clogs
- Lisse – Keukenhof & Flowerfields
- Amsterdam – Flowers, Food, Culture
- Amsterdam – Buildings, Places, Waterways
- Amsterdam – Graffiti, Marijuana, Prostitutes
- Brussels – Mussels & Manneken Pis
- Antwerp – Grote Markt & Surrounds
- Brugge – Museums, Chocolates, Lace
- Gent – Korenmarkt, Architecture, Waffles
