Walking in Amsterdam

Amsterdam is big enough to spend several days there and keep discovering new places. Therefore, it is also advisable not to just stroll through the city centre, because although Amsterdam's canals and canal houses are beautiful, the city has so much more to offer. Check out, for example:

• Amsterdam-North
• The river IJ
• The harbour
• The Jordaan

Walk and see Amsterdam at your leisure. You can walk a route or just find your own way through the city.

The Amsterdam forest is a peaceful piece of nature at the bottom of Amsterdam. This forest is three times larger than Central Park in New York. The park is already on the old side as it was created in the early 19th century.

So the Amsterdam forest offers plenty of opportunities to try out different walking routes. Take a lovely walk along the water or through a forest. You can decide everything yourself, choose a route or just walk and see where you end up.

Amsterdam is a big city, yet there is a lot of nature to be found, because when you look at the map you will see that there are a lot of parks. These parks are a great place to wander around. Because the parks are smaller, it is not necessary to follow a walking route, but you can look around at your leisure. In the parks, you will find a good combination of water, grass and woods.

A 135-kilometre defence line was built around Amsterdam between 1880 and 1914. The Defense Line of Amsterdam consists of 46 forts. The idea of the defence line was to flood the city by up to 30 to 50 centimetres when enemies came. The water would be too deep to walk through, but too shallow to sail through.

The line was not used in World War I and the forts were hardly used in World War II either, as the enemy flew over them, the forts did not make much sense.

Today, all the forts are open to visitors. Some forts have become museums while others are used for recreation such as wellness or company outings. Super nice to see how these old forts are still always put to good use.