18 January 2026

Winter light, short days

Nobody comes here for the winter weather, and nobody who lives here pretends otherwise. From late November the days shrink until it feels like the sun only gets up to have a quick look around. It is often grey, windy and damp rather than properly cold. And yet this is the season when I like the city most.

The windows

Because people rarely close their curtains, every street in the dark afternoon turns into a long row of small lit rooms. Lamps on windowsills, bookshelves, plants, somebody cooking, somebody asleep on the sofa. Walking home along a canal at five o'clock feels like walking through a gallery of other people's evenings. There is a word for that warm, together, inside feeling, gezellig, and winter is when you understand it.

Waiting for ice

Every winter there is a small national wave of hope that the canals will freeze. Old photos of everybody skating between the houseboats get shared again, and people check the forecast with unusual devotion. Most winters it doesn't happen, or it happens for a couple of days and the ice is too thin to trust. I have only seen a properly frozen canal once, very early on a still morning, with a single brave person shuffling along near the edge. Nobody I know has given up hoping.

Small consolations

Around the turn of the year, little stalls appear selling oliebollen, deep-fried dough balls dusted with far too much powdered sugar. Eating one without getting sugar all over your coat is a skill I have not mastered. There are also light artworks set up along the canals over the darkest weeks, best seen from the water or on a slow evening walk with a hot drink in hand.

The trick to winter here is to stop waiting for it to be over.

Indoors is where life happens. Brown cafés get crowded and steamy, museums are calmer than in summer, and friends invite you over for long dinners that start early and end late. Thick soups appear on menus, especially the pea soup so dense that a spoon is supposed to stand up in it.

And then February

Somewhere in February you notice that it is still light when you cycle home. It is a tiny change but everyone notices it at once, and you can almost hear the whole city sigh with relief. A few weeks later the first café chairs are back outside, people sit in coats with their faces turned towards a pale sun, and the long dark is forgiven until next year.