VOL · ISUMMER 2026
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← FROM THE FIELD · VOL. I, N° 103PLATE B · ELEVATION · SUN ALT 19°GOLDEN HOUR · DE PIJP
PLATE · ELEVATION · MYRTLE STREETBEACON HILL · BRICK ROWHOUSES · ALMOST NO SKY AFTER 11
AMSTERDAM · FIELD NOTES · 5 MIN

De Pijp, after five.

De Pijp doesn’t cool down until evening — the brick tenements hold heat all afternoon. But once the sun crosses 50°, the building shadow pours into the lanes. Three picks for the long northern dusk.

By

De Pijp gets sun all day and holds it. The brick tenements are radiative ovens by 3 PM in July. But the Amsterdam latitude means the sun stays low — by 5 PM, the western buildings throw shadows entirely across the lanes, and the brick walls finally start releasing what they absorbed. Walking these blocks at 6 PM is one of the city’s great summer pleasures.

These picks all start after 5 PM. The morning version of the same routes is the opposite story — exposed and warming. Stay Cool will route you west or east based on the actual sun position.

The picks · 3.Graded JUN 12, 2026
  1. 01
    Sarphatipark to Café Berkhout

    North on Ferdinand Bolstraat — east sidewalk after 5 PM, full tenement shadow.

    Shade
    82%
    Walk
    5 min
    Best at
    5:30 pm
  2. 02
    Albert Cuyp Market to De Pijp Station

    West on Albert Cuyp — building shadow + market awnings. The metro entrance is the cool finish.

    Shade
    76%
    Walk
    6 min
    Best at
    6 pm
  3. 03
    Heineken Experience to Vondelpark

    West on Stadhouderskade — full building shadow on the south sidewalk after 6.

    Shade
    74%
    Walk
    12 min
    Best at
    5 pm

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About the author
Amar Braithwaite is the founder of Stay Cool. He builds shade-aware navigation tools and writes the Field Notes corpus on urban shade infrastructure. Read the why →

Walk in the shade.

Stay Cool computes a shadow-aware route for any city we map.

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