Laid-back Noord: a scenic antidote to the crowds of central Amsterdam

A four-minute train ride from Amsterdam Centraal is an easygoing world of floating homes, art galleries and inexpensive waterside bars

The evening sun glints across the quiet marina, and the wooden gable ends of the houses lean gently into a street whose silence is broken only by the trundle of an occasional bicycle. I’m having a glass of inexpensive, decent wine in a waterside bar: and even on this picture-perfect night it’s quiet, with every customer around me speaking Dutch.

This can’t be Amsterdam, can it? A city that’s overpriced, heaves with tourists, and is awash with busy canals and traffic. It feels a million miles away. In fact, the city centre is just 20 minutes up the road, because this is Nieuwendam, whose houses date from as long ago as the 16th century, built atop the dyke that kept the sea at bay from the pasture land that grew the crops to feed the city. I’m drinking in Cafe ’t Sluisje, which for the last decade has been run by local residents. This is the most scenic quarter of Noord, the Amsterdam on the other side of the water from Centraal station.