Amsterdam
A city where the bike is transport, not recreation — which is why pedestrians have to look
- When to go
- October 12° · 19 rainy days
- Per day
- €€€€€price 5 of 5
- How many days
- 2–3days
- For you
- 6 questions →
- Nearest airport
- 11 km Amsterdam · 56 km Rotterdam
- Right now
Amsterdam's canals aren't decoration, they're a seventeenth-century city plan: three great rings dug at once, to a design, so that merchant ships could reach warehouses that are still standing — they just hold flats now. Which is why the centre looks drawn rather than grown. It was drawn.
The museums are why most people come, and they demand planning more than money. The Rijksmuseum costs €25 and the Van Gogh Museum €25; under-18s go free but still need a ticket with an exact entry time. The Van Gogh Museum sells online only, and the Rijksmuseum sometimes has a handful at the door, with no choice of hour. The Anne Frank House is the strictest of the three, so book it first and fit the other two around it.
The bicycle in Amsterdam is traffic, not an attraction, and a pedestrian who misses that spends the day dodging. Red asphalt is a cycle lane with its own lights and right of way — you don't stop on it to take a picture. The rule is simple: look left, look right, look left again before you step, because a bike makes no noise and will not brake for you. Trams have priority too, and they're just as quiet.
Sleeping is the expensive part. Amsterdam's tourist tax is 12.5 per cent of the overnight rate before VAT, and since 1 January 2026 VAT on accommodation has gone from 9 to 21 per cent — with the tax itself often charged separately, at reception. Which is why many people sleep in Haarlem, about fifteen minutes away by train, or Zaandam, about twelve, and come in for the morning.
Guides for Amsterdam
Shorter, practical pages for one concrete question each — how many days, how much money, where to sleep, where to escape the city.
Amsterdam in 2 days
→The Rijks, Van Gogh and the canals in two days — with one booking made six weeks earlier.
Where to stay in Amsterdam
→The room tax is charged on top, so in Amsterdam the quarter is chosen by arithmetic as much as by taste.
Amsterdam behind the gates: courtyards and an attic church
→Courtyards behind gates, a church in an attic and a windmill with a brewery — seven things the canal cruise does not…
What to see in Amsterdam
The Rijksmuseum
The national collection in an 1885 building, with Rembrandt's Night Watch at the end of the Gallery of Honour and Vermeer's Milkmaid a few rooms away. The museum opens at nine, and that first slot is your best chance to stand still in front of the Night Watch.
The Van Gogh Museum
The largest collection of Van Gogh anywhere, hung chronologically, so you watch the palette shift from brown to yellow as you move through the rooms. The ticket for the permanent collection also covers whatever exhibition is on, so there's nothing extra to pay.
The canals from the water
The canal ring has been UNESCO-listed since 2010 and looks nothing from a boat like it does from the quay: the bridges are low, the houses read from below, and the hoisting hooks under the gables suddenly make sense. An hour on the water, best at dusk when the bridge lights come on.
The Anne Frank House
The rear annexe where eight people hid for two years, with the bookcase that closed off the entrance. Tickets are sold online only, every Tuesday at 10am, for visits six weeks later. The visit takes about an hour, and the minimum age is ten — the museum isn't for younger children.
The Jordaan and the brown cafes
The quarter west of the canals, once working-class, now the easiest part of the centre to walk with no destination. It holds the bruine kroegen — old bars with woodwork darkened by decades of smoke, where you drink beer, not cocktails.
Albert Cuyp market and the Vondelpark
A street market in De Pijp, where you eat a stroopwafel pressed in front of you and a herring straight from the hand. Fifteen minutes away is the Vondelpark, where Amsterdammers spend Sunday afternoon.
Stories from Amsterdam
How it actually was when we were there, and what was worth it.
Amsterdam without the crowds: what to book and when to get up
→This city isn't solved with a trick but with a calendar: half the experience is decided weeks earlier, online, and the other half by…
Amsterdam or Rotterdam, and why they are not the same trip
→One was drawn in the seventeenth century and kept that way; the other burned in a single afternoon and decided not to be put back. It…
Two things you probably did not know
Amsterdam houses are narrow because tax was charged on the width of the facade. So they are deep and tall, with a hook at the top for hoisting furniture. The stairs are too narrow to carry anything up.
The whole city stands on wooden piles driven through mud to sand; there are 13,659 of them under the Royal Palace. The canals are dredged, and around fifteen thousand bicycles are pulled out of them every year.
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