Amsterdam - In Amsterdam, there are Amstel and dam. Born from the fusion of water and stone, barricaded behind its dams, the city is firmly rooted thanks to a forest of piles. Its regular expansion, spread out, was done with the liking of the good fortune of its inhabitants, herring fishermen, middle-class men and tradesmen who monopolized the sea traffic from the Baltic to the Indies. Amsterdam is not fixed in the nostalgia of a prestigious past. It preserved the best: the spirit of tolerance and the opening on the world which does one of the most cosmopolitan cities of them.