“The Venice of the North,” as it’s often called, is a city under a similar siege of tourists as the famous Italian city on water. The Dutch capital Amsterdam, founded by damming the Amstel River in the 12th century, is today considered one of the wildest and freest cities in Europe.

I had the opportunity to visit this city with three of my closest friends, thanks to the travel agency Jungle Tribe, and during King’s Day, which this year fell on April 27. What can one say about Amsterdam? For the average tourist, the first associations are the usual party clichés – weed, mushrooms, Heineken, and the Red Light District – but this city is so much more than that. The part about the city’s history, which is inseparably linked to the broader history of the Netherlands, I’ll cover later simply because I find it incredibly interesting and because it gave the world a range of new ideas. And also, to make up for what might come off as preaching or elevating myself above the classic Amsterdam tourism – something I admittedly indulge in a little, though that’s not the intention.

Friday, April 26

We arrived in Amsterdam after a surprisingly comfortable 17–18-hour journey. In good company, with a bit of sleep and a few pre-downloaded films, worse things could be endured. After checking into the hostel (a former prison), and with our cheerful guide and group leader Boris, we set off for a walk through the city’s narrow streets, where we got our first look at the iconic Dutch architecture and the city’s endless maze of canals and bridges.

We briefly stopped by the Anne Frank House – only from the outside – and then walked over to the Hotel Prins Hendrik, a place of personal interest to me, as it’s the hotel from which the legendary jazz musician Chet Baker fell and died in a drug-induced frenzy in 1988. Passing by the Central Station nearby, I recreated a photo my father had taken during his trip to Amsterdam back in 1984.

The first day was mostly spent walking around. First coffee at the main square, then our first coffee shop – then a beer, then another coffee shop, followed by more beer and finally, rest. The first day was really reserved for easing into the city and the typical tourist routine – or, to be blunt, the classic soft drug tourism. One more important note – on the first day, we picked up a one-day Amsterdam Pass, with the idea of using it to explore some of the city’s main tourist attractions.

Saturday, April 27

Ah, the second day. King’s Day, the national holiday celebrated on April 27 since 2013, as that’s the birthday of King Willem-Alexander. If April 27 falls on a Sunday, the holiday is moved to Saturday, April 26.

Everyone in the city wears orange – the color traditionally associated with the Dutch (due to the historically significant political House of Orange). Unlike on regular days, drinking in public is allowed. Every corner turns into a party, filled with music, dancing, and street performances of all kinds. We reserved that day – alongside the inevitable wandering – for taking Dutch magic truffles. All I can say about that wild day is that I’ll never forget it, and that the experience partially inspired a short film I later made, which helped me get into film and TV directing studies in Zagreb. From beautiful greenery in the park to chaos in the streets on one of the craziest days in one of the craziest cities – it was a rich experience, one I’d approach differently today, but one I’m still thankful for.

Sunday, April 28

The third day of our stay in Amsterdam was finally dedicated to culture. From 11 a.m., we began a 24-hour journey through the city’s top tourist destinations, starting with the Van Gogh Museum.

Van Gogh Museum

For a man who wasn’t recognized in his lifetime – quite a popular museum, which comes as no surprise. Aside from the usual components of an art museum – works, exhibits, explanations of artistic phases – one detail that surprised me was the section devoted to Japan, which was then a major trend in European culture.

Also worth highlighting is the extensive and well-known correspondence with his brother Theo, who was his greatest support throughout his life. The museum’s layout documents, in detail, the chronological intertwining of Van Gogh’s life and work – especially his increasing struggle with inner demons and mental deterioration, which ultimately led to the infamous episode with Gauguin and the ear, and his suicide.

Photography of any kind is strictly prohibited in the museum, which houses the largest collection of Van Gogh’s works in the world, so no photos from that location. It’s worth mentioning that the permanent collection includes some of his most famous pieces, like The Potato Eaters, Bedroom in Arles, The Sower, numerous self-portraits, Cypresses, and The Yellow House.

After leaving the Van Gogh Museum, we tried to enter the Rijksmuseum, the most popular museum in the country, but the massive crowds made it impossible – something left for another time. A shame, since I would’ve loved to see Rembrandt’s enormous The Night Watch in person, but I’m sure the opportunity will come. Interestingly, there’s also a life-sized sculptural recreation of The Night Watch located next to Rembrandt’s statue elsewhere in the city.

Hermitage Amsterdam

A quick beer break, and then on to Hermitage Amsterdam. This was a satellite of the world-famous Hermitage Museum from St. Petersburg, located along the Amstel River in a former 17th-century nursing home for women. It opened in 2009 as a cultural bridge between the Netherlands and Russia, aiming to bring the vast Hermitage collection closer to the Western public.

The museum hosted major exhibitions based on the Hermitage’s collections, one of the richest in the world. You could see works by Rembrandt, Rubens, Matisse, Van Dyck, Cézanne, Malevich, and Kandinsky. Exhibitions were thematically curated and covered various historical and cultural subjects. Notable shows included those on Peter the Great and his European influences, portraits and personal items of the Romanov family (like Fabergé eggs), the Dutch Golden Age of the 17th century, and Catherine the Great’s passion for collecting. One important exhibition also focused on the Jewish community in Russia, showing their traditions, daily life, and heritage through artifacts and personal stories. Definitely recommended for anyone with such interests. After a short break in the Hermitage’s lovely garden, we moved on.

Museum Het Rembrandthuis

Next, we headed to the home of the other great figure of Dutch art – master of light and shadow, Rembrandt. The Rembrandt House, now a museum (Museum Het Rembrandthuis), is located right in the heart of Amsterdam. This is where the famous painter lived and worked between 1639 and 1658 – the peak of his career, but also the beginning of his personal and financial downfall.

The building has been restored to reflect its original 17th-century appearance. Visitors can walk through the living room, kitchen, studio, and the room where Rembrandt kept his personal collection of art, weapons, shells, relics, and curiosities. Much of it has been reconstructed based on an inventory list made at the time of his bankruptcy, offering a detailed look into how he lived and worked.

Time kept passing, as did the opening hours of the places we had hoped to visit. Still, the next stop was anything but disappointing – we headed to Eye, the film museum.

Eye Filmmuseum

Eye Filmmuseum is the national film museum of the Netherlands, and also one of the most architecturally recognizable buildings in the city. Located just north of Amsterdam Central Station, right on the banks of the IJ River, it’s accessible via a short, free ferry ride. It opened in 2012 in a futuristic building, and even from the outside it’s clear this isn’t your typical cultural institution.

The museum is dedicated to the history, preservation, and promotion of film in all its forms. Its collection includes more than 55,000 films – from silent classics and experimental cinema to contemporary productions. In addition to the film archive, Eye also houses numerous posters, photographs, scripts, technical equipment, and other artifacts related to the history of the seventh art. The museum also has its own restoration facilities, actively participating in the digitization and preservation of Dutch film heritage.

Inside, the museum is divided into several sections. At its core is the permanent exhibition, which doesn’t follow a traditional linear presentation of film history, but instead uses interactive projects and installations to immerse visitors in the process of filmmaking and film perception. A particularly fun feature is the green screen experience, which lets you “appear” in film scenes – something my friends and I happily jumped into, and even emailed ourselves the results.

Amsterdam Canal Cruise

A canal cruise seemed like the perfect way to see the city from a different perspective, gliding through its endless waterways and passages. However, that particular day we’d walked quite a lot, and light rain tapping on the roof of our covered boat made us all a bit drowsy. Perhaps in warmer, sunnier weather this would be a must-do experience. Maybe our expectations and physical fatigue were simply not in sync with the moment – in any case, it was checked off the list.

That, after a quick lunch, marked the final activity of our culture-focused day. Personally, I regret missing out on the Rijksmuseum, a proper visit to the Anne Frank House (we only saw it from the outside), and the Heineken Experience. For those who don’t know – Heineken, one of the most globally recognized beer brands, originates from Amsterdam. Still, no reason for regret – it’s good to leave something for the next encounter with the city, hopefully in a slightly less festival-like atmosphere than this first one.

Monday, April 29

Monday was our departure day, but since our trip home was scheduled for the afternoon, there was time for one more activity. Since the Amsterdam Pass was activated on April 28 around 11 a.m. for our Van Gogh Museum visit, we managed to squeeze in a visit to the Amsterdam Zoo just before that 24-hour window closed.

I won’t go into detail about the zoo visit beyond basic facts, nor will I get into the ethical debate around the existence of zoos – I’m no expert, and arguments on both sides are strong.

ARTIS – Amsterdam Royal Zoo

It’s no surprise that this is the oldest zoo in the Netherlands, founded in 1838, and one of the oldest in Europe. Located in the Plantage district, just a few tram stops from the city center, it spans about 14 hectares. While officially a zoo, ARTIS is much more – as is often the case in large cities, it combines a zoo, botanical garden, aquarium, plus a planetarium and a museum of microbes.

The park feels more like a peaceful urban walkway than a classic zoo. Shady paths, historic architecture, and pavilions that blend into the surroundings. Around 700 different animal species live here, including lions, giraffes, zebras, penguins, gorillas, and rare birds and reptiles. The aquarium is particularly interesting: the 1882 building holds tropical fish, sharks, coral reefs, and Dutch river ecosystems. There’s also Micropia, a unique museum of microorganisms, offering an interactive look into the bacteria, fungi, and viruses that shape our daily lives – yet remain invisible.

After the zoo, we made one last stop at a coffee shop – the final one for this trip – before heading back home. But before the 17-hour journey truly began, we had one more destination.

Zaanse Schans

Roughly 20 minutes north of Amsterdam lies Zaanse Schans, a living museum village. Located along the Zaan River, this place reconstructs everyday Dutch life from the 18th and 19th centuries. In its wooden houses, workshops, and windmills, real craftsmen still work today, producing cheese, clogs, oil, mustard, and ceramics just as they did centuries ago.

The village was created as a project to preserve traditional Dutch architecture and industrial heritage. Many of the windmills and houses were relocated here from surrounding areas and reconstructed; some were originally built on-site. Today, there are more than 10 active windmills, including ones for sawing wood, grinding pigments, pressing oil, and making mustard. You can enter them, climb up to the mechanism, and see firsthand how wind power was transformed into industrial energy.

In addition to the windmills, Zaanse Schans includes museums and craft workshops, like the clog museum (where you can see a demonstration of traditional wooden clogs being machine-made), a small cheese factory with daily presentations, a blacksmith’s shop, a glassblower, and a bakery specializing in traditional speculaas cookies. The Zaans Museum on-site offers a permanent exhibition on the industrial development of the region, including brands like Duyvis and Albert Heijn, whose first store is reconstructed here.

This was where we had our last Heineken, with a proper farewell toast, before boarding the bus back to Zagreb. And now, a bit more about what I’ve learned about Amsterdam and the Netherlands in the meantime. Writing this was a pleasure – and if even one person enjoyed reading this all the way to the end, my goal has been fulfilled.

The Crazy History of a Crazy City

Let’s take a deeper look into the truly fascinating history of this city that gave the world artists like Rembrandt and football legends like Johan Cruyff, Ruud Gullit, and Dennis Bergkamp. Vincent van Gogh and his unfortunate brother Theo found inspiration here, along with Johannes Vermeer, Hieronymus Bosch, and countless painters of the Dutch Golden Age. Science and philosophy were just as crucial in the rise of this trading powerhouse—Dutch minds looked far ahead while staying obsessed with detail. In 1608, Hans Lippershey invented the first practical telescope, and a bit later, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek—if you remember from biology class—invented the microscope. They didn’t neglect the realm of ideas either—Jewish refugee and renowned philosopher Baruch Spinoza was active during this Golden Age. That phrase, however, is viewed more cautiously today due to the Dutch role in colonization and the slave trade—but we’ll get to that.

Throughout history—both distant and recent—Amsterdam has served as a haven. Whether you were a Sephardic Jew expelled from the Iberian Peninsula in the late 16th century or a Moroccan ‘guest worker’ in the 1960s, the city offered refuge. This progressive, free spirit made Amsterdam open and forward-thinking from its beginnings. And it was precisely the craft of map-making—cartography—that developed here and became central to the later rise of the Dutch Republic. When Antwerp, the regional metropolis, fell under Spanish control in 1585, many traders, bankers, Sephardic Jews from Spain and Portugal, French Huguenots, and Flemish printers fled to free Amsterdam. The city soon rose as a commercial power unmatched even by early 17th-century London.

The arrival of Flemish printers accelerated science and cartography to new heights, as printing knowledge allowed for more widespread publication of texts. So much so that Galileo Galilei, after his trial by the Inquisition in Rome, published his Two New Sciences (1638) in Amsterdam, at the Lodewijk Elzevir press—solidifying the city’s reputation as a haven for free scientific thought.

Trade and Economy as Driving Forces

Before its great economic and cultural boom, the Dutch survived on trade—specifically herring. Hence the saying, “Amsterdam was built on herringbone.” Skills in fishing, bargaining, trade, shipbuilding, and later finance and accounting enabled the Dutch to become one of the fastest-growing economies in the Western world. Amsterdam became a key hub in global trade and logistics. Realizing that geography dictated their destiny, they built better and stronger ships until they surpassed even the Portuguese and Spanish navies.

A pivotal moment came in 1603 with the founding of the VOC (Dutch East India Company). The first true multinational corporation—still widely studied in economics—was a state within a state. With its own laws and private army, it controlled global spice trade routes and colonized vast overseas territories on behalf of the Netherlands. Its reach inspired British, French, Danish, Swedish—and even Austrian and Prussian—equivalent companies. At its peak, the VOC fleet outnumbered most national navies of the time.

The rapid economic rise, fueled by spices and colonial resources, turned the small republic into a global economic leader with the highest per capita income in the world—from 1600 to 1720. All this was run from Amsterdam, from VOC and West India Company (GWC) offices. This led to the founding of the world’s first stock exchange in 1609 and the first public bank—Amsterdamsche Wisselbank (Bank of Holland)—which offered accounts indirectly convertible to coin. It is considered a prototype of the modern central bank. By stabilizing currency and introducing the bank guilder as a reserve currency, it became the financial nerve center of the 17th century and inspired the creation of institutions like the Bank of England and the Riksbank in Sweden.

Given all this, the Dutch Republic is a case study in proto-modern economic structures. A curious example is also the first speculative economic bubble—the infamous tulip mania. Between 1634 and February 1637, the price of tulip bulbs skyrocketed—one bulb could cost the equivalent of ten years’ wages of a skilled craftsman. Although the crash didn’t severely damage the Dutch economy, it was a major sociological and psychological event—the first of its kind in recorded economic history.

Rampjaar – Year of Disaster

This momentum lasted until 1672, known in Dutch history as Rampjaar—the Year of Disaster. Powerful neighbors like Britain, France, Spain, and even Sweden—as well as the fragmented German states and the Habsburg monarchy—weren’t thrilled about Dutch wealth. France under Louis XIV invaded, while the British enforced a naval blockade. Eventually, with support from the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold, as well as Denmark and Sweden, the tide turned and the Dutch stabilized.

Still, internal unrest that year shifted power to the pro-monarchy Orange faction. Reformist statesman Johan de Witt and his brother Cornelius were lynched in The Hague during an Orangist uprising—and parts of their bodies were allegedly eaten by the mob. The Dutch coined a phrase that year reflecting the mood: “redeloos, radeloos, reddeloos” – irrational, desperate, hopeless. Hard to argue, given what happened.

Amsterdam Today

Since Rampjaar, the Netherlands never again reached its 17th-century peak, though it has remained progressive and forward-thinking. For periods from the late 18th century to WWII, the city was occupied by Napoleon and Hitler, a period forever marked by The Diary of Anne Frank, one of the most recognized Holocaust testimonies. By the mid-20th century, Amsterdam had become a liberal hotspot, often compared to San Francisco for its hippysh,  countercultural spirit—a reputation it still holds.

While its progressive liberalization once felt pioneering, the legalization of prostitution and soft drugs in the 1970s brought waves of tourism centered on coffee shops, marijuana, and magic truffles. City officials are now rethinking Amsterdam’s image as a “sin city.” Meanwhile, another symbol—bicycles—came out of a major urban policy shift in the 1970s following a series of fatal traffic accidents involving children (the “Stop de Kindermoord” movement). This led to a reimagining of urban mobility and turned Amsterdam into a cyclist’s haven.

Still, Amsterdam is much more than bikes and drugs. In recent years, it has become a European hub for major American tech companies. Attracted by its business climate, tax structure, international workforce, and digital infrastructure, firms like Tesla, Uber, and Netflix have set up European headquarters here. Dutch-born Booking.com operates from the city, while IBM, Cisco, Adobe, Oracle, and Salesforce manage regional operations from Amsterdam as well.

Conclusion

In any case, without overdoing it, I look forward to another encounter with the Dutch capital. And one last fun fact—what’s the difference between “Dutch,” “Holland,” and “The Netherlands”?

• Netherlands: the official name of the country, made up of 12 provinces, including North and South Holland.
• Holland: refers only to those two provinces (Noord-Holland and Zuid-Holland), which were most powerful during the Golden Age. Foreigners often used the term to refer to the whole country.

• Dutch: the adjective used to describe people, the language, and things from the Netherlands. The word comes from the old Germanic term “dietsc” or “duutsch,” meaning “of the people” or “vernacular.” In the Middle Ages, it referred to all Germanic-speaking peoples not using Latin—including what we now call Germans (Deutsch) and the Dutch (Dutch). Same root, different path.