Coffeeshops in Nieuw-West

Nieuw-West is the post-war city: Osdorp, Slotervaart, Geuzenveld, Slotermeer and De Aker, laid out beyond the ring road in the 1950s on Van Eesteren's garden-city plan — long green strips, wide streets, low blocks, and the Sloterplas lake in the middle of it with a park and swimming beaches around the edge.

This isn't a place visitors make a trip to, and the page isn't written as though it is. It's for people who live here, and for the growing number of travelers who end up staying out this way because the hotels near Lelylaan and Sloterdijk cost half what the canal ring does. The coffeeshops are ordinary neighborhood shops serving that population — sensible prices, no theatre, and no reason to go out of your way unless you're already nearby.

What is worth knowing: Osdorpplein and Plein '40-'45 both have proper markets, and the eating around them — Turkish, Moroccan, Surinamese — is some of the best-value food in Amsterdam. Metro 50 runs the length of the district and Lelylaan station puts you at Centraal in twelve minutes and Schiphol in ten.

One thing if you're flying out: don't take anything with you. Schiphol customs prosecute, and the trains toward Germany and Belgium carry border patrols.