Karla Zimmerman - Lonely Planet Amsterdam

Seventeenth-century buildings. Joint-smoking alien sculptures. Few cities meld history with modern urban flair like Amsterdam.

You cant walk a kilometre without bumping into a masterpiece in the city. The Van Gogh Museum hangs the worlds largest collection by tortured native son Vincent. A few blocks away, Vermeers Kitchen Maid, Rembrandts Night Watch and other Golden Age treasures fill the Rijksmuseum. The Museum het Rembrandthuis offers more of Rembrandt via his atmospheric, etching-packed studio and the Stedelijk pulls out Mondrian among its modern stock. And when the urge strikes for something blockbuster, the Hermitage Amsterdam delivers: the outpost of Russias State Hermitage Museum picks from its three-million-piece home trove to mount mega exhibits.

Two wheeling is a way of life here. Its how Amsterdammers commute to work, go to the shop and meet a date for dinner. With all the bike rental shops around, its easy to gear up and take a spin. If locals arent on a bike, they may well be in a boat. With its canals and its massive harbour, this city reclaimed from the sea offers countless opportunities to drift. Hop in a canal boat (preferably an open-air one) or one of the free ferries behind Centraal Station for a wind-in-your-hair ride.

Amsterdam is famously gezellig, a Dutch quality that translates as convivial or cosy. Its more easily experienced than defined. Theres a sense of time stopping, an intimacy of the here and now that leaves all your troubles behind, at least until tomorrow. You can get that warm, fuzzy feeling in many situations, but the easiest place is a traditional brown cafe. Named for their wood panelling and walls stained by smoke over the centuries, brown cafes practically have gezelligheid on tap, alongside good beer. You can also feel gezellig at any restaurant after dinner, when youre welcome to linger and chat after your meal while the candles burn low.

Amsterdam is ripe for rambling, its compact core laced by atmospheric lanes and quarters. You never know what youll find: a hidden garden, a shop selling velvet ribbon, a jenever (Dutch gin) distillery, an old monastery turned classical music venue. Wherever you end up, its probably by a canal. And a cafe. And a gabled building that looks like a Golden Age painting.

Bicycles, Red Light District
CHRISTIAN ASLUND / LONELY PLANET IMAGES

Why I Love Amsterdam

By Karla Zimmerman, Author

I love walking around Prinsengracht in the morning. Houseboats bob, bike bells cling cling, flower sellers lay out their wares. The old merchants houses tilt at impossible angles, and its easy to imagine an era when boats unloaded spices out front.

I love that the beer in Amsterdam is perfectly frothed, and you can drink under a windmill without affectation in the city. I love that even the smallest sandwich shop takes exquisite care with their product, and it tastes richer because of it. I love that the Red Light District is by the Oude Kerk (Old Church). Amsterdam is one of a kind!

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Amsterdams Top 10

Van Gogh Museum ( )

Housing the worlds largest collection by artist Vincent van Gogh, the museum is as much a tour through the driven painters troubled mind as it is a tour through his body of work. More than 200 canvases are arranged chronologically, starting with his early career in Holland and ending less than a decade later in sunny France, where he produced his best-known work with its characteristic giddy colour. Works by contemporaries Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Monet and Bernard round out the retrospective.

Old South

JOCHEN TACK / IMAGEBROKER

Brown Cafes

For the quintessential bite of Amsterdam, pull up a stool in one of the citys famed bruin cafs (brown cafes; traditional Dutch pubs). The true specimen has been in business awhile and gets its name from centuries worth of smoke stains on the walls. Brown cafes have candle-topped tables, sandy wooden floors and sometimes a house cat that sidles up for a scratch. Most importantly, brown cafes induce a cosy vibe that prompts friends to linger and chat for hours over drinks the same enchantment the cafes have cast for 300 years.

Drinking & Nightlife

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Rijksmuseum ( )

The Netherlands top treasure house bursts with Rembrandts, Vermeers and blue-and-white Delft pottery. More than a million objects of art make up the stash, including 5000 paintings, the most famous by Dutch and Flemish masters from the Golden Age. Feast your eyes on meaty still lifes, dreamy milkmaids, gentlemen in ruffed collars and vintage landscapes bathed in pale yellow light. While the monumental building continues to be renovated, a best of group of masterpieces, including Rembrandts humongous Night Watch , shows in a side wing.

Old South