De Wallen, Amsterdam, from the Oude Kerk to Zeedijk

Oudekerksplein and the old church

Oude Kerk (Oudekerksplein) was built in 1306 and is a vast whitewashed Gothic hall: bare brick pillars under a wooden barrel vault, 2,500 carved wooden tombstones underfoot. It now stages installation art commissioned for that shell. Outside, brothel windows stand against its walls.

An adult ticket is €13.50. The church opens Monday to Saturday 10:00 to 18:00, and Sunday 13:00 to 17:30. Go at 10:00, when the hall is empty and the art has the room to itself.

Groups and schools book on a dedicated line by phone or email, and a guided tour comes attached. Arrange that before the visit rather than on the day.

Prostitution Information Center (Enge Kerksteeg) is a shopfront in the alley beside the church, its window stacked with booklets and postcards, with a mock-up red-lit window room at the back. Volunteer sex workers staff the small counter. A former sex worker founded it in 1994, and people working in the trade still run it.

It opens Wednesday to Saturday, 12:00 to 17:00, and no other days. Book ahead for the lectures, the Q&A sessions or a guided walk through the district. Staff turn away stag parties who come to gawp.

Museum Ons' Lieve Heer op Solder (Oudezijds Voorburgwal) looks like a 1663 canal house until you reach the attic, where a full baroque church in pink and grey is crammed under the roof beams. Two tiers of curved balconies face a pillared altar and an organ. Catholic worship was banned when it was built, so the whole thing was hidden on purpose. The floors below hold box beds, Delft tiles and a black-and-white marble hall.

Tickets run €18 to €20. It opens Monday to Friday 10:00 to 17:00. On Saturday it stays open to 18:00, and Sunday is 13:00 to 17:00.

The 17th-century stairs are narrow, so staff let a larger party in staggered. Book in advance, guided or self-guided.

Museums on Oudezijds Achterburgwal

Hash Marihuana & Hemp Museum (Oudezijds Achterburgwal 148) has a glass-walled grow room of live cannabis plants under purple-pink LEDs and antique pipes and bongs in lit cases, with hemp rope and sailcloth in the Hemp Gallery a few doors along the same canal. The displays cover social and botanical history.

One ticket of €9 to €9.50 covers both buildings. It opens daily from 12:00, and from 10:00 Friday to Sunday. The age limit is 13.

Red Light Secrets is in a former 17th-century canal-side brothel, and the working room still has its velvet-curtained window. You can sit behind that window and watch passers-by from the inside. A confession booth, an SM dungeon with leather restraints and a mirrored corridor fill the rest. The audio guide runs in six languages.

Entry is €15 and the door is 18+. It opens daily from 11:00 and closes between 22:00 and 01:00 depending on the night. That late closing makes it the museum you can do after dinner.

Casa Rosso and a table on the canal

Casa Rosso (Oudezijds Achterburgwal 106) is the pink neon elephant spouting bubbles over the canal. Inside, 184 deep-red plush seats bank around a small round stage under spotlights. The live show has run since 1968 and the performance is continuous, so you come and go as you like.

Entry is €79 including a drink, nightly 19:00 to 02:00. The venue sells no tickets online, so buy at the door and ignore the street touts. Bouncers work that door, the limit is 18, and cameras are banned inside.

Mata Hari (Oudezijds Achterburgwal 22) is a dim candlelit room of mismatched vintage armchairs, gilt mirrors and velvet. The big front windows look straight out at the red-lit canal and the arched bridges, so you can sit down with a plate and a glass and watch the water. Prices are €€.

It takes reservations and has long tables at the back. Mondays it is closed. Tuesday to Thursday it runs 17:00 to 01:00. Friday and Saturday it opens at 13:00 and closes at 02:00, and Sunday is 13:00 to 20:00.

Jenever in Pijlsteeg and coffee in a cell

Wynand Fockink (Pijlsteeg) has distilled since 1679, and the still works. There is one room, no seats, a sand-dusted wooden floor and walls of antique hand-painted liqueur bottles. The barman fills a tulip glass to the brim, and you bow to the counter to take the first mouthful hands-free. You drink standing up. Prices are €.

Doors open daily 14:00 to 21:00. The room is small, so large walk-in groups get turned away. Book a group tasting or a distillery tour instead, both of which run behind the tasting room.

The Bulldog The First (Oudezijds Voorburgwal 90) was the city police station before it became the first licensed coffeeshop in Amsterdam in 1975. The holding cells survive as padded seating nooks behind bars, off a dark wood bar, and the bulldog logo is up in neon on the canal-side facade. The cell seats are first-come.

It opens daily 08:00 to 01:00. Staff check ID at the door and the limit is 18. No alcohol is served. The city's 2023 street-smoking ban covers De Wallen, so you smoke inside.

Zeedijk and Chinatown

Fo Guang Shan He Hua Temple (Zeedijk) is a Chinese palace facade set into the terrace, with a sweeping green-and-gold tiled roof, upturned eaves, red columns and lions flanking the steps. A gilded Buddha sits in the hall behind lotus offerings. It is Europe's largest Chinese-palace-style Buddhist temple, and it opened in 2000 on the edge of Chinatown.

Entry is free with a donation. Take your shoes off and keep your voice low in the main hall. It closes Mondays, shuts at 17:00 on the other days and opens at either 10:00 or 12:00. Guided group visits run on request.

In 't Aepjen (Zeedijk) is one of Amsterdam's last two timber-framed houses, built around 1519, its wooden gable leaning over the street behind red shutters. The low room is smoke-darkened and hung with monkey figurines and brass lamps, and the jukebox plays old chanson. It was a sailors' inn that reputedly took monkeys as payment, and beer has been poured here since the 1600s. Prices are €.

It opens daily from 12:00, and until 03:00 on Friday and Saturday. It takes no reservations, and six or eight people fill the room.

Café 't Mandje (Zeedijk 63) has hundreds of souvenirs hanging from its ceiling and walls, among them snipped-off neckties, mugs and photographs of Bet van Beeren on her motorbike, with a bust of her behind the taps. Van Beeren ran it openly as a gay bar from 1927, and the room is kept exactly as she left it. Her family reopened it in 2008.

It closes Mondays and opens at 15:00 or 16:00, running to 03:00 on Friday and Saturday. Prices are €.

Nam Kee (Zeedijk 111–113) is a bright dining room of strip lights and formica with roast duck hanging in the window. The oysters come steamed in craggy shells under glossy black bean sauce and scallions, and a Dutch novel and a film are named after them. Prices are €€.

It opens daily 12:00 to 21:30, and to 22:00 on Friday and Saturday. The kitchen turns tables fast and takes no reservations. A group should use the bigger Geldersekade room one street over.

Bird (Zeedijk 72–74) has cooked Thai food in the old centre for 30 years, in a dark wood room hung with carvings and lanterns. The snack bar at number 77 across the street is a handful of stools where cooks work woks over roaring flames behind a steamy window. Prices are €€.

Both run 13:00 to 21:30. The restaurant side takes bookings. The snack bar does not, so you wait for a stool.

Nieuwmarkt and De Waag

De Waag (Nieuwmarkt) is a squat brick castle with five pepperpot turrets, standing alone in the middle of the square. It was built in 1488 as the Sint Antoniespoort city gate, then served as the weigh house, and the surgeons' guild kept its theatre here, the room where Rembrandt's Anatomy Lesson was set. It is the oldest surviving non-religious building in the city.

Café-Restaurant In de Waag now fills the long hall inside, with hundreds of candles burning on iron chandeliers against bare stone walls. Average spend is €40. Group menus and bookings cover parties of 10 and up, and the long communal candle tables take them without splitting anyone up.

Sleeping on Warmoesstraat

St Christopher's Inn Amsterdam – The Winston (Warmoesstraat 129) had every room decorated by a different artist, so you get murals, mosaic tile, hanging bicycles or a painted ceiling depending on the key you are handed. The courtyard smoking terrace is walled in graffiti, and the Winston Kingdom club room is downstairs. It trades under the St Christopher's name now, and those rooms survive.

Dorms start at €19 and private rooms at €68, with pods and female-only dorms in between. Reception is staffed 24 hours. It is 60 seconds from the red windows, and the noise comes with the address. Groups taking more than four rooms arrange the booking on request.

Days, closures and what to book

Fo Guang Shan He Hua Temple, Café 't Mandje and Mata Hari close on Mondays, and the Prostitution Information Center opens only Wednesday to Saturday. Book Ons' Lieve Heer op Solder, a tasting at Wynand Fockink and any De Waag table for 10 or more in advance, and remember Casa Rosso sells at the door only.

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