Vondelpark
Forty-seven hectares in the middle of the city, where Amsterdam runs, eats and plays.
Duration
1 hr – 2 hrs 30 min
Best time
In the morning
Open
Every day
Entry price
Free
The park was opened in 1865 by a private association of local residents who wanted an English-style promenade; the city only took it over in 1953. It is named after the poet Joost van den Vondel, whose statue stands in the middle.
Forty-seven hectares, ten million visits a year, and an entirely local use: people run here, picnic here, cycle through on the way to work. The open-air theatre puts on free shows in summer, and a flock of green ring-necked parakeets lives here year-round.
Getting there
Tram 2 or 12, Van Baerlestraat stop, or ten minutes on foot from the Rijksmuseum. The park has several gates, all free.
Rules on site
The main avenues are fast cycle routes: pedestrians keep to the side paths. Barbecues and alcohol are banned and fined, whatever it looks like on a summer evening.
Other places in Amsterdam
- The canal ringFour concentric canals dug in the seventeenth century, fifteen hundred bridges and leaning houses.
- Anne Frank HouseThe annexe behind the swinging bookcase, left bare.
- RijksmuseumRembrandt's Night Watch and Vermeer's Milkmaid, in a brick palace.
- The JordaanThe old working-class quarter turned into the pleasantest: hidden courtyards, markets and brown cafés.