The Shopping Scene

For visitors, shopping can be an interesting extension to your Amsterdam experience, precisely because the center city is small enough that stores and attractions are often right beside each other. Rather than going on dedicated shopping expeditions, it may make more sense to simply drop into close-by stores while you're involved in more weighty cultural matters.

Open Hours -- Regular store hours in Amsterdam are Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday from 9 or 10am to 6pm (some stores don't open until 1pm on Mon); Thursday from 9 or 10am to 9pm; and Saturday from 9 or 10am to 5pm. Many stores open on Sunday too, usually from noon to 5pm. Supermarkets are usually open daily from 8am to 8pm, or even to 10pm.

Prices -- All applicable taxes are included in amounts shown on tags and display cards. End-of-season and other special sales occur occasionally throughout the year.

Tax Return -- If you live outside the European Union (E.U.), you're entitled to a refund of the value-added tax (BTW) paid on purchases that totaled 137€ ($171) or more in a day, at a store that subscribes to the refund system. At this writing, that amount was expected to be reduced to 50€ ($63). Subscribing stores are identified by a TAX FREE SHOPPING sticker. On high-ticket items, the 13.5% savings can be significant. You must export the purchases within 3 months.

To obtain your refund, ask the store for a global refund check. When you leave the E.U., present this check along with your purchases and receipts to Customs. They'll stamp the check, and then you can get the refund in cash or paid to your credit card at any International Cash Refund Point. At Schiphol Airport, this is the Global Refund Cash Refund Office; refunds are also available from the airport branch of ABN-AMRO bank. For a list of International Cash Refund Points, and for more information, contact Europe Tax-Free Shopping, Leidsevaartweg 99, 2106 AS Heemstede, Netherlands (tel. 023/524-1909; www.globalrefund.com).

Duty Free Items -- If you are traveling from one E.U. country to another, you can't buy duty-free goods at airports, on ferries, or at border crossings; you can only make duty-free purchases when traveling to or from the E.U. from a nonmember country. Some duty-free shopping centers, like the one at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, offer reduced prices (close to duty-free prices) for intra-E.U. travelers.

Best Buys

Should an item in an Amsterdam store window take your fancy or fill a specific need, buy it. But often, prices and selections in Holland are too close to -- or more expensive than -- what you'd find at home to justify the extra weight in your suitcase or the expense of shipping. Exceptions are the special items that the Dutch produce to perfection -- Delftware, pewter, crystal, and old-fashioned clocks -- or commodities in which they've significantly cornered a market, like diamonds.

None of the aforementioned items are inexpensive, unfortunately, and you'll want to do some homework to be able make canny shopping decisions. But if you know enough and care enough, you can find excellent values and take home treasures from Holland that will please you much more and much longer than the usual souvenirs. If money's a consideration, focus on less costly Dutch specialties: cheese, flower bulbs, and chocolate.

Antiques -- All those tankards, pipes, cabinets, clocks, kettles, vases, and other bric-a-brac you see in old Dutch paintings still show up among stores' treasures on Nieuwe Spiegelstraat. It's the 21st century's good fortune that since the 17th century, the Dutch have saved everything, from Chinese urns to silver boxes, cookie molds to towering armoires. With 165 antiques stores, there's no lack of choice in Amsterdam.

Cheese -- Holland is the Wisconsin of Europe, known worldwide for its cheese (kaas). Gouda (correctly pronounced khow-duh) and Edam (ay-dam) are the two Dutch cheeses most familiar to us. When inside a Dutch cheese store, know that you have the choice between factory cheese, made from pasteurized milk, or boerenkaas, farm cheese produced the old way with fresh, unpasteurized milk straight from the cow. Boerenkaas is more expensive, but also more delicious. Another choice is between jonge (young) and old (oude) cheese. Young cheese is sweeter, moister, and has that melt-in-your-mouth quality, while old cheese has a sharper, drier taste, and a crumbly texture.

Chocolate -- Droste, Verkade, and van Houten are three of the best names to look for. Or seek out the small specialty stores that still hand-fill bonbon boxes.

Crystal & Pewter -- Holland isn't the only country that produces fine pewter ware and crystal, but the Dutch contribute a refined design sense and a respect for craftsmanship that combine to create items of exceptional quality. If you recall classic Dutch still-life paintings portraying happy scenes of 17th-century family life, you'll know that pewter objects are part of Holland's heritage.

As with hand-painted earthenware, there are Dutch towns associated with each of these crafts and long-established firms whose names are well known as quality producers. Crystal, for example, has long been associated with Leerdam, south of Utrecht, and Maastricht, in Limburg. Both towns' manufacturers have joined together to market under the names of Royal Netherlands (in the U.S.) and Kristalunie (in Holland). To spot the genuine article, look for the four triangles of the Royal Leerdam label.

Traditionally, pewter was the specialty of the little town of Tiel, near Arnhem in the eastern part of Holland. Gradually, though, the old firms are disappearing, making it more difficult to find fine-spun pewter produced in the old way and in the old molds.

Note: The Dutch government bans the use of lead as a hardening agent, but this assurance only protects you from toxicity in new pewter, so don't buy any antiques for use with food or drink. If you're not sure, look inside the pitcher or goblet. If it's light in color, it's fine; if it's dark and has a blue shine, buy it for decorative purposes only.

Delftware & Makkumware -- Three types of delftware are available in Amsterdam: Delftware, Makkumware, and junk. Since none of it's cheap, it's best to know the differences between the types and which quality indicators to look for. But first, a few words of historical background and explanation: delftware (with a lowercase d) has actually become an umbrella name for all Dutch hand-painted earthenware pottery resembling ancient Chinese porcelain, whether it is blue and white, red and white, or polychrome, and regardless of the city in which it was produced.

Delftware, or Delft Blue (with a capital D), on the other hand, refers to the predominantly, but not exclusively, blue-and-white products of the Delft-based firms De Koninklijke Porceleyne Fles and De Delftse Pauw.

Similarly, the term makkumware has become synonymous with polychrome pottery, whereas Makkumware is, in fact, the hand-painted polychrome earthenware produced only in the town of Makkum in the northern province of Friesland by the family-owned firm Koninklijke Tichelaars, which was founded in 1594.

Genuine Delftware and Makkumware are for sale in specialized stores all over the country (De Delftse Pauw sells its handmade pottery only from its factory and by mail order), but it is far more interesting to go to the workshops in the towns and see how they are made. Little has changed over the centuries, and all the decorating is still done by hand. This makes it quite pricey, but each piece is a unique product, made by true craftsmen.

Copies of De Porceleyne Fles and Tichelaars products are numerous. Some of these copies are nearly equal in quality, while others miss by miles the delicacy of the brush stroke, the richness of color, or the sheen of the secret glazes that make the items produced by these two firms so highly prized -- and so expensive.

To be sure that you're looking at a real Delft vase, look on the bottom for the distinctive three-part De Porceleyne Fles hallmark: an outline of a small pot, above an initial J crossed with a short stroke, above the scripted word Delft. To distinguish Tichelaars products, look for two scripted Ts overlapped like crossed swords.

Diamonds -- Since the 15th century, Amsterdam has been a major diamond-cutting center and is one of the world's best places to shop for diamond jewelry and unmounted stones in all gradations of color and quality. Dutch jewelers generally adhere to the standards of the Gemological Institute of America as well as the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, and most issue certificates for sold diamonds that spell out carat weight, cut, color, and other pertinent identifying details, including imperfections.

Should you decide to buy a diamond, remember that four factors influence its quality. The first is its weight, which will be stated as either points or carats (100 points equals 1 carat, 200mg, or 3.47 grains troy). Next is the cut, which may be a classic round (brilliant) cut, a pear shape, a rectangular emerald cut, an oval, or a long and narrow double-pointed marquise. This is initially a matter of design preference rather than a factor in a stone's value; it is also, however, the test of the diamond cutter's ability to polish each of 58 facets at an angle that varies no more than half a degree from every other angle.

To evaluate a diamond's cut, hold it to the light and look into the table (which is the name of the flattened top and the diamond's largest facet); if you see a dark circle, you know the stone is well cut and reflecting light to its full capacity. If you don't see that dark circle, expect to pay less and to get less sparkle.

Also expect the cost to vary according to a diamond's clarity and color. Clarity can be reliably evaluated only by a jeweler, who uses a loupe, or small eyeglass, to magnify the stone 10 times; the fewer the imperfections, the better the diamond and the higher the price (and, by the way, only a stone with no visible imperfections at that magnification level can be described as "perfect" according to the Gemological Institute guidelines). Likewise, the whiter the diamond, the better the quality and the greater its value.

To see for yourself whether a stone you are considering is closer to white than yellow or even brown, hold it with tweezers and look at it from the side, against a pure background (do this preferably in daylight through a north window, and never in direct sunlight). But don't expect to see blue unless you're looking at what a diamond dealer calls a "fancy" (a colored diamond), similar to the yellow Tiffany diamond or the deep-blue Hope.

Flower Bulbs -- Nothing is more Dutch than a tulip -- even though the flower's natural home is on the mountain-fringed plains of Turkey and Iran -- and no gift to yourself will bring more pleasure than bulbs to remind you of Holland when they pop up at home every spring. You may have a problem making your choices, however, since there's an incredible array of colors and shapes among the more than 800 varieties of tulip bulbs available, not to mention more than 500 kinds of daffodils and narcissi, and 60 varieties of hyacinth and crocus.

Many growers and distributors put together combination packages with various amounts of bulbs that are coordinated according to the colors of the flowers they will produce, but it's great fun -- since so many bulbs are named for famous people -- to put together your own garden party with Sophia Loren, President Kennedy, Queen Juliana, even Cyrano de Bergerac!

Also, some bulbs flower early in January; others wait until the warmer months of May or June. Knowing this, you can choose bulbs with different flowering times, so you can enjoy their bloom over a long period in spring.

In Amsterdam, you can't do better than to buy them from Singel's Flower Market . And don't worry about failure rates or bug-ridden bulbs -- the Dutch have been perfecting their growing methods and strengthening their stock for more than 400 years. Not all bulbs are certified for entry into the U.S., so look for the numbered phyto-sanitary certificate attached to the label -- these allow you to import bulbs into the U.S.

Old-Fashioned Clocks -- What the Swiss do well for the inner workings the Dutch do well for the outside, particularly for those who like a clock to be old-fashioned, handcrafted, and highly decorated with figures and mottoes or small peek-a-boo panels that show you the innards.

Two types of clocks have survived the centuries and the shift in Dutch taste to more contemporary timepieces. One is the Zaandam clock, or Zaanseklok, identified by its ornately carved oak or walnut case, brass panels, tiny windows on the dial face, and the motto Nu Eick Syn Sin,("To each his own.")

The other popular traditional style is the Frisian clock, or Friese Stoelklok, which is even more heavily decorated, customarily with hand-painted scenes of the Dutch countryside, a smiling moon face, or ships at sea that may bob back and forth in time with the ticks.