'In the sunshine, the free ferries over the IJ are a great tourist tip'

Tudor Lomas grew up in the UK and spent more than ten years in the Middle East before moving to Amsterdam with his family. I didn’t see Dutch as anything I would particularly want or need because the Netherlands was going to be a base for us. I also have the real problem of, if I start speaking a bit of Dutch, people will reply to me in Dutch, or they won’t understand a word I’m saying. They’ll take you up and down the IJ, and you’ll get to bump into Dutch people. You can get off the ferries, walk around, and you can begin to realise that Amsterdam is clearly a city where the water is absolutely central to what it’s all about.