Amsterdam Centre

Dam Square, Anne Frank House, Kalverstraat shopping street is what most visitors to Amsterdam want to visit. Yet the city centre has much more to offer. Canals lined with gabled houses mirrored in the water. The charms of Amsterdam are supplemented by a string of first-rate museums: Van Gogh Museum, Rijksmuseum and Rembrandt House. The centre of Amsterdam is compact and small enough to explore easily in one weekend.

Delightful café’s in the Jordaan quarter and along Zeedijk, fashion boutiques and international chain stores, dazzling theater shows and famous museums – Amsterdam centre in a nutshell.

Museums and Canals

Amble along canals, stand on one of the numerous bridges and watch the canal boats cruise underneath. Look always high up because the best details are on the facades of the canal houses. Curious to see the interior of a canal house? Pay a visit to Museum Van Loon, Museum Willet-Holthuysen or the Museum of Bags and Purses.

Shopping

Shopping in the centre of Amsterdam is sheer bliss. Saunter round the market stalls at Noordermarkt, stroll through the Nine-Streets, nine intersecting street with so many shops that a day’s shopping is by far not enough. Flower galore at the Bloemenmarkt, the floating flower market. Have you seen enough shoppers go to Haarlemmerstraat, a shopping street where the locals go.

Outdoor Cafés

A mulitude of Café’s offer outdoor patios or outdoor tables most with canal view. Terrasjes is what the Dutch call them. You can find then everywhere in parks, on squares, in alleys and on bridges. There are hundreds of them and always one to your taste.

Soak up true Amsterdam

Only when you have visited the Red Light District is your visit to Amsterdam complete. It is not dangerous, it is not seedy, take your mother and grandmother they won’t be shocked but simply amused and will have lots to tell when back home.

photo credit Marianne Crone