A Beefcake Tour of Amsterdam

Many people think of Amsterdam as a place for a sex holiday, 24-hour bars, saunas, sex clubs, sex shops, and after-hours parties.

Those venues are plentiful, and a nice change of pace for visitors from puritanical countries like the U.S., where bars don't have dark rooms and gay saunas are almost non-existent.

But you do Amsterdam a disservice if you go just for the Horseman's Club.  It's a beautiful city, compact enough for strolling, with dozens of interesting sights.  Some with substantial interest to the beefcake aficionado.

Here is my suggested Three-Day Beefcake Tour



Day 1:

1. Start, of course, with the Rijksmuseum (Museumstraat 1), one of the great museums of the world.  Unfortunately, it's closed quite often.  If it happens to be open during your visit, get there at 9:00 am, and plan to devote at least two hours to Pietro Magni's David, Triton Blowing a Conch Shell (DeVries), The Fall of Man (Van Haarlem), The Striding Warrior (Van Tetrode), Mercury (De Keyser), and the gay couple Orestes and Pylades Disputing at the Altar (Lastman).

2. Don't forget the Discus Thrower in the courtyard.



3. Next stop, the nearby Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art (Museumplein 10). You'll need two hours for its vast collection of Warhols, Pollacks, van Goghs, Klees, Mondrians, and a surprising number of beefcake pieces, including Fingermalerei (Baselitz), Den Haan (Kruyders), and Seven Figures (Nauman), which is a neon image of seven men having sex.

I'm not kidding.  Here's a censored view of part of it.




4. Then the Van Gogh Museum, also nearby (Paulus Potterstraat 7). I'll bet you didn't know that Van Gogh did nude male drawings.

5. You've probably had enough museums for one day, and need some chocolate.  About a 15 minute walk along the Prisengracht is the Van Soesdt Chocolatier on Utrechtsestraat 143.

Then retrace your steps along the Prisengracht to Raamstraat, and the Thermos Sauna (Raamstraat 31).









Day 2

Get to the Anne Frank House (Prinsengracht 267) as soon as it opens at 9:00 am. It's very peaceful, and a little eerie, in the early morning.  No beefcake here, but it's an impressive restoration of the house where Anne Frank and her family hid from the Nazis for two years during World War II.

Then turn left, down Westermarkt  for the nearby Homomonument, the monument to gay victims of persecution (Westermarkt 1016).

More after the break.







Follow Raadhuisstraat to the Herengracht, and walk south about 10 minutes to Selexyz, Konigsplein 20, one of the largest bookstores in Europe. I could spend an hour here easily.

6. Walk about 5 minutes across the bridge  and down Kalverstraat, to the Allard Pierson Museum (Oude Turfmarkt 127), the archaeological museum of the University of Amsterdam.  It features ancient Egyptian, Coptic, Etruscan, Greek, and Roman works of art, including many muscular gods, heroes, and warriors.
Another 5 minute walk across the canals takes you to The Rembrandt House (Jodenbreestraat 4), where Rembrandt lived and worked.



7. You probably don't have the stomach for yet another museum, but the Sex Museum (Damrak 18), a 15 minute walk past the Oude Kirk, is full of erotic implements, toys, and art. Mostly about heterosexual sex, but there are some giant phalluses about.

8. Finish up with a 5 minute walk south along the Damrak to the Adonis (Warmoesstraat 92), a sex shop with dark room.

Start off with some shopping in the antique shops on 9 Straatges (The Nine Streets). They are generally open quite early.

Then south on the Herengracht to the Bijbels Museum (Herengracht 366-368).  It has antique Bibles, models of temples, and other Bible artifacts.

9. Head south on the Herengracht about 10 minutes to the Museum Van Loon (Keizersgracht 672), the home of Willem Van Loon, founder of the Dutch East India Company, who collected objects d'art from all over the world.  The rooms are lavishly decorated, and there's a special exhibit, "Suspended Histories," with paintings of the colonial enterprise, including a surprising number of semi-nude male natives.


10. It's a bit of a walk to the Tropenmuseum (Linnaeusstraat 2), but you can take the metro in about 20 minutes.  It's an ethnographic museum devoted to non-Western cultures, including sub-Saharan Africa, India, East Asia, and the Caribbean, many of which have intact phalluses.











11. Stop by nearby Oosterpark to watch the shirtless guys swimming, jogging, and hiking

12. There are also some interesting statues, including the National Slavery Monument and "Vrouw op Man" (Woman and Man).

13. You'll need to take another metro to visit the gay bars on Reguliersdwarsstraat, or if you have the right night, the Argos Bar (Warmoesstraat 95) for the Horseman's Club.  Don't worry if you don't measure up; the rules have changed, and it's now open to men of exceptional endowment and their admirers.

A good way to end your visit.

See also: Finding a Boyfriend at the Horseman's Club