Interesting shopping areas include Oude Molstraat and Denneweg in the city center, where you find a concentration of authentic Dutch stores. Connected to Centraal Station, the modern Babylon shopping mall has two floors of over 60 shops, restaurants, and a luxury hotel.

There is a network of pedestrian streets with a big selection of stores on Spuistraat, Vlamingstraat, Venestraat, and Hoogstraat. The covered Passage is a beautiful 19th-century arcade running from Spuistraat to Gravenstraat, though the shops it contains are nothing to write home about.

De Bijenkorf, Wagenstraat 32 (tel. 070/426-27-00), in a stunning example of functional early-20th-century architecture, stands on Grote Marktstraat, and the stiffly chic Maison de Bonneterie, Gravenstraat 2 (tel. 070/330-53-00), on Buitenhof.

Noordeinde and Oude Molenstraat are home to fashion boutiques, antiquarian booksellers, and expensive delicatessens. Leading off from Lange Voorhout, Denneweg and Frederikstraat are lined with high-priced antiques, interior design stores, and boutiques catering to specialties such as fashion for pregnant women. One of the largest interior design stores is the multi-location Loft Interiors, a part of which is in a stunning 1899 iron-and-glass showroom at Denneweg 56.

Among the top shopping attractions are a number of fine antiques stores and a weekly antiques and curios market under the beautiful canopy of trees on Lange Voorhout, that runs from May to September, on Thursday from 9am to 7pm and Sunday from 10am to 5pm; from October to May, on Thursday from noon to 5pm. Year round, on Wednesday, there is an organic farm market on the square around the Grote Kerk from 10am to 4pm.