CHURCHWesterkerk
The church under Amsterdam's tallest tower, where Rembrandt was buried in a grave nobody can find. Anne Frank could hear its bells from her hiding place a few doors away.
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- AmsterdamNetherlands · 60 spots · 6 free tours · 4 city quests
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Things to do, found by explorers
Everything worth seeing in one place, from the famous landmarks to the odd little finds most people walk past. Tap the heart on anything you want to see and it goes on your own list. Open your list on the map and you have your own walking tour, for free.
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Landmarks
The sights every visitor should see at least once.
CHURCH
LANDMARKTuschinski Theatre
An Art Deco cinema palace from 1921, often called the most beautiful cinema in the world; peek into the lobby.
LANDMARKJohn Frost Bridge
The Rhine bridge the British held in 1944, rebuilt and renamed for John Frost. The film calls it a bridge too far.
LANDMARKMeinerswijk
Floodplain park on the south bank: Konik horses, Galloway cattle and a skyline view back to the city.
★ 4.5 Google 1
LANDMARKVondelpark
The city's big park, with a free open-air theatre in summer and a Picasso sculpture.
LANDMARKRed Light District (De Wallen)
The oldest part of the city: medieval alleys, the Oude Kerk and the windows, free to walk through.
★ 3.9 TripAdvisor 0
LANDMARKAmsterdamse Bos
A forest three times the size of Central Park, with a goat farm and a rowing lake.
LANDMARKAlbert Cuypmarkt
The biggest daily street market in the Netherlands, in De Pijp: stroopwafels, herring and cheese.
LANDMARKLeidseplein
The square of street performers, theatres and the Stadsschouwburg.
LANDMARKRembrandtplein & Night Watch statues
Rembrandt's statue with a life-size bronze version of The Night Watch around him.
LANDMARKChinatown (Zeedijk)
The Zeedijk and Nieuwmarkt area: Chinese bakeries, the old sailors' street, and a Buddhist temple.
LANDMARKMunttoren
The tower where Amsterdam minted its own coins in 1672, by the flower market.
LANDMARKMolen De Gooyer
The tallest wooden windmill in the Netherlands, right next to Brouwerij 't IJ (already on the map).
LANDMARKBrouwersgracht
Often voted the prettiest canal: warehouses, houseboats and no tour-boat crowds.
LANDMARKFree ferry to Amsterdam Noord
The free ferries behind Centraal Station: the best cheap view of the IJ.
★ 4.6 TripAdvisor 0
LANDMARKRijkerswoerdse Plassen
Lakes on the south edge of the city, used for swimming and sailing.
★ 4.4 Google 0
Museums
Museums worth the ticket, big and tiny.
TINY MUSEUMPianola Museum
A small museum in the Jordaan full of pianos that play themselves. Every opening afternoon a guide sets the instruments going, so you hear the 1920s instead of only looking at them.
MUSEUMVan Gogh Museum
The world's largest Van Gogh collection: the Sunflowers, the bedroom and his letters.
MUSEUMRijksmuseum
The national museum: Rembrandt's Night Watch, Vermeer's Milkmaid and 800 years of Dutch history.
MUSEUMAnne Frank House
The secret annex where Anne Frank wrote her diary, kept as it was. Tickets sell out weeks ahead.
MUSEUMHeineken Experience
The old Heineken brewery turned into a beer experience, with a tasting at the end.
MUSEUMMadame Tussauds Amsterdam
Wax figures of Dutch and world celebrities on Dam Square.
MUSEUMMoco Museum
Banksy, Warhol and digital art in a villa on Museumplein.
MUSEUMRed Light Secrets
The museum of prostitution, in a former brothel in the Red Light District.
MUSEUMBody Worlds Amsterdam
Real plastinated human bodies, showing how happiness affects health.
MUSEUMStedelijk Museum
Modern and contemporary art and design in the 'bathtub' building on Museumplein.
MUSEUMThe Amsterdam Dungeon
Five hundred years of the city's dark history, played by actors.
MUSEUMHet Scheepvaartmuseum
The maritime museum in the old naval storehouse, with a full-size replica East Indiaman moored outside.
MUSEUMRembrandt House Museum
The house where Rembrandt lived and painted for twenty years, with his studio rebuilt.
★ 4.5 Google 0
MUSEUMFabrique des Lumières
Projected art shows across the walls of the Westergasfabriek gasholder building.
MUSEUMMicropia
The world's only museum of microbes, next to Artis zoo.
MUSEUMWereldmuseum Amsterdam
The former Tropenmuseum: world cultures in a grand 1926 colonial-era building by the Oosterpark.
MUSEUMSTRAAT Museum
A huge street-art museum in a former shipyard hall at NDSM.
MUSEUMDoorwerth Castle
Medieval moated castle on the south bank, west of the city in Doorwerth, not in Arnhem Zuid.
MUSEUMMuseum Van Loon
A canal house still owned by the Van Loon family, with its garden and coach house.
Odd finds
Strange art, hidden courtyards and stories most people walk past.
HIDDEN COURTYARDBegijnhof
A walled medieval courtyard in the middle of the old centre, home to single women for more than 600 years. Step through the gate on the Begijnensteeg and the city noise drops away.
TASTEBrouwerij 't IJ
Amsterdam's best-known craft brewery pours its beer in an old bathhouse at the foot of De Gooyer, the tall wooden windmill on the Funenkade.
FILM SPOTThe Fault in Our Stars bench
The bench on the Leidsegracht where Hazel and Augustus sit in The Fault in Our Stars (2014). Fans of the film still come from all over the world for a photo.
★ 4.6 Google 0
HIDDEN COURTYARDSint-Andrieshofje
Behind a plain door on the Egelantiersgracht, a passage lined with blue Delft tiles leads into one of Amsterdam's oldest almshouse courtyards. Only the Begijnhof is older.
ODD FINDCastellum Meinerswijk
Stone outlines of a Roman fort in the Meinerswijk floodplain, part of the Lower Germanic Limes.
★ 4.2 Google 1
ODD FINDPicasso in the Vondelpark
A real Picasso, 'Figure découpée' (the fish), standing on a lawn in the Vondelpark since 1965. Joggers pass it without looking.
★ 4.5 Google 0
ODD FINDMuiderpoort
The 1770 city gate through which Napoleon rode into Amsterdam in 1811.
★ 4.4 Google 0
ODD FINDVondelbunker
A Cold War nuclear shelter under a Vondelpark bridge, now an underground cultural venue.
★ 4.6 Google 0
ODD FINDAnne Frank statue (Merwedeplein)
Anne Frank with her bag, in front of the flat where she lived before going into hiding: few visitors find it.
ODD FINDWest-Indisch Huis courtyard
Where the West India Company decided to found New Amsterdam (New York); Peter Stuyvesant stands in the courtyard.
★ 4.4 Google 0
ODD FINDCafé Papeneiland
A 1642 brown café with the legend of a secret tunnel to a hidden church across the canal.
★ 4.3 TripAdvisor 0
ODD FINDZevenlandenhuizen
Seven houses in a row, each built in the style of a different country (1894), on the Roemer Visscherstraat.
★ 4.3 Google 0
ODD FINDSint Olofskapel
A 15th-century chapel swallowed by a hotel, with a skull-and-bones gable stone over the old door.
★ 4.4 Google 0
ODD FINDPintohuis
A 17th-century merchant's mansion with painted ceilings, now a free reading room and café.
★ 4.6 Google 0
ODD FINDDe Drie Hendricken
Three 1642 houses on the Bloemgracht with gable stones of a townsman, a farmer and a sailor.
★ 4.6 Google 0
ODD FINDOost-Indisch Huis courtyard
The headquarters of the Dutch East India Company, now university; walk into the courtyard where the world's first multinational was run.
★ 4.4 Google 0
ODD FINDJacob Hooy & Co
An apothecary shop unchanged since 1743: wooden drawers of herbs, liquorice jars and a 'gaper' head over the door.
★ 4.7 TripAdvisor 0
HIDDEN COURTYARDKarthuizerhof
A large 17th-century almshouse courtyard in the Jordaan, built for widows on the grounds of a vanished monastery. Most people in the street outside never notice the gate.
ODD FINDChet Baker plaque
On the hotel where the jazz trumpeter fell from a window in 1988. 'He will live on in his music.'
ODD FINDHuis aan de Drie Grachten
A 1610 house with a canal on three sides, one of the most photographed corners nobody can name.
ODD FINDHuil van de Wolff
A sound monument under the overhang of the Muziekgebouw for horn player Jan Wolff: every 22nd of the month at 8 pm it plays wolf howls, ship horns and lapping water, shaped by the weather.
ODD FINDUnderwater bike parking
Thousands of bikes parked in a garage under the water in front of Centraal Station, with an aquarium-like view of the IJ.
ODD FINDSkull gate of the Zuiderkerkhof
The old graveyard gate on the Sint Antoniesbreestraat, crowned with skulls.
ODD FINDCuyperspassage tile tableau
The tunnel under Centraal Station lined with tens of thousands of Delft-blue tiles showing a sea full of ships.
ODD FINDBeurspassage mosaics
A shopping passage turned into a cathedral of mosaics, glass and chandeliers about the city's water: 'Amsterdamse Oersoep'.
ODD FINDWolkenkrabber (Twaalfhoog)
Amsterdam's first 'skyscraper', twelve floors in 1932, looking down on a Berlage statue.
ODD FINDWooden house Zeedijk 1 (In 't Aepjen)
One of only two wooden houses left in the centre, where sailors are said to have paid their bills with monkeys.
ODD FINDGable stone wall (Sint Luciënsteeg)
A whole wall of rescued gable stones, the picture house numbers Amsterdam used before street numbers.
ODD FINDBelow the Surface (Rokin metro)
Display cases in Rokin metro station with finds dug up for the line: keys, coins, toys and a 17th-century trumpet.
ODD FINDMirakelkolom
A column on the Rokin for the Miracle of Amsterdam (1345), when a host thrown in the fire would not burn.
Free walking tours
Self-guided routes on your phone, with the story at every stop. Free, start any time.
AUDIO TOURAmsterdam Ghost Tour
Plague pits, public executions and the canal that swallowed people. The city's grim side, told without the cheap scares.
AUDIO TOURAmsterdam in a Day: Highlights Walk
Start here if it's your first day. Why the houses lean, how the canals were dug, and what the Golden Age was actually built on.
AUDIO TOURRed Light District
Seven centuries of sailors, sin and stubborn tolerance. The real history of the oldest part of town, told straight.
AUDIO TOURVan Gogh's Amsterdam
The years before the fame: a failed bookshop clerk walking these same streets. Ends at the museum door.
AUDIO TOURIn Rembrandt's Footsteps
From the biggest house on the street to bankruptcy and an unmarked grave. His Amsterdam, in the order he lived it.
AUDIO TOURMaritime Amsterdam
Warehouses, shipyards and the trading empire run from these docks — including the parts the statues leave out.
City quests
Clues to crack on the street, each one leading to the next stop. Free, for friends and families.
CITY QUESTThe Canal Cipher
A coded will, seven places, seven words. Walk the canal ring and read what the merchant hid.
CITY QUESTThe Gallows Field
Grim history on the quiet side of the IJ. Take the free ferry — it is part of the story.
CITY QUESTRembrandt's Missing Panel
Count steps, columns and a missing piece of skyline. Rembrandt's city, looking closely.
CITY QUESTThe Ghost Ship
Follow one ship from the wharf to the replica. Ending on her deck is the point.
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