Travel Man: Amsterdam, Netherlands
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Explore Amsterdam
Enjoy a long weekend exploring the streets of the capital of the Netherlands. On foot, by bike, or boat, Amsterdam has it all! You will enjoy a nice holiday with plenty of discoveries in this young and dynamic city. Succumb to the charm of the famous Dutch buildings and their colorful facades. From the flower market to the Van Gogh museum and the Jordaan district, stroll through the different neighborhoods where the restricted traffic allows you to walk and enjoy the views peacefully.
Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands, and it's built around a ring of canals dug in the 1600s, when the city was one of the richest trading ports in the world. Narrow, gabled houses lean over the water, bridges cross every few steps and the whole center is small enough to cover without a car. In the Travel Man episode, Richard Ayoade and Joe Lycett see it the way locals do. They ride bicycles along the canals, stop for Dutch gin, spend an afternoon drawing and pass a street organ playing Wham. The day moves fast, and this trip slows it down, giving the city the time its canals set the pace for. The link below opens the full trip, and you can change any part of it.
Ride It Like a Local
Cycling is the backbone of the episode, and it makes the best way to get your bearings here. Amsterdam limits car traffic in the center, so the streets belong to bikes and pedestrians, and whole days on foot or by boat feel easy instead of tiring. The canal houses work as your map, and you can pick up a rental bike early and let it carry you around. The flower market, the old bridges and the neighborhoods beyond the center are all a short ride apart.
Pedaling around Amsterdam on a bike is the best way to take in all the sights.
Work the Neighborhoods
From the saddle, step into the Jordaan, a former working-class district of small streets, brown cafes and independent shops. Brown cafes are the neighborhood's traditional pubs, dark with wood and decades of use, and they're good places to sit with a coffee or a beer. The Van Gogh Museum anchors the museum days, with the largest collection of his paintings anywhere, and the city's restaurants deserve a meal planned around them, not a bite grabbed between sights. A longer stay leaves room for the museum's big galleries and the small streets outside it, so you don't have to choose.
Book the Episode's Add-Ons
Three of the episode's signature stops sit outside the core itinerary, and each is easy to arrange on your own. The Museum of Street Organs is dedicated to the draaiorgel, the hand-cranked mechanical organ that plays tunes from the sidewalk, usually in a decorated cabinet. A Dutch gin tasting introduces jenever, the juniper-flavored spirit that gin descends from. And an afternoon drawing session gives you a quiet hour with a sketchbook, the way the episode does. Together they're the version of Amsterdam the episode kept returning to, small and specific, and local.
Wynand Fockink is a cozy, historic distillery, liquor shop, and tasting room right in the center of Amsterdam.
If you want to go beyond the city, a rail extension to Brussels is an easy add.
The link below opens the full trip. Take the classic city break, add Brussels or build in more of the episode's add-ons, then click through and shape it into your own.
Explore Amsterdam
Enjoy a long weekend exploring the streets of the capital of the Netherlands. On foot, by bike, or boat, Amsterdam has it all! You will enjoy a nice holiday with plenty of discoveries in this young and dynamic city. Succumb to the charm of the famous Dutch buildings and their colorful facades. From the flower market to the Van Gogh museum and the Jordaan district, stroll through the different neighborhoods where the restricted traffic allows you to walk and enjoy the views peacefully.
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