Amsterdam beerbike threatened!

[Louis VI the Fat]

Your perception not ours. City and culture enough if you are looking for it. Why would Amsterdam have to be more like Brugge or Venice. It isn't.

More history and culture than one can shake a spliff at. Mind-boggling and stunningly beautiful. A fairy tale.
That is precisely why I resent the nonsense that clutters the streets. That is, insofar as the streets are original and not filled up canals. (Try doing that in Venice)

What worries my mind, is that maybe there is a necessary connection between the liberties that stern Calvinism carved out for itself, and the permissiveness of the post-Christian Dutch society.

(We should make a Backroom thread. Then we can compare Bruges (the dead city that was re-awoken by the sweet kiss of Flemish nation building, carved out in neo-gothicism), with Amsterdam (the sleeping beauty that was brutally re-awoken by the demands of being a national capital).
And maybe also with Venice (also a sleeping beauty, a former trade republic like the other two), with Bruxelles ('Little Paris'), and with Paris ('Big Bruxelles' )