Travel solutions: Amsterdam

Across the water from the Post CS building you encounter the Osterdock proper. The area is divided by water into a series of newly made islands and quays built around the previous KNSM dock (catch a ferry from the Centraal Station or the 28, 32 or 59 bus) and the Java and Borneo Sporenburg neighbourhoods. Borneo was was built from scratch when small plots of land were given to different architects. The resulting street of canalside terraces is stop-and-stare good, but don’t worry about being caught looking into windows, people who live here are used to it now. Take a walk across three curving organic, wood and steel bridges by international urban design and landscape practice West 8 that link the quays. Go in the evening and you will see they’ve been colonised by particularly large spiders that come out when the sun goes down to work their webs by lamplight.

Not everything is small: Nemo, the children’s science museum designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano, is a green ship structure that arcs over the dark water of the docks. The top floor view is just as impressive as the CS-building’s, offering close-up glimpses of the building’s verdigris exterior and in summer it is transformed into a beach.

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To get a full appreciation of the area, take an architectural boat tour – most of the tours from outside the Centraal Station meander alongside the Osterdock before disappearing into the central canals – or simply hire a bike and wend your way to corner bars like Kani’s & Meiland or the appropriately named De Oceaan floating restaurant. The best food in the area is at the Snel restaurant (modern European, Dutch and possibly the best sausage and chips in the Netherlands) in the Lloyd Hotel. Housed in what was originally a hostel for Eastern European emigrants to South America – then, during WWII, a Nazi jail for resistance fighters and, following that, a Dutch borstal, this outstanding and thoroughly quirky hotel has 120 rooms, offering accommodation ranging from very cheap small singles to expensive suites. Each room is individually designed and wonderfully Dutch: my double had a movable partition that created a bathroom; others have sliding bedside and baths on platforms.

There is also, more startlingly, a commitment to regular cultural events in the hotel. Few people are natural fans of the Jew’s harp, but an impromptu concert by a musician in town for a festival (the concert hall sits by the water opposite the Nemo) coupled with a talk on life in Tibet under Chinese occupation and a short video about the nomadic sheep herders of central Asia made, strangely, for a very good night. Most events take place in the hotel’s airy, light, open-plan dining area (open 7am to 1am), usually on a Monday night. But in the same mezzanine there is also a cultural embassy and a library. The embassy can organise events, shows and visits for you, or you can just hang around meeting the constant stream of interesting people. On our visit a man brought his antique Peruvian wall hangings in. And no, you wouldn’t get that at Canary Wharf.

Getting there
Flights from £30 return with easyJet (www.easyjet.co.uk).

Where to stay
Lloyd Hotel & Cultural Embassy, Oostelijke Handelskade 34, 1019 BN Amsterdam (003120 561 3636/ www.lloydhotel.com). Rates double
from €80-€295.

Michael Hodges