AMSTERDAM · NETHERLANDS
The canal ring, the bikes, the water beyond.
Canal cruises and the old masters, cheese tastings and bike tours, the Light Festival after dark and the free ferry across the IJ to Noord. Plus the windmills, tulips and waterland day trips out past the edge of the city.
Only here
Amsterdam keeps three things to itself.
Plenty of cities have boat tours, old houses and good galleries. Only Amsterdam has this canal ring, this house on the Prinsengracht, and the world’s largest room full of Van Goghs.
The grachtengordel
Cruise the 17th-century ring
Amsterdam’s horseshoe of canals was dug in the Dutch Golden Age and now carries UNESCO World Heritage status. The gabled houses, the humpback bridges and the houseboats only make sense from the water, which is why a boat is the first thing most travellers do.
- 1 Amsterdam Classic Saloon Boat Cruise with Drinks and Cheese
- 2 Amsterdam Luxury Canal Cruise + Unlimited Drinks & Bites option
- 3 Amsterdam: 75 Minute City Canal Cruise with Audio Guide
Prinsengracht 263
Walk to the secret annex
Behind a hinged bookcase in a canal house on the Prinsengracht, the Frank family hid for just over two years. The house still stands, and the guided walks through the surrounding Jordaan set the diary back into the streets where it was written.
- 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
Museumplein
The largest Van Gogh collection on earth
Two hundred paintings and hundreds of drawings, the Sunflowers and the Bedroom among them, hang in one purpose-built museum on the Museumplein. No other city in the world holds this much of him under a single roof.
- 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
Start on the water
The cruise most people start with.
If you do one thing on your first day in Amsterdam, make it the canals. This is the boat more travellers step onto than any other.
The classics
Amsterdam's Most Popular Tours
Canal cruises, the Van Gogh, the Rijksmuseum and the cheese boats. The things most people come to Amsterdam to do.
Where to begin
The Amsterdam a trip is built around.
Canal cruises, the great museums, the cheese tastings, the bike tours, the Light Festival after dark and the day trips out to the windmills. The handful most trips are planned around, and the best way to do each.
Amsterdam-Noord
Hop the free ferry to the other side.
Behind Centraal Station, a free ferry crosses the IJ to Amsterdam-Noord in a few minutes. On the far bank: the A’DAM Lookout, where Europe’s highest swing throws you out over the edge of a hundred-metre tower, the white wedge of the EYE Filmmuseum, and the old NDSM shipyard, now covered in street art and home to Europe’s biggest monthly flea market.
- 1 Amsterdam: A’DAM Lookout Entry Ticket with 2 Drinks
- 2 Amsterdam: A’DAM Lookout Ticket and Lunch or Dinner Voucher
- 3 Amsterdam: A’DAM Lookout Entry Ticket with Burger
Beyond the city
How far do you want to go?
Half the country is a day trip from Amsterdam. Windmills twenty minutes out, tulip fields in spring, a car-free village laced with canals, or across the border to Bruges. Pick your distance.
Dutch cheese
Gouda, Edam, and the wheel you carry home.
The Dutch have traded cheese for eight hundred years, and Amsterdam is where you taste it. Cellar tasting rooms pairing aged Gouda with jenever, cheese-and-wine boats along the canals, and farm trips out to Edam, where the wheels are still pressed by hand.
The best cheese tastings in Amsterdam →After dark
The canals light up after sunset.
When the bridges switch on their lights and the gabled houses glow on the black water, Amsterdam looks like nowhere else. From late November the Light Festival hangs art installations along the canals, and the evening cruises drift straight through them, a blanket and a drink aboard.
Evening & light festival cruises →On two wheels
The city runs on bikes.
There are more bikes than people in Amsterdam, the whole city is flat, and it is laced with dedicated lanes built to be ridden. A guided tour is the quickest way to cover the canal belt, the Jordaan and the Vondelpark the way locals actually move, then carry on into the green polders past the edge of town.
- 1 Amsterdam: Guided Bike Tour City Centre in EN/DE/FR/ES
- 2 Countryside Bike Tour from Amsterdam: Cheese, Clogs & a Windmill
- 3 Amsterdam: Hidden Gems & Highlights Guided Bike Tour
By theme
Pick how to spend the day.
On the water or in a gallery. Cheese in your hand or a bike under you. The Light Festival after dark, the Red Light District and the coffeeshops, or a day out at the windmills.
Plan it
Three perfect days.
First time in Amsterdam? Here is a long weekend that covers the canals, crosses the IJ and gets you out to the windmills, without a wasted hour.
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