AMSTERDAM · NETHERLANDS
Canals, old masters and a city on bikes.
Canal cruises and the Van Gogh, the Rijksmuseum and the Anne Frank House, bike tours through the Jordaan and day trips out to the windmills, the tulip fields and Bruges.
Only in Amsterdam
Three things you only do here.
Canal cruises and bike tours you can find in a hundred cities. The 17th-century canal ring, the world’s Van Gogh collection and the house on the Prinsengracht belong to Amsterdam alone.
On the water
The Canal Ring by Boat
Amsterdam grew up around a planned ring of canals dug in the 17th century, now a UNESCO World Heritage site of leaning merchant houses, arched stone bridges and houseboats. A cruise is the only way to see it the way it was built to be seen, from the water looking up.
- 1 Amsterdam Classic Saloon Boat Cruise with Drinks and Cheese
- 2 Amsterdam Luxury Canal Cruise + Unlimited Drinks & Bites option
- 3 Amsterdam: Classic Boat Cruise with Optional Cheese & Wine
Two hundred canvases
The Van Gogh Museum
No museum on earth holds this much Van Gogh: more than two hundred paintings and hundreds of drawings and letters, hung roughly in the order he painted them. A guided visit or a timed ticket is close to essential, because the queue outside is part of the legend.
- 1 Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum Ticket and City Canal Cruise
- 2 Amsterdam: Van Gogh Museum Ticket & Canal Cruise
- 3 Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam Exclusive Tour w/ Reserved Entry
The Prinsengracht
Anne Frank & the War
The secret annexe where Anne Frank wrote her diary still stands on the Prinsengracht, hidden behind a bookcase above her father’s old warehouse. Walking tours of the canal-side Jewish Quarter set the house inside the wider story of the occupation and the city it happened in.
- 1 Anne Frank’s Story – Guided Walking Tour through Amsterdam
- 2 Amsterdam: Life of Anne Frank and World War II Walking Tour
- 3 Amsterdam: Anne Frank Guided Small Group Walking Tour
Start on the water
The one almost everyone books first.
More visitors begin their Amsterdam trip on a canal than any other way into the city.
The classics
Amsterdam’s Most Popular Tours
Canal cruises, the Van Gogh, the windmills and the cheese. The days most visitors plan first.
Where to begin
The Amsterdam a first trip is built around.
The canals, the museum quarter, the bike routes, the cheese and the day trips out into the Dutch countryside. The handful of days most trips are planned around, and the best of each.
On the water
How to see the canals.
The canal ring is the reason most people come, and there is more than one way onto the water. Three kinds of cruise, depending on the time of day and the mood you are in.
Museumplein
The masters, three minutes apart.
The Van Gogh Museum, the Rijksmuseum and the Stedelijk stand around one grassy square, the densest run of great art anywhere in Europe. Rembrandt’s Night Watch, two hundred Van Goghs and the Dutch Golden Age, with the Anne Frank House a short walk north along the canal.
Read the guide: the best museum tours in Amsterdam →Tastes of Amsterdam
Gouda, stroopwafels and a glass of jenever.
Aged Gouda and Edam in a canal-side cheese room, stroopwafels pressed warm at the market, and Dutch gin poured in a 17th-century tasting house. Food walks wind it all together through the Jordaan, between the brown cafes and the herring carts.
See the food and cheese tours →The canal ring
Ninety islands, fifteen hundred bridges.
The 17th-century canal ring is a UNESCO World Heritage site: a planned crescent of waterways carved out of marshland, lined with leaning merchant houses and moored houseboats. It is at its best from the water, the gables sliding past by day and the bridges strung with light after dark.
Canal cruises & boat trips →After dark
The city doesn’t close at six.
The canals turn to lantern light, the brown cafes fill, and the jenever comes out. Take a dinner cruise through the lit-up ring, an open party boat with the music on, a pub crawl around the Leidseplein, or a guided walk through the lamplit lanes of the old quarter.
See all 11 evening experiences →Beyond the canals
Day trips from Amsterdam.
The Dutch countryside starts close. Windmills half an hour north at Zaanse Schans. Tulip fields at Keukenhof in spring. A car-free village threaded with canals at Giethoorn. And medieval Bruges, an easy train ride south into Belgium.
By interest
Pick how to spend the day.
On the water or on a bike. In a gallery or a cheese room. A windmill village or a brewery tour. Choose the kind of day and start there.
Plan it
Three perfect days.
Never been? Here is a long weekend that hits the essentials without a wasted hour.
Just added