Canals of Amsterdam

An hour of live actors, dark rooms and Amsterdam’s nastier history played for laughs and jump scares. Not a museum, and it does not pretend to be. A new group starts every fifteen minutes in Dutch or English, the recommended age is ten and up, and it costs from €19,00. […]

The building on the Dam was never meant to be a palace. It was built in the 1650s as Amsterdam’s city hall, at a moment when the city was probably the richest place in Europe and wanted a building to prove it. Napoleon’s brother turned it into a royal residence […]

The flower market on the Singel has been there since 1862 and is free to walk through, which are the two best things about it. It is also, honestly, no longer much of a flower market: fifteen or sixteen stalls, mostly souvenirs and packaged bulbs, and the last florist who […]

At 87 metres the Westertoren is the tallest church tower in Amsterdam, and the one Anne Frank could see from the attic on the Prinsengracht. Most guides will tell you to climb it for the best view of the canal belt. As of September 2026 you cannot: the tower is […]

ARTIS opened in 1838 and is the oldest zoo in the Netherlands — a walled park of monumental buildings and old trees ten minutes from Waterlooplein, with an aquarium and a planetarium included in the ticket. From €29,49, rated 4.7 out of 5 by more than seventeen hundred visitors. Half […]

The brewery on the Stadhouderskade brewed its last barrel in 1988. What stands there now is a ninety-minute self-guided route through the old brewhouse, a tasting room and a set of loud interactive rooms, ending with a drink at the bar. From €19,95, rated 4.6 out of 5 by more […]

A nine-minute flight over the Netherlands with your feet hanging free, in a theatre that tilts, drops and blows wind and water at you. THIS IS HOLLAND sits on the north bank of the IJ, five minutes by free ferry from Central Station, and it is the one attraction in […]