ANy Amsterdam experts: If youhave a minute, would you look at VRBO #19247 and try to picture its surroundings? I am holding a reservation for this houseboat, the 2 bedroom. It is 850 square feet! But I am a tad concerned about the location, it is just on the east side of the Amstel River near the Waterpoolplein metro.
Does this neighborhood have Dutch ambience and charm? Is it safe? How long would it take to walk to the Jordaan? The owner says it is a 4 minute walk to Dam Square which makes it sound central.

I do have a very small studio on hold in the Jordaan, one big room that sleeps 3. Same price as the houseboat. The houseboat is much more spacious and has 2 bathrooms! (I will have 2 college girls with me.)

I dont mind walking but I do not want to be staying in a less desirable neighborhood.

Hi vivi:

Your houseboat apt. looks incredible. However it is far more than a 4 minute walk to Dam Square as it's (as the crow flies)about 1.25 km/0.75 miles. I think I could walk it in about 15 minutes with another 10 minutes to the Jordaan.

If you go to http://www.coffeeshop.freeuk.com/ACD...neral/Map.html you'll find Nieuwe Keizersgracht at I8.

I'm not positive but I think this is in the Old Jewish Quarter which was largely destroyed during WWII so it's more modern than the Centrum.

However I would not let any of the above keep me from renting your houseboat apt. but I would ask your landlord about the safest route back home late at night as he probably knows best.

At this location I'd invest in a transportation pass as the #9 tram to Dam Square and Centraal Station as well as the #14 to Dam Square and the Jordaan are only a 2 to 4 block walk depending on where on N. Keizersgracht the houseboat is.

As Larry says, it's more than a 4 minute walk to the Dam (no such place as "Dam Square&quot. But that's no worry. Amsterdam is safe except perhaps for certain bars east of the red lights and in some working class suburbs. You are far from those places.

The Nieuwe Keizersgracht is the last easterly piece of the Keizersgracht, so it appears that you will be about 1 km SE of the Dam. You will be very close to the Magerebrug and you can't get more Dutch than that. It's the often photographed counter-weighted lift bridge, probably the most famous in Amsterdam.

I think your boat is just as close to the Dam as the Jordaan (pronounced your dahn), and it is closer to the major museums and popular pleins, L and R.

I suggest the Lonely Planet pocket map ISBN 1-86450-081-6 for $5.95. It's plasticized. It includes a walking tour which ends a few blocks from your boat and starts at the Westerkerk, but you can do it in reverse.

BTW, the boat looks beautiful in the web site pictures. Please let us know how it was, and how the owner was. Many people write for information here on Fodor's and then forget to contribute their observations and experiences when they get home. TIA.

Hop: of course I will write a trip report! I have contributed many to the US board but I am new on the Europe board.

Yes, I think Larry is right, this boat is on the fringes of the Jewish quarter. It is just on the east side of the Amsel---I e-mailed the owner to get the exact location.

BTW: All of my maps and guidebooks refer to "Dam Square."

vivi,

<i>BTW: All of my maps and guidebooks refer to &quot;Dam Square.&quot;</i>

Then all of your stuff is wrong. If it was a &quot;square&quot; in Holland it would be called a <i>plein</i>, as in <i>Leidesplein</i>, <i>Rembrandplein</i>, <i>Stationplein</i>, <i>Muntplein</i>, and etc..

I suggest you get books and maps produced by people who have been there and know what they are doing and writing about. I suspect that you may have been fooled by Rick. All of Rick Steve's books call it the Dam Square, in text and on most of his nefarious maps. Rick is a Dam Square dork, on this and on many other things about Amsterdam and Holland.

Could you please post the website address for this apartment? I will be in Amsterdam this September. Thanks!

Hop- I do not use Rick Steves guidebooks. Lonely Planet (which you recommended) , Streetwise Amsterdam, Frommers, and DK Eyewitness Guides all have &quot;Dam Square&quot; listed on the map and refer to it in many descriptions of central Amsterdam.

Weadles: Go to VBRO.com and type in #19247

Then there's the Tulip Inn Dam Square not to mention the Netherlands Board of Tourism uses Dam Square.

Also Hopscotch your think about Jordaan being just as close to the boat as de Dam is wrong. The Jordaan is 700 meters further West from Dam Square.

The limits of the Jordaan district are a little bit fuzzy. It starts at about the Prinsengracht and goes west to Lijnbaangracht, from Westerkerk north. The Prinsengracht eastern limit would put it at about 1.5 km west of the Dam, extending to about 4 km NW of the Dam. That is a big neighborhood.

Dam is the only way it is known on maps produced in Holland, and all the maps that I have from Europe for that matter. If the Dutch Tourist office, USA department, wants to call it the &quot;Dam Square&quot; to appease the American audience, so be it. Sounds like the normal double Dutch to me. I've lived there. The Lonely Planet map I referenced has it correctly as Dam. It's a dam good map.
;-)