Dutch food

You will enjoy Dutch food in locally-owned small restaurants. The guide and the local owners will give you a detailed explanation of what you are eating and the origin of each meal. This foodtour exists of six stops and all the food and drinks that are offered are included.

Jordaan area and De Pijp

If you really want to connect with the local food, the history and the locals, then these are the areas where you will have to go to. The foodtour in de Jordaan contains the traditional Dutch food, like cheese, stamppot and poffertjes.
De Pijp is more multicultural so in this neighbourhood, the Dutch food is more influenced by the Dutch maritime history of the 17th century. So in this foodtour, besides the herring, you will taste food from the Surinam cuisine, Indonesian and North African.

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Private canal cruise Amsterdam

The best way to enjoy a canal cruise in Amsterdam is a private canal cruise. You do this at your own pace and you can be picked up in front of your hotel. We drop you where you want. You can ask all the questions that you want, no audioguide. No other people onboard besides your guide, the captain and the person who serves your drinks. We can include just the drinks, or even complete dinners onboard. We can do the cruise on the time of day that you want. All our tours are customizable, also the private cruise. 

Salonboats Amsterdam

We have private salonboats for 2 persons up to 25 and private ships for bigger groups. The small boats can go through certain canals, like the red light district area, where the bigger boats can not go. All boats have a covered section and an outdoor sitting area so we are not dependent on the weather. If we rent the boat for a half or a full day, we can even cruise down the Amstel river for a while and see the beautiful area south of Amsterdam.

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War Museum Amsterdam

The Nazis followed a three step plan: registration, concentration and deportation. In this tour I will show you what happened in Amsterdam. There is no place that tells the story about WW2 in Amsterdam so succinctly as the Museum of the Dutch Resistance does. Besides showing you the different steps the Nazi took in the preparation of the deportations, much attention is paid to the organization of the resistance. The Nazis used the coastal area to execute members of the resistance. An impressive Honory Cemetery can be visited in the tour Kennemerdunes.

Deportation place

Located in the heart of the old Jewish quarter, is the former theatre. During the war the Nazis made Jews assemble in this building. This was their last stop in Amsterdam and the first step in the deportation process that ended in Auswitsch or Sobibor for most of the Dutch Jews.

Also we will see the new Holocaust monument and (if open) we can visit the Portuguese synagogue, where nothing changed since 1675. The Nazis wanted to use this place as the assembly point but they preferred the theatre. Now this is part of the new Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam, opened in March 2024.

New Holocaust Museum

In March 2024, the Holocaust museum in Amsterdam opened its doors. It is the only Holocaust museum in the world on a site where the deportation of Jews took place.

The museum is located in a former schoolbuilding in the district where many Jewish Amsterdammers lived before the Holocaust. The school was the neighbouring building of the Jewish Nursery School, which was transformed by the Nazis  into an assembly point for Jewish children awaiting transportation.  The director of the school was a member of the Dutch resistance and through the school they managed to prevent the deportation of more than 600 Jewish children. One of these children became mayor of Amsterdam in 1983. Accross the street is the former Jewish theatre, where the Nazis locked up the adults. Now these two buildings together form the Holocaust museum.

The museum tells the visitor all about the Nazi persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands. Amsterdam needed this museum.  The Netherlands suffered the largest number as a result of the persecution of the Jews, of the countries in Western Europe occupied by the Nazis, both in terms of percentages and in absolute numbers.

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Windmills and reclaimed land

The morning we will spend in the northern part of the province Holland. ‘God created the world, but the Dutch made the Netherlands’. You will agree on that, after you have seen the Beemster Polder, an exceptional example of reclaimed land. They drained this huge lake already in 1609, just by windmills.

The nearby Schermerlake, was drained in 1632 and here we can visit one of the original windmills. See the windmill in a video here. You can climb to the top of the windmill, and see how the miller rotates the cap. After I helped you to pronounce ‘Schermer’, you will understand why the Dutch resistance always used passwords with ‘sch’ in it during the war. 

Coastal area Holland

Next destination is the coastal area, the Kennemerdunes. We can have lunch in Bloemendaal at the beach and If you want we can make quick walk at the beach or through the National Park Kennemerduinen. The Nazis used this area during the war as a location to execute members of the resistance. We can visit the war cemetery, beautifully located in the dunes, with the graves of 347 Dutch resistance fighters. All men, just one lady; Hannie Schaft, the girl with the red hair.

Haarlem visit

A short drive brings us to the city of Haarlem where we can make a walk through the oldest part of the city centre.

If you want we can visit the Bavo church where Mozart played the organ. Or maybe you prefer to sit down in a local pub and taste one of the local beers Haarlem is famous for? You will agree with me that Haarlem is as beautiful as Amsterdam is, but without all the traffic, the tourists and the million cyclists.

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Flowerfields

This is going to be a colourfull day in the countryside north of Amsterdam.  I will pick you up from your hotel for a (1hr) drive to the northern part of the Holland Province. This is the area where you can expect enormous coloured fields of flowers every year in April, for the export of flowerbulbs. These are mainly tulips but you will see fields with hyacinths and Narcissus.
Depending on temperatures during the winter before, the flowers can be in bloom from early April until mid May. Normally you can always see these fields last two weeks of April and the first week of May. For a sneak preview, check our video here.

Countryside

Besides the flowerfields, I will show you the countryside that Holland is so famous for, but we will avoid the touristy places. You will see 400 year old windmills, polders below sealevel, cows, dikes and dams. We will make a walk through an authentic small village with green wooden houses where time stopped in the 18th century. And you will see a former lake, drained by windmills more than 400 years ago!

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Active tour

At just 13 miles from Amsterdam, is one of the most beautiful National Parks of the Netherlands. Just behind the sanddunes protecting us against the Northsea, you can enjoy the landscape of the National Park South Kennemerland: 3800 acres of dunes with rare flora and fauna. We can cycle or walk through ancient forests and hope to see large herbivores such as Scottish Highland cattle and Konik horses.

During WWII this area was forbidden to enter. The Nazis used the sanddunes for their Atlantik-defense wall, and to execute members of the resistance. Today we can still see Nazi bunkers, monuments at execution places and an impressive Honory Cemetary with the grave of The Girl with the Red Hair, Hannie Schaft. You can learn more about the Resistance if you visit the Museum of the Resistance, as in my tour World War 2 in Amsterdam.

Walking or a cycling tour

We can go through the area by bike or we can go walking if you prefer. We can do distances of just 2 miles, up to 25 miles. We can use normal bikes, or electric bikes. We can have coffee breaks in between. . . . It’s not a race, it must be fun for everybody. The area is hilly but the highest mountain in the Netherlands is 1000 feet and the Dutch call that a mountain so please do not be afraid. The cycling will be done on paved bike paths. The walks are done on both paved and unpaved footpaths.

Video of the tour

Click here to watch a video that gives a good impression of this tour.

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Haarlem walking tour

The trains from Amsterdam station arrive at Haarlem station, at just a 10-minute walk from the market square. We can start the tour at the train station in Haarlem, or the train station in Amsterdam or even at your hotel in Amsterdam. This tour includes a walk through the old city centre and a visit to the Corrie the Boom house or the Frans Hals museum. During the walk we will visit some inner courtyards with almshouses, the Bavo church and other spots in the old city centre related to Frans Hals, the famous Dutch master who spent almost his entire life in Haarlem.

Corrie ten Boom house

The Corrie ten Boom House is an original Hiding place during WW2. Many visitors ask me what the reaction of the non-Jewish Dutch population was on the Nazis. Most people did not do anything. It was too dangerous. You would risk your own life and that of you family. A few people though, were very brave, and joined the resistance, or helped Jews with a hiding place. Corrie ten Boom hid Jews in her own house, behind a double wall. She was betrayed by a Nazi sympathizer and was sent to the concentration camp Ravensbruck. Come to my city Haarlem to hear her amazing story, her motivation and see the original hiding place.

Frans Hals museum is closed on Monday. The Corrie ten Boom is closed on Sundays and Mondays.

Video

Click here to get an impression of our walking tour through Haarlem.

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