Amsterdam Historic Walking Tour

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Designed by Pierre Cuypers and completed in 1889, Amsterdam's central train station rests on 8,687 wooden stakes driven into 3 manmade islands and took seven years to build. The project was very controversial in its time because it involved filling in the city's old, historic harbor. And with a history as a shipping and sailing city, residents felt the new station was burying the city's heart-and its spectacular waterfront views. But, the move of the modern harbor to the west of the city has saved the City Centre from the industrial character of modern shipping. Also, the modern entrance to the city is now located in the same place as the historic entrance to the city, in the very center of the City Centre's map of concentric half circles, and so the city operates in much the same way it did hundreds of years ago. Indeed, this is the first sight most of Amsterdam's 4.5 million annual visitors see as they arrive in the city. The waterfront view from the rear of the building, and the trendy Western and Eastern dock areas to either side of the station, still give an idea of what this harbor might have looked like hundreds of years ago. Visitors may notice some similarities in design to... read more

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You may notice that not all the windows are red. The blue windows on Barndesteeg are windows for women who are women only from the waist up.

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Quite possibly Amsterdam's most defining feature, the Red Light District is the place to see some truly unique things. If prostitutes in windows aren't enough, you can also find an Erotic Museum, which takes you through the history of prostitution, the Hash Marijuana and Hemp Museum, which tells you all you need to know about weed, and the Banana Bar, a bar where waitresses are highly skilled in the various ways of eating a banana. If you want to learn more about prostitution in the Netherlands, visit the Prostitute Information Centre, located next to the Oude Kerk. If this doesn't excite you, the Warmoestraat, which runs along the Red Light District, is full of coffeeshops, bars, hostels and gay S&M clubs. Walking through the Red Light District today you may notice that some windows contain out of place fashion exhibitions. This is a result of the city's efforts to "clean up" the streets.

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Best Quick Eats

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Developed within the past 20 years, this area is now the center of Amsterdam's large Asian community. Here you will find a variety of affordable restaurants, the largest Buddhist temple in Europe, and a spectacular Chinese New Year celebration.

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Most Picturesque Square

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Nieuwmarkt is a square that borders on many of Amsterdam's famous attractions, including the Red Light District and the Zeedijk (Amsterdam's Chinatown). The square is lined with café's, coffeeshops and bars and is a great place to grab a drink in the evening or a bite during the day. Many of the buildings around the square have interesting histories; the small café' "De Fontayn" on the Eastern side of the square was the city's most luxurious brothel in the 1800s.

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Although currently a restaurant, this monumental building has served many purposes throughout its life. It started its life as a gate into the Medival city. Its best-known role is as a former weighing house ("Waag" means scale), the taxing point for those wishing to trade goods in the city. Among other roles, it has also played host to the city's many professional guilds, including the doctor's guild. As a result, Rembrandt's famous painting, the Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp, was painted here.

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To view the greatest masterpieces by Rembrandt van Rijn, you must visit the Rijksmuseum, but in this circa-1606 house, you get a more intimate sense of Rembrandt -- it's a shrine to one of the greatest artists the world has ever known. Rembrandt bought this three-story, 10-room house in 1639 when he was Amsterdam's most fashionable portrait painter. In this house, his son Titus was born and his wife Saskia died. Due to his extravagant lifestyle, the artist was bankrupt when he left it in 1658 and moved with his son Titus and his mistress Hendrickje to a plain house (that no longer exists) on Rozengracht.

Not until 1906 was the building rescued from a succession of subsequent owners and restored as a museum. More recent restoration has returned the old house to the way it looked when Rembrandt lived and worked here, complete with a ground-floor kitchen and the maid's bedroom. Additional work in 2000 restored the artist's art-and-curiosities cabinet, his combined living room and bedroom, and the upstairs studio in which he created, among other famous works, The Night Watch.

The rooms are furnished with 17th-century objects and furniture that, as closely as possible, match the descriptions...

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In the 1200s the Amstel River flowed through the swampy lands, but was dammed at present day Dam Square and a city was born! Amstel-dam became Amsterdam and the city flourished on the taxes it collected at the Dam. It still flows through the heart of the city. From the south the river runs past city hall, Waterlooplein and Muntplein, and the city's main canals branch off from the Amstel. In the north it meets with the Ij River.

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The western corner tower of the former Regulier's Gate was built around 1490. Regulier's Gate was part of the old town rampart. It became obsolete when the city expanded its borders southwards at the end of the sixteenth century. After the great fire of 1618, the lower part was left intact. The city allowed architect Hendrick de Keyser to reconstruct the wooden upper part. The brothers Hemony, famous for their bell-foundry, were commissioned to make the carillon.

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In the 13th Century the river Amstel was dammed here and on the banks of the river a small fishing community was founded. A dam on the river Amstel eventually led to the settlement being called Amsterdam. The Royal Palace was merely the city hall of the Golden Age, converted to Royal Palace when Louis of France (brother of Napoleon) took over the country and decided to make the city hall his Royal residence. Up until that time the square was full of buildings, but Louis wanted a better view and had them all demolished, creating today's modern square. Next to the Palace is the Nieuwe Kerk (New Church); Amsterdam's second oldest church and new only in relation to the Oude Kerk (Old Church). At the other end of the square you can find Amsterdam's War Memorial.

Today the square is full of street performers and pigeons.

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One of the Dam's heavier features is the solid, neoclassical facade of the Royal Palace (1648-55), also known as the Paleis op de Dam (Palace on the Dam). Jacob van Campen -- the Thomas Jefferson of the Dutch Republic -- designed it as a stadhuis (town hall) to replace the decayed old Gothic one that in 1652 did everyone a favor by burning down. Van Campen intended to showcase the city's burgeoning prosperity; so its interior is replete with white Italian marble, sculptures, and painted ceilings. Poet Constantijn Huygens called it the eighth world wonder, and indeed it was among Europe's largest secular buildings at the time. It was built on a precisely tabulated foundation of 13,659 timber pilings -- a figure taught to all Dutch schoolchildren.

Not until 1808, when Napoleon Bonaparte's younger brother Louis reigned as king of the Netherlands, did it become a palace, filled with imperial furniture courtesy of the French ruler. Since the Dutch House of Orange's return to the throne in 1813, this has been the official palace of the reigning king or queen of the Netherlands. Few of them, however, have used it for more than their pied-à-terre in the capital or an occasional state celebration,...

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Magna Plaza isn't actually a department store, but a mall, located amid the extravagant neo-Gothic architecture of the former central Post Office, which dates from 1908. The Plaza's four elegant, column-lined floors are decked with around 50 specialist stores of all kinds. Yet it's small enough to function almost like a department store does.

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In summer, you may have to wait an hour or more to get in, but you shouldn't miss seeing and experiencing this house. It's a typical Amsterdam canal house, with very steep interior stairs where eight people from three separate families lived together in silence for more than 2 years during World War II. The hiding place Otto Frank found for his family, the van Pels family, and Fritz Pfeffer kept them safe until, tragically, close to the end of the war, when it was raided by Nazi forces and its occupants were deported to concentration camps. It was in this house that Anne, whose ambition was to be a writer, kept her famous diary as a way to deal with both the boredom and her youthful array of thoughts, which had as much to do with personal relationships as with the war and the Nazi terror raging outside. Visiting the rooms in which she hid is a moving and eerily real experience.

During the war, the building was an office and warehouse, and its rooms are still as bare as they were when Anne's father returned, the only survivor of the eight onderduikers (divers, or hiders). Nothing has been changed, except that protective Plexiglas panels now protect the wall on which Anne pinned up photos...