Mid-range · 3-hour walk · Amsterdam
De Wallen and Rembrandt's house in three hours
The oldest church in the city, a hidden church in an attic, the medieval weigh house and the house where Rembrandt lived and painted.
The canal-ring route is the Golden Age city of merchants; this is the older town underneath it. De Wallen is Amsterdam's medieval core and its red-light district at once, and by day it is simply a beautiful quarter of narrow canals and very old churches. The route ends a short walk east, in the house Rembrandt bought at the height of his fame and lost at the bottom of his fortunes.
The route, stop by stop
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Oude Kerk
Amsterdam's oldest building, consecrated around 1306, with a wooden vault, Rembrandt's wife Saskia buried in the floor and the red-lit windows of the district on every side. Do not photograph the windows.
30 min here Walk here → -
Our Lord in the Attic
A complete Catholic church hidden in the attic of a canal house of 1663, from the years when Catholics could worship only out of sight. The climb through the house to reach it is the point.
45 min here Walk here → -
De Waag
A 15th-century city gate turned weigh house on the Nieuwmarkt, where the surgeons' guild kept its anatomy theatre upstairs — the world of Rembrandt's Anatomy Lesson.
15 min here Walk here → -
Rembrandt House
The house he lived and worked in from 1639 until bankruptcy took it in 1658, furnished from the inventory made for his creditors, with an etching press demonstrated in the studio.
50 min here Walk here →
More in Amsterdam
Every walking route in Amsterdam, or the full Amsterdam guide for where to stay and what a day costs.