Amsterdam
Self-guided audio walking tour of Amsterdam
50 hand-checked places and 2 walking routes. aiGuide notices where you are and tells you each place's story as you walk past, so you can keep your phone in your pocket.
Download on the App Store
Dam to the Jordaan
The most rewarding 90 minutes in Amsterdam: from the national monument and the Royal Palace on the Dam, west along the Golden Age canals to the Westerkerk and the Anne Frank House, and north into the Jordaan.
1.Nationaal Monument op de Dam
The national memorial to Dutch victims of the Second World War and later conflicts, a 22-metre travertine pillar by J.J.P. Oud and John Rädecker, unveiled on 4 May 1956.
2.Koninklijk Paleis Amsterdam
Built between 1648 and 1665 as Amsterdam's city hall, Jacob van Campen's classical sandstone palace on the Dam became a royal residence under Louis Napoleon in 1808 and still hosts state occasions.
3.Nieuwe Kerk
Amsterdam's second parish church, consecrated in 1409 beside the Dam, where Dutch monarchs have been inaugurated since 1814 and Admiral Michiel de Ruyter and the poet Joost van den Vondel lie buried.
4.Huis Bartolotti
Richly decorated red-brick canal house at Herengracht 170-172, built around 1617 and attributed to Hendrick de Keyser. Its facade bends with the curve of the canal.
5.Homomonument
Memorial by Karin Daan, unveiled on 5 September 1987, to all women and men persecuted for their homosexuality. It was the first freestanding monument of its kind in the world.
6.Westerkerk
Protestant church designed by Hendrick de Keyser and opened in 1631. Its Westertoren, about 87 metres high, is the tallest church tower in Amsterdam, and Rembrandt is buried somewhere inside.
7.Anne Frank Huis
The canal house at Prinsengracht 263 where Anne Frank, her family and four others hid from the Nazis between 1942 and 1944. It is now a museum preserving the Secret Annex.
8.Huis met de Hoofden
Renaissance canal house at Keizersgracht 123, built in 1622 and named for the six sculpted heads of Roman gods on its facade. It now houses the Embassy of the Free Mind.
9.Noorderkerk
Church built from 1620 to 1623 to Hendrick de Keyser's design for the working families of the new Jordaan. Its compact Greek-cross plan became a model for later Dutch Protestant churches.
10.Brouwersgracht
The canal along the northern edge of the canal ring, named in 1594 for its breweries. Lined with old warehouses and houseboats, it was voted Amsterdam's most beautiful street in 2007.
Begijnhof, the Amstel and the Jewish Quarter
From the hidden courtyard of the Begijnhof past the flower market and the Munttoren to the Amstel and the Magere Brug, then through the old Jewish Quarter and Rembrandt's house back to the Oude Kerk, the city's oldest building.
1.Begijnhof
A secluded medieval courtyard founded for the beguines, Catholic laywomen, in the 14th century; its tall houses include the Houten Huys, one of Amsterdam's two surviving wooden-fronted houses.
2.Bloemenmarkt
The Bloemenmarkt is Amsterdam's permanent flower and plant market, on the Singel between Muntplein and Koningsplein since 1862. Its stalls stand on platforms in the canal, recalling the boats that once delivered plants.
3.Munttoren
The Munttoren is the surviving western tower of the Regulierspoort, a medieval city gate of the 1480s. Hendrick de Keyser gave it its open spire in 1620, and Hemony bells still chime from it.
4.Rembrandtplein
Rembrandtplein is a nightlife square that began as the Botermarkt, Amsterdam's butter market, in 1669. At its centre stands Louis Royer's cast-iron Rembrandt of 1852, the oldest surviving public statue in the city.
5.Magere Brug
The Magere Brug is a white wooden double drawbridge across the Amstel, linking the Kerkstraat with the Nieuwe Kerkstraat. A bridge has stood here since about 1691; the present one dates from 1934.
6.Portugees-Israëlietische Synagoge
The Esnoga, the great synagogue of Amsterdam's Sephardic community, built by Elias Bouman and inaugurated in 1675; still in use, it keeps its original interior, sand-strewn floor and candlelit brass chandeliers.
7.Museum Het Rembrandthuis
The house on Jodenbreestraat where Rembrandt van Rijn lived and worked from 1639 to 1658, now a museum furnished from his bankruptcy inventory, with his studio and an almost complete collection of his etchings.
8.Zuiderkerk
The first church built in Amsterdam for Protestant worship, designed by Hendrick de Keyser and opened in 1611; its ornate tower of 1614 dominates the Nieuwmarkt district and was painted by Claude Monet.
9.De Waag
A fortified city gate of the 15th century, the Sint Antoniespoort, turned into a public weigh house in 1617; it is the oldest surviving non-religious building in Amsterdam and the centrepiece of Nieuwmarkt.
10.Oude Kerk
Amsterdam's oldest building, consecrated in 1306 and dedicated to Saint Nicholas, a vast Gothic hall church in the heart of De Wallen whose floor is paved with about 2,500 gravestones.
More must-see places in Amsterdam
Rijksmuseum
The national museum of the Netherlands, housed since 1885 in Pierre Cuypers's great red-brick building. It holds Rembrandt's Night Watch among more than 2,000 paintings of the Dutch Golden Age.
Van Gogh Museum
The museum holding the world's largest collection of Vincent van Gogh's work, opened in 1973 in a building designed by Gerrit Rietveld, with an oval exhibition wing by Kisho Kurokawa added in 1999.
Download on the App Store