When I go travelling, it usually ends up being a world tour of all the gay bars. Having just left Amsterdam after spending a few days there for work, I can’t tell you all that much about the museums or the sights, but I can tell you about the five different gay bars I visited.

Time Out describes Amsterdam as the city where everyone is gay, and that feels pretty true – there is no single concentration of gay bars; rather, there are heaps of them dotted all over the city. The rainbow flags are on every street, lighting up the days like the piss-weak sun never will.

During my visit, I set myself the goal to try as many of the bars as I could, but work and jet lag got in the way, so unfortunately five was the best I could do. And so here I present to you five of the gay bars of Amsterdam, as experienced by me.

1.Taboo Bar

Imagine the Midnight Shift, but a quarter of the size. It was packed when we went, the tunes were cheesy, the drag queens flamboyant, the cocktails cheap and the games silly. Men were lined up and asked to suck the drag queen’s cock(tail) and guess the flavour to win a prize. Clutching €2.90 beers, we sang along to JoJo’s ‘Leave (Get Out)’ before realising we were essentially the only women in the bar, and decided to try somewhere new.

2.Vivelavie

The first night we arrived in Amsterdam, we met a gay Hungarian guy who told us that museums suck (except the sex museum) and the best thing to do is get drunk and high, and recover by watching TV. After complimenting me on my “French I don’t give a fuck” attitude, he told us that if we wanted to try a lesbian bar we should go to Vivelavie. “It’s quiet though,” he warned us. “Not like the gay bars. There’s usually three women in there, and one is the bartender.”

He was pretty shockingly accurate. The place is celebrating 36 years of providing a space for lesbians in Amsterdam, but compared to Taboo especially, it was dead quiet. And not just quiet in the lack of people, but lacking in any kind of atmosphere.

3.Getto

Later, we tried Getto. The bartender was casually filing his nails as we entered. This place does food as well as drinks, and one of the burgers (black bean and quinoa) is named after Sexy Galexy, the legendary Sydney drag king who spent two-and-a-half years on the scene in Amsterdam. The bar is full of Warhol-esque colour and gold disco balls, and it even has a resident cat. While every other bar in the area screened the Poland versus Portugal football game, on TV here was a documentary about some kind of dragon lizard eating water buffalo. Hectic. Oh, and there was a fantastic collage of porn on the bathroom walls.

4.Cafe ’T Mandje

Cafe ’T Mandje is the oldest gay bar in Amsterdam. It first opened in 1927, shut in 1982, and reopened in 2008. This place was incredible. My beer cost €2.60, and the place just reeked of history and community. The bartender was an amazing old lesbian in leather pants, the playlist included Édith Piaf followed by CeeLo Green, the walls were adorned with old Dutch portraits, and the ‘tablecloth’ on our table was an actual Persian rug. Kitsch as fuck, but I felt at home as soon as I walked in.

5.The Web

Hello, leather. While we were searching for this bar in a hidden alley, a man in head-to-toe leather rode past on his classic Dutch bicycle. Following him, we found The Web. Two men sat outside, smoking and both wearing leather hats. Inside, there was leather galore, fetish rooms out the back, and men with Santa Claus beards. The distinct lack of women again made this place feel like it wasn’t mine, and so we didn’t stay long.

So there you have it. A brief tour of some of Amsterdam’s gay bars. With EuroPride happening here at the end of July, I really wouldn’t be surprised if it’s true that everyone in Amsterdam is gay.

[Vivelavie photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons]

This Week:

Back to Sydney, and on Thursday July 7, About Life returns to Tatler Sydney with Annabelle Gaspar of Bad Dog fame hitting the decks.

Then on Friday July 8, Girlthing is back at the Imperial Hotel, its new home, and launches its brother, Boything. The action features Tanzer, Sveta, NatNoiz, Matka, Mowgli May, Dunny Minogue, Smithers and more.

On Monday July 11 at Sydney Town Hall is From Sydney With Love, a concert for Orlando. All funds from the night go towards the Equality Florida Pulse Victims Fund, and the concert will feature love songs from some of our top LGBTI and ally artists: Magda Szubanski, Bob Downe [below], Paul Capsis, iOTA and more.

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