The Red Light District: I hate it and I love it. I hate it because of the sleaze, the tourist trap that it is, the cheap tat, the cannabis infrastructure (everything is geared to its use). I love it, because it is one of the most beautiful parts of the city if you look beyond the ground level façades.

Last saturday I was in Amsterdam to see friends and I shot a couple of photographs.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/rethin...57684138444565

I always tell folks to go and visit the church "Our Lord in the Attic" - interesting sight and while getting there you can usually get just enough exposure to the RLD to see what it's about.

Yes, OLITC is nice. Such a testament to so-called Dutch religious tolerance.

Love the cycling picture.

The Febo photos will cheer up PalenQ .

I enjoyed seeing them - thanks.

I've only been to the RLD a couple of times. Mostly hate it.
A young friend worked on the Warmoesstraat during her student days. With the nuns I hasten to add - she was studying to be a social worker, and was barely 18 at the time. She showed me around once. That was eye opening.

The Febo photos will cheer up PalenQ>

umh umh mouth watering!

hehehe.

hetismij, was she with the Augustinian Sisters?

RLD have been cleaned up to such an extent that the number of "windows" has been greatly reduced. The businesses that thrive are those that sell the image and the reputation of the RLD to tourists. I also find it odd that Zeedijk has far less tourists than OZ Achterburgwal for instance.

Yes, she spent two of her stages with them, and volunteered two weekends a month as well.
She was terrified when she started there, nearly 20 years ago now, but soon loved it.

I gate rld wherever they are for the prostitution. It sends back to me an image of sexual slavery and forced pleasure that a part of me would turn into priesthood to help make disappear.
Plus the fact that prostitution is a 99.99 of male thing that makes me ashamed to be a male.
So in short I skip rld when visiting.

I've kept this picture in spite of its quality because the the contrasting messages:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca/14602804718

Eerie photo, Michael.

Thanks, Wo. This has to be repeated. A place with so much suffering in it cannot be a tourist destination.

Keren, I think so too. It's no coincidence the city council decided to clean up the area. Sex workers have a better position in NL than in many other countries, but human trafficking, of course, operates besides the law.