Red Lights, Trade and Tolerance: A Tour of Amsterdam’s Old Centre

Want to see Amsterdam’s highlights, spot secret statues, and learn about the city’s past, from its earliest beginnings to today? This walking tour, created by a popular history creator and PhD historian with years of experience as a city guide, is for you.

You’ll begin at Amsterdam Central and learn to decipher the station’s facade. Why is that clock tower showing the wind direction, and what does that shield with three crosses mean? Then it’s onwards into the Red Light District and Chinatown, where you’ll spot a set of bronze breasts, a hidden tulip that warns people against reckless spending, and a statue to honour sex workers worldwide. To untangle the roots of Amsterdam’s tolerance, you’ll also discover the location of a hidden church from 1663.

As you continue towards Dam Square, you'll step into the very birthplace of capitalism. You'll see the mansion of two seventeenth-century arms dealers, the secluded courtyard of the Amsterdam headquarters of the Dutch East India Company (the world’s first multinational), and a merchant home that references the Dutch involvement in the slave trade. At Dam Square, you'll learn about the Nazi occupation during World War II. Here, you'll also discover that the Royal Palace isn’t really a palace at all. You'll end with stories about the country’s most illustrious royals, from how Napoleon’s brother got nicknamed the “Rabbit of Holland”, to why the current king’s nickname is “Prince Pilsner”.

On this 90-minute walk, you’ll get a chance to:

• Learn the legend of Amsterdam's three x's.
• Spot two seventeenth-century houses trapped in a nineteenth-century hotel.
• Find out why Amsterdam’s houses lean and what eleven million trees have to do with it.
• Photograph two of the city’s most beautiful canal views, the Damrak and the Oudezijds Kolk.
• Hunt down a Space Invader mosaic, stuck to a major Amsterdam landmark by a world-famous French street artist.
• See Amsterdam's narrowest house.
• Discover where Rembrandt painted the dissection of a condemned criminal.
• Examine Amsterdam’s greatest architectural achievement from the seventeenth century, the Royal Palace.

Whether you’re in Amsterdam for a day or a lifetime, you’ll never walk through the city centre the same way again.