Amsterdam, Netherlands Travel News

The Ministry of Transport and the NS Hispeed and ProRail companies have agreed that the Netherlands' high-speed railway line will open for use on 7 September.

The American Ann Goldstein has been appointed as the new artistic director of the Stedelijk Museum of contemporary art in Amsterdam.

On 19 June 2009 a bi-lingual, colour supplement to The Moscow Times will be published.

THE new transport secretary, Lord Adonis, believes a 200mph high-speed rail network in Britain will spell the end for domestic flights and short flights to Europe.

Queen Beatrix and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev opened a branch of the Russian Hermitage Museum in Amsterdam on Friday.

The London Police recently closed a successful show at GO Gallery in Amsterdam. In conjunction with the exhibition, the boys painted a fantastic 15 x 36 ft mural in the city's historic Jordaan district.

Only a few weeks remain until the biggest open-air dance festival in Holland - DanceValley - kicks off.

Curiously, what finally undammed my tears were the faded photographs of movie stars, under glass, on the bedroom wall.

Rene J. Finson, managing director of privately owned Waterland Terminal at the Port of Amsterdam, said recently that the economic crisis has caused a drop in breakbulk cargoes such as steel, which is down some 25 percent.

Q I have never been to Amsterdam and my wife and I are thinking of going for a long weekend this summer.

A presentation of their "dreams and aspirations" won students from Oldershaw School in Wallasey a visit to Amsterdam University.

With Eddie Halliwell Gareth Emery and MC Marxman taking centre stage the DanceValley Festival in Amsterdam should be a festival to remember.

WIM Pijbes likes a challenge. It's what attracted him to the position of director of the Rijksmuseum, the Netherlands' most senior art institution and the home of many famed paintings of the Dutch golden age.

BEFORE the huge folk-pop hit Mr Jones, Counting Crows were an esoteric San Francisco band.

Like that girl in your high school class, Amsterdam is a city with a reputation.

Kees Elfring, the chef and owner of this lovely, cozy restaurant in the northwestern corner of Amsterdam , spent a few years in the '80s as a cook at Chez Panisse, Alice Waters's groundbreaking restaurant in Northern California.

"Dutch city seeks to protect teens against arranged marriages Europe News Amsterdam - Schools in the Dutch city of Rotterdam are set to implement measures aimed at preventing female pupils from being forced into arranged marriages, officials said Wednesday.

Serendipity brought us to Holland when the spring flowers were in bloom, but the spectacle is worth planning a trip around.

The Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Jaap van Zweden will travel to Europe for a nine-city, ten-concert tour from February 27 to March 11, 2010 with stops in van Zweden's native city of Amsterdam, as well as Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham and Basingstoke, England; Bielefeld, Berlin and Cologne, Germany; and Vienna, Austria.

Passionate protests sans tear gas. Free tourist guides with their own Volvos. In one of Holland's biggest cities, these and other promising possibilities lie tantalisingly within reach.