The Jordaan is a village that happens to sit four streets from Dam Square, and the way to read it is to walk like you live there. Three and a half kilometres of narrow canals and narrower lanes, built for the poor and now the most coveted postcode in Amsterdam — the hofjes, the brown cafés, and the Westertoren keeping watch over all of it.
Start at the Westermarkt and walk up to the Noordermarkt, the square at the top end; if it's a Saturday there's an organic farmers' market, a Monday brings the flea stalls down the Westerstraat. From there the hofjes — almshouse courtyards behind plain street doors. The Karthuizerhof is wide and green; the Sint-Andrieshofje, reached through a corridor of blue Delft tiles at Egelantiersgracht 107, is the oldest and the one to be quiet in. People still live in both.
Then the reward: a table at 't Smalle, an 18th-century brown café with a terrace right on the Egelantiersgracht. Finish along the Bloemgracht, the grandest of the Jordaan's canals, with the Westertoren back in view. The tram waits at the Rozengracht end.
