For guests seeking scenic strolling routes, the province of North Holland is probably not an apparent alternative. The panorama is famously as flat because the native pancakes and picturesque mountains, forests and waterfalls are in brief provide.
Head into the countryside south of Amsterdam, nonetheless, and yow will discover pretty strolling routes amid a quintessentially Dutch panorama of inexperienced fields, windmills and waterways. Walks alongside the Amstel River, which flows north into Amsterdam, additionally provide a chance to comply with in well-known footsteps. Rembrandt van Rijn lived for a lot of his life near the river, was keen on strolling its banks and produced some stunning footage right here. With Amsterdam about to have fun its 750th birthday in June, it’s a superb second to see the town from one other angle, alongside the waterway which gave the town its title.
My stroll in Rembrandt’s footsteps begins in Ouderkerk aan de Amstel, a small city just a few miles south of Amsterdam. Ouderkerk isn’t massive nevertheless it’s exceedingly nice; a warren of slender brick streets cradled by the river, with a tall church tower standing on the centre like an upturned drawing pin. I don’t linger lengthy however take a second to see the Beth Haim Jewish cemetery, the place dozens of previous gravestones tilt within the comfortable grass. Close by, streets are full of diggers piling sandbags, and indicators warning: Let op! Drijfzand (Be careful! Quicksand) – a reminder that a lot of the realm I’ll be strolling via was reclaimed from the water over many centuries, and stays beneath sea degree right this moment.
Leaving Ouderkerk, I stroll north alongside a slender gravel footpath that tracks the Amstel like a handrail. It’s a superb sunny day, with birds flitting out and in of the tall rushes on the riverbank, and rowers skimming throughout the water like skittery bugs. But regardless of all this motion, the Amstel itself is as tranquil as a mill pond – in a land with out hills, you’ll be able to barely inform many waterways are shifting.
As I stroll north, the Amstel is at first lined with terrace homes however the panorama quickly opens out, with raised riverbanks providing views throughout the emerald fields past. Throughout Amsterdam’s Golden Age within the Seventeenth century, most of the metropolis’s rich retailers owned weekend properties right here. At the moment, a lot of the older properties have been changed by fashionable mansions, however there’s nonetheless one magnificent 18th-century creation left, the Oostermeer, with a sweeping gravel drive. I take a photograph and resolve that if my little ebook on Amsterdam seems to be a bestseller, I’ll purchase a palace right here too.
Persevering with north, I move a stone obelisk as excessive as a home, engraved with the phrases Terminus Proscriptionis. Finding out my map, I realise it’s a banpaal (ban pole), marking the outer boundary of Amsterdam, which any legal banned from the town can be forbidden to move. Rembrandt, as a infamous spendthrift and love rat, might have been fortunate to have prevented being banished himself. A mile or so later, on a giant bend within the river, there’s a reasonably windmill subsequent to a giant statue of Rembrandt kneeling on the grass in hat and cape, sketching on a pad that rests on his knee. Trying south, I see a view that hasn’t modified a lot since Rembrandt etched it in 1641: a rumpled meadow, a slender church tower within the distance, and a small boat crusing alongside the river.
5 miles after leaving Ouderkerk, I arrive in Amsterdam correct. After the tranquillity of the countryside, the bustle of the town comes as a shock. The slender riverside path is changed by vast streets with clanging trams, joggers, vehicles and cyclists. Right here, the Amstel is probably half as vast because the River Thames, and lined with massive previous crusing barges transformed into houseboats. Rembrandt sketched one other image displaying this space, often known as the Omval, with a large tree standing like a gnarled fist by the river. Issues look reasonably completely different lately. Simply after noon on a weekday, restaurant terraces overlooking the Amstel are already full of folks ingesting white wine and consuming costly salads. The Dutch work a few of the shortest hours in Europe, and it reveals.
I proceed north, previous the H’ART museum, which can host a Rembrandt exhibition from 9 April. Then I cross the river over the stately Blauwbrug, or blue bridge, which isn’t blue. Rembrandt drew a well-known view of the Amstel from the Blauwbrug within the late 1640s, now within the Rijksmuseum. Trying west I see the grand waterside dwelling of Rembrandt’s patron Jan Six, who commissioned many works. For those who ask properly, many weeks upfront (by way of the Six Assortment web site), you could be allowed inside to see the portrait Rembrandt did of Jan Six in 1654, now hanging so Six seems to be holding a watchful eye on the river.
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After a short detour to see the large Rembrandt statue on the touristy Rembrandtplein , I head away from the Amstel to the Nieuwmarkt, a large sq. ringed by bars and cafes. The area is dominated by the Waag, a giant turreted constructing. It was right here that Rembrandt created one in every of his most well-known works, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp, displaying docs dissecting the corpse of an executed legal. Close by, on the Nieuwe Doelenstraat, you may also see the spot the place Rembrandt delivered his most well-known work: The Night time Watch.
I stroll south alongside the Sint Antoniesbreestraat. My remaining cease is difficult to overlook: in a avenue of ugly fashionable buildings there’s one stunning Seventeenth-century facade; a five-storey brick mansion with purple shutters on the home windows just like the doorways on an Creation calendar. That is the home the place Rembrandt lived for almost twenty years, now a museum. The inside is essentially a contemporary reconstruction nevertheless it’s laborious to not really feel a shiver of pleasure if you see the sunlit studio the place he painted a few of historical past’s most well-known artwork.
The museum closes and I decamp to the Sluyswacht, a pub simply throughout the road in a little bit lockkeeper’s cottage which appears to be like as if it’s been lifted from the pages of a fairytale. This place will not be fairly as previous as Rembrandt – it was constructed 26 years after he died – however it’s certainly one in every of most picturesque pubs in Europe. I sit outdoors by the canal, drink a pilsje of beer and eat a plate of cheese, and assume: that Rembrandt, he had good style.
The Invention of Amsterdam, A Historical past of Europe’s Best Metropolis in Ten Walks by Ben Coates is printed by Scribe UK (£12.99). To help the Guardian and the Observer purchase a duplicate at guardianbookshop.com. Supply expenses might apply
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