Last Updated on sixth May 2023 by Sophie Nadeau
If there’s one row of homes that just about each customer to Amsterdam makes it a precedence to see, it’s the Damrak Canal Houses which date again centuries and seem as in the event that they’re dancing because of their leaning statures. Here’s find out how to see the Damrak Gingerbread Houses, in addition to what to know earlier than you go.
In Dutch, Canal Houses are generally known as grachtenpanden.
If you’re planning a visit to the Netherlands, you should definitely take a look at our urged at some point in Amsterdam, the finest Amsterdam journey suggestions, and find out how to spend one week within the Netherlands.
The homes date all the way in which again to the Seventeenth-century and are a part of one of many oldest areas of the town. After all, in the course of the Middle Ages, the canal outdoors of those waterside properties flowed straight into the Amstel River, which in flip emptied right into a basin generally known as the IJ.
How to see the Damrak Canal Houses
I’ve been to Amsterdam extra instances than I can depend and the Damrak Houses have all the time been a spotlight for me (regardless of how touristy they could be!) Unfortunately, on my penultimate journey to Amsterdam again in 2019, the homes had been truly underneath scaffolding.
Therefore I used to be fairly happy to search out that they’re as soon as extra utterly seen as of 2023. It couldn’t be simpler to see the Damrak Houses and so they’ll truly doubtless be the primary iconic Amsterdam sight that you simply see upon arrival within the metropolis.
Once you’ve left Amsterdam Centraal and headed in the direction of the town centre (not gone out of the again of the station in the direction of the ferry docks), you want to stroll immediately forward. The Damrak Houses are on the left hand facet round 500 metres from the station.
You can both see them from Damrak avenue or head somewhat additional down and admire them from a barely totally different angle by heading onto the Oudebrugsteeg and snapping photographs of them from there. The bridge view additionally affords a surprising vista onto the principle practice station.
Unfortunately you may’t see the inside of any of those homes. However, if you wish to keep at Damrak for a short while longer, then you may seize a drink on the outside terrace of The Grasshopper (although you’ll pay fairly excessive costs for the privelige).
Close by you’ll discover star sights like De Oude Kerk and Beurs van Belage (the previous inventory change). One of essentially the most enjoyable details about Amsterdam is that canal homes are slim as a result of as soon as upon a time they had been taxed on how large they had been! Indeed, the narrowest home within the Dutch capital is simply 2.2 metres large!
