Mid-range · 6-hour walk · Amsterdam
The Plantage and the eastern docks in six hours
The botanic garden, the Holocaust museum and the theatre opposite, the resistance museum, a brewery under a windmill, the maritime museum and the NEMO roof.
The museum-quarter route is the famous Amsterdam of Rembrandt and Van Gogh; this is the east side, where the city kept its gardens, its Jewish quarter and its navy. It is the most affecting half day in the city and one of the calmest, and it ends with a beer in the shadow of a windmill and the sunset from a rooftop over the harbour.
The route, stop by stop
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Hortus Botanicus
One of the oldest botanic gardens in the world, founded in 1638, with a coffee plant whose descendants became the plantations of Brazil and a three-climate glasshouse.
45 min here Walk here → -
National Holocaust Museum
Opened in 2024, in the college across the street from the theatre where Amsterdam's Jews were assembled for deportation, and from whose crèche hundreds of children were smuggled to safety.
30 min here Walk here → -
Resistance Museum
The occupation of the Netherlands told through ordinary choices — to adapt, to collaborate or to resist — with a junior museum in the same building that is as good as the adult one.
60 min here Walk here → -
De Gooyer windmill
A 1725 corn mill, the tallest wooden mill in the country, and Brouwerij 't IJ at its foot, brewing organic beer since 1985. The terrace is the lunch stop.
45 min here Walk here → -
Het Scheepvaartmuseum
The Dutch maritime museum in the navy's storehouse of 1656, with a full-size replica East Indiaman moored outside that you can climb all over.
75 min here Walk here → -
NEMO rooftop
The green copper prow of Renzo Piano's science museum, whose sloping roof is a free public square over the harbour, busiest at sunset.
More in Amsterdam
Every walking route in Amsterdam, or the full Amsterdam guide for where to stay and what a day costs.