Monday 13 May 2013

9 Streets - Part 7

Well, this is it, the final Amsterdam post of the week.  Devoting a whole week to somewhere other than Kent / Canterbury has been tougher than I thought it would be - I kept wanting to go back and talk about stuff that is happening here!  It's all part of the blogging learning curve though and the reason I wanted to devote a whole week of posts to one weekend in Amsterdam was because there was just so much to do and see over there and a lot of it I had no idea about before we left.  Amsterdam wasn't really top of my radar for cities to visit with lots of stuff to do!

Steve had downloaded a rather useful little app on his phone before we left that provided us with walking tours through specific areas of the city.  My favourite took us through the 9 Streets District; described as Amsterdam's Greenwich Village, it's a charming area of Amsterdam filled with vintage boutiques, Italian leather shoes, cheese, pastries, chocolates and cosmetics.  My idea of heaven.

I loved the dresses in Laura Bols - the basement is devoted to party wear from the 1920's 1990's.  An entire row filled with feather bowers and a table of sequins!

It was all a little pricey, although Steve did find a vintage RAF jacket that was simply amazing - if it was in his size I would have snapped it up!
Skin Cosmetics is a chain that I think is unique to the Netherlands (please do correct me if I am wrong!).  Imagine all your high brand skin care  (Philosophy, Nuxe, Patyka, Dr. Brandt, Laura Mercia) as well as luxury perfume brands (Diptyque, Clean, O'driu, By Kilian) and high end makeup (Nars, FNUG, Ellis Faas) all under one extremely overpriced roof.  Wonderful to walk around and sniff (as well as try a few cheeky samples) but I wouldn't be leaving with anything.  Some of the price tags made me physically wince! 
Moped's are all over the city.  I wasn't expecting them to be used as decor in stores.  However this Italian leather shoe shop had the most amazing shoes, why should their decorative items be any different! 
Independent beauty shops were scattered along the 9 Streets District.  Rain combined art and bubble bath - you grabbed a bottle and chose your own bubble bath from one of the tube taps.  I was tempted, but at close to £40 for a 250ml bottle, I wasn't going to bite!
If I had a lot more disposable income I could quite happily shop til I drop in the 9 Streets District!

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