Leidse Square. In medieval times, Leidseplein was the parking lot for horse-drawn carts since they were banned from the city center -- an enlightened policy that today's city planners can perhaps learn from. Today, Leidseplein is where tourists come to park their behinds on the terraces and absorb the infinite crowds and street performers. Hence it is somewhat difficult to imagine that this was long a top hangout for artists and intellectuals; more so, between the wars, this was where Communists and Fascists came to clash. After World War II, much bohemian frolicking took place in such still somewhat evocative cafés as Reindeers (Leidseplein 6), the former resistance hangout Eijlders (Korte Leidsedwarsstraat 47), and the one within the impressively Art Deco American Hotel.

The relatively tamer 1950s crowd around the noted CoBrA painters group, such as Karel Appel, and writers such as Harry Mulisch (now the nation's always dandily dressed grand old man of letters), gave way to a younger and yet more radical and wacky crowd at the dawn of the 1960s. "Anti-smoke magician" Robert Jasper Grootveld started hyping Amsterdam as the "magical center of the universe" and organizing proto-"happenings" from his garage -- dubbed the K-Temple ("K" for cancer) -- on the Korte Leidsedwarsstraat but eventually moved the show to the Spui to give birth to the more politically motivated Provos. Leidseplein was now left alone to evolve toward its current "international" flavor, but not before going through a "national" stage as the favored spot for football supporters to come celebrate a Dutch victory or exhibit more angry outbursts when they lost. As such, the Leidseplein intellectual aura gave way to mirror the local concept of pataat cultuur ("french fry culture"). However, the greasy food dispensers of enjoining Leidsestraat are now slowly disappearing to make way for designer-brand outlets. Certainly the Stadsschouwburg provides musical, dance, and theatrical performances for the decidedly highbrow (the generally more hip and youthful go a stone's throw away to the Melkweg and Paradiso clubs).

Architectural buffs should take time to observe the 1925 bridge to the south crossing Singelgracht. Its swoopy Amsterdam School style was the work of Piet Kramer (1881-1961), who designed 220 of the city's existing bridges. Armed with this knowledge (and the fact that his later work became slightly more conservative), you can walk the rest of the city and regularly say "Ah, another Kramer…" without worrying too much about being labeled a dilettante.