Hot Amsterdam

Landing at 9pm on a Friday is not the gentlest introduction to Amsterdam. By the time we got to the Leidseplein, the city's answer to Piccadilly Circus, eating takeaway noodles, and feeling distinctly touristy, the hordes of local bingers and international stag weekenders were out in force. We found sanctuary of sorts in Momo, a cocktail bar attached to the glass-fronted Park Hotel. But sitting at the triangular bar, staring at the flashy interior and even flashier crowd, we couldn't help feeling there must be something more to the city.

My fellow night owl, Javier, had read that Amsterdam is a city on the up; the red-light district is shrinking, the coffee shops are closing and out of the ashes a cosmopolitan city to rival Berlin is rising. Fortunately we were staying at The Dylan, a boutique hotel, formerly the city's oldest theatre, designed by Anouska Hempel, with a 24-hour concierge who certainly knows his hometown.

The next day he sent us to Café Thijssen, a 15-minute walk away in the Jordaan, for Saturday brunch. Eating a club sandwich and watching the local young professionals tuck into the weekend papers over beers, we met Reinier, a photographer. 'Don't go to places like Momo,' he said. 'You should try Café George. It's our equivalent of Pastis in New York. A Dutch take on an American French bistro,' he laughed. His stunning blonde German girlfriend suggested a couple more places for after dinner where the 'in-crowd' go. That's more like it, we thought.

Whether the sky in Van Gogh's magnum opus Starry Night is an approaching storm, a comet or another galaxy altogether has caused much debate,' said my audioguide in the Van Gogh Museum the next day. Feeling my way around the latest exhibition of the artist's paintings, depicting moody nightscapes and dusky fields, was one way to walk off a hangover, and nothing builds up an appetite like two hours in a museum.

Jamie Oliver has opened a branch of Fifteen in an old spice warehouse on the waterfront behind Centraal Station. It was unnerving that our Dutch waiter was called Vincent, had reddish blond hair and a tufty beard, but he recommended kicking off our meal with a great bottle of Valpolicella to go with the four-course Italian feast. After antipasti, seafood linguine and a piglet chop, I could barely manage a mouthful of the panna cotta. Stumbling out, we decided that no trip to Amsterdam was complete without a meander through De Wallen, the famous red-light district, at midnight.

But as we approached, we passed row after row of empty shop fronts, not a neon red bulb in sight. The crowd was motley, with couples, OAPs and stags soaking up the sights. Ten minutes were enough and then it was time for the Sugar Factory, where jazz musicians joined a pair of DJs who spun into the early hours of Monday morning (Sunday is party night it seems). A few more Dark 'n' Stormies later and we staggered back through the Nine Streets (Amsterdam's Covent Garden) as the stars above and streetlamps swirled above. So that's where Van Gogh got his inspiration, I thought.