Netherlands
Amsterdam
Rembrandt and Van Gogh in one square, and a club culture with its own night mayor
Two of the world's great collections on one lawn, a concert hall with legendary acoustics and a nightlife policy that other cities now copy.
Amsterdam concentrated its art on a single grass rectangle, which makes it the most efficient culture city in this guide. The Rijksmuseum holds the Dutch Golden Age including the Night Watch, the Van Gogh Museum holds more of him than anywhere on earth, and the Stedelijk handles everything after 1870, all within a three-minute walk of each other and of the Concertgebouw, whose acoustics are routinely ranked with Vienna's Musikverein and Boston's Symphony Hall.
What sets the city apart at night is policy. Amsterdam appointed a night mayor, invented the 24-hour licence and moved its club culture out to the shipyards of Noord and the industrial edges, where it runs from Friday evening to Monday morning without the usual argument with the neighbours. The ferry across the water is free and runs all night, which turns an industrial estate into an extension of the centre.
The one thing the city cannot fix is its own popularity. Book the two big museums with a timed slot, go at nine or after three, and use the smaller houses like the Hermitage outpost and Foam for the hours in between.
The day
Amsterdam hour by hour
When things open, when they fill and when the city changes shift.
- 09:00Rijksmuseum opens. The Night Watch has a crowd by ten and a scrum by noon.
- 13:00Galleries in the Jordaan open, most of them small, most of them free.
- 20:15Concertgebouw curtain, a quarter past eight for a century, and the acoustics still beat almost everywhere.
- 23:00Live rooms in Noord and Oost get going; the ferry across the IJ runs all night and costs nothing.
- 03:00The clubs with a 24-hour licence are only halfway through.
The quarters
Where to walk
Four districts that between them cover most of what matters.
Museumplein
The Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh Museum and the Stedelijk around one lawn, with the Concertgebouw at the far end.
Jordaan
Small galleries, the Anne Frank house and canal streets that reward getting lost on purpose.
Amsterdam Noord
The film institute in a white sculpture across the water, plus the shipyard clubs that run all weekend.
De Pijp
Market, bars and the city's best cheap dinner before a concert.
The venues
7 rooms in Amsterdam
Museums
MuseumBook aheadAmsterdam · Museumplein
Rijksmuseum
The Dutch Golden Age in a cathedral of a building, with a cycle path running through the middle
MuseumBook aheadAmsterdam · Museumplein
Van Gogh Museum
Two hundred paintings and five hundred drawings, kept together by the family and given to the state
MuseumAmsterdam · Museumplein
Stedelijk Museum
Everything after 1870, in a nineteenth-century building with a white bathtub attached
Concert Halls
Live Rooms and Clubs
The calendar
Festivals in Amsterdam
Plan it
Forty-eight hours in Amsterdam
Friday evening to Sunday afternoon, built from the venues above.
Questions
Do I need to book the Van Gogh Museum in advance?
Yes. It sells timed tickets only and regularly sells out days ahead in high season. The last slots of the day are the quietest.
Is the Museumkaart worth it for a visitor?
If you will see four or more museums in a year, yes, and it works nationwide. For a long weekend, separate tickets usually win.
Where is the nightlife now?
Noord and the western docklands. The centre is for drinking, the edges are for dancing, and the venues with 24-hour licences are all outside the canal ring.
Next
Other cities
86Germany
Berlin
Three opera houses, five museums on one island and a club that never asks the time
85United Kingdom
London
The greatest free collections on earth and the most expensive tickets in Europe
82France
Paris
The museum as a state religion, and an opera house built to be looked at
85United States
New York
Broadway, the Met and a downtown that reinvents the rules every decade