The Best Things to do in Amsterdam

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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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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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Five minutes into the self-guided multimedia tour at Heineken's old Amsterdam brewery, I was already mentally pinning Frommer's "Overrated" icon to this review. Two things persuaded me not to: First, the farther you go, the better it gets; second, the other visitors (mostly young males) were having a whale of a time. But admission is steep -- even if you do get two "free" fills of Heineken beer and a keepsake Heineken glass -- and it seems like a bunch of Heineken marketing whizzes came up with a brilliant wheeze to repurpose the facility and grow the market. You pay to get hit by a high-energy multimedia assault aimed at fixing the word "Heineken" deep in your psyche, and to receive compelling content like "Water is a vital ingredient in beer-brewing."

The experience, such as it is, unfolds inside former Heineken brewing facilities, which date from 1867. Before the brewery stopped functioning in 1988, it produced more than 100 million liters (26 million gal.) annually. Fermentation tanks, each capable of holding a million glassfuls of Heineken, are still there, along with multistory malt silos and all manner of vintage brewing equipment. You "meet" Dr. Elion, the 19th-century chemist...

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The most extensive collection of Dutch artists in Amsterdam.

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Architect Petrus Josephus Hubertus Cuypers (1827-1921), the grandfather of modern Dutch architecture, designed the brick museum in a monumental Dutch neo-Renaissance, gabled style. Cuypers, a Catholic, slipped in more than a dab of neo-Gothic, too, causing the country's thoroughly Protestant King William III to scorn "that cathedral." The building opened in 1885 to a less-than-enthusiastic public reception. Since then, much has been added to the building and the collection.

The Rijksmuseum contains the world's largest collection of paintings by the Dutch masters, including the most famous of all, a single work that all but defines the Golden Age. The painting is Rembrandt's The Shooting Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq and Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburch, 1642, better known as The Night Watch . The scene it so dramatically depicts is surely alien to most of the people who flock to see it: gaily uniformed, but not exactly warrior-looking militiamen checking their weapons and accoutrements before moving out on patrol. Captain Cocq (once described as the stupidest man in the city, whose house on Singelgracht still stands), Lieutenant van Ruytenburch, the troopers, and observers (including...

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More than 200 paintings by Vincent van Gogh (1853-90), along with nearly every sketch, print, etching, and piece of correspondence the artist ever produced have been housed here since the museum opened in 1973. Van Gogh's sister-in-law and a namesake nephew presented the collection to Holland with the provision that the canvases not leave Vincent's native land. To the further consternation of van Gogh admirers and scholars elsewhere in the world, all but a few of the artist's works that aren't in this museum hang at the Kröller-Müller Museum in the Hoge Veluwe National Park near Arnhem.

You can trace this great artist's artistic and psychological development -- or decline -- by viewing the paintings displayed in chronological order according to the seven distinct periods and places of residence that defined his short career. (He painted for only 10 years and was on the threshold of success when he committed suicide at age 37). Only one of van Gogh's paintings sold during his lifetime (Theo sold it), but he did give others out to pay for food, drink, and lodgings -- some perhaps went for little more than a song.

The Potato Eaters (1885) was van Gogh's anxious and sensitive first masterpiece....

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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...

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The Bloemenmarkt, or Flower Market, is one of Amsterdam's most famous attractions. In the summer, the market is full of bouquets of the country's tulips, but beautiful flower arrangements of other varieties can be found year-long. It is here that you can also buy bulbs for all sorts of varieties of unique tulips, including certified bulbs that can be exported. But aside from flowers, the flower market is lined with souvenir shops containing every typical souvenir from Holland you can imagine.

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The Leidseplein is full of nightclubs of varying degrees of quality, but the three main venues worth checking out are Paradiso, Melkweg and Sugar Factory

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Amsterdam's main nightlife area is undoubtedly the Leidseplein. Full of cafes and bars with outdoor seating and heated umbrellas, this is a great place to sit down for a drink and watch the city go by, both by day and by night. In Leidseplein you will also find the very large Bull Dog Coffeeshop; the building it's located in was once the police headquarters. On the streets leading away from the square you can find many bars with live music in the evenings, as well as small Italian restaurants that specialize in 5 euro pizzas; the food is good, fast and cheap.

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Most Spectacular Movie Theater

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The Tuschinski Theatre, located just a few steps from Rembrandtplein, is the most lavish movie theater of the entire Pathe chain of cinemas. Showing a mixture of mainstream releases and more obscure art films, the theater is worth a visit solely for its design.

Built in 1921 by Abraham Tuschinski, a Polish Jew who made his way to Amsterdam with a vision to create a spectacular movie house. The result is an Art Deco masterpiece, with decorative elements from all over the world (including an Egyptian themed main theater and Japanese themed sitting rooms). The building is especially grand, considering it was built in a part of town that was undesirable in the 1920s.

In 2002 the Tuschinski re-opened its doors after a four year restoration project. Today the theater extends to the surrounding buildings and contains multiple modern screening rooms. If you want to see a movie in the original Egyptian screening room, make sure to purchase tickets for screenings in Hall 1 (Zaal 1).

Aside from the spectacular architecture, other novelties include VIP love-seats, and a bar at the concessions stand where you can buy alcoholic drinks and take them to your seat.
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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.