5 Days in Amsterdam — August 2026

Amsterdam was the 3rd stop on my solo trip around Europe. I took the DB train from Berlin, a 5-hour ride, and stayed at Via Amsterdam for the week.

 

Via Amsterdam

This is the hostel where I stayed during the trip. I stayed in an 8-bed room. Overall, nice and clean.

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Café & Bakery

| De Laatste Kruimel

I passed by this bakery on the 1st day, drawn in by a window full of pastries. Got a cinnamon roll and a French toast croissant — didn't taste like either a croissant or French toast, more like a crispy cake. Overall it was decent.

 

| Two Story

The first floor is a café, the second an art gallery. I ordered a flat white and a miso cookie — both good.

This cute dog stared at my pastry the entire time.

 

| Layers Bakery & Deli

A bakery — everything's built on croissant dough, just in different shapes. Cool interior, and they open really early.

I ended up ordering a pistachio roll and a flat white. The pistachio paste is really good, and the croissant dough is crunchy too — wish I could've tried other flavors.

 

| Dak Showroom

A showroom by Dak coffee roastery — really good beans, a lot of flavor range. I ordered the seasonal lemon pour-over.

There's a tasting room behind the showroom, but I hadn't made an appointment for it.

 

| Winkel 43

This is a well-known Amsterdam bakery/café on Noordermarkt, famous for its appeltaart (apple pie). I ordered an apple pie with no cream. But in my humble opinion, it was pretty so-so.

 

| Uncommon cafe

Good coffee. There's an Uncommon bar right across the street too.

 

| BunBun

They seem to have several locations around the city — you'll spot them everywhere. They also build on croissant dough. Looks really attractive, but I think Layers Bakery does it better.

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Food

| Rebo

Rebo is a local fast-food chain in Amsterdam with self-serve vending machines — you pay first, then push a button to open the door for that slot. Not totally sure what I got, but it tasted like potato croquette: crunchy outside, soft inside (I think beef and potato). Really salty though.

 

| Wing Kee

Was craving rice for a while, and since there's a Chinatown in the city, I went here for some cantonese BBQ meat. Ordered a three combo with roast chicken, pork, and duck.

 

| Buurtcafé de Tros

I really wanted to try steak with hollandaise sauce, and found this restaurant. The same owner runs another place called Turbo across the street, with a different menu. I ended up ordering the steak with baby potatoes.

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Shops

| Velour

A concept store in the Nine Streets on Huidenstraat, built around the Swedish label Velour's "feel good preppy" aesthetic — classic garments redesigned with an easy, unfussy edge. They also stock a tight edit of other labels like Hereu, Namacheko, and Róhe.

 

| MAAP

MAAP is the Australian cycling apparel brand — same one from the Berlin store visit. This location also had a city-exclusive jersey.

 

| Very Special

A concept store for apparel and art, tucked on the 2nd floor above Ben-G skate store. Founded by a group of friends from Ben-G and OBEY Europe who wanted to give Amsterdam a new spot for streetwear and art — mostly streetwear here, with some homeware and prints mixed in.

 

| Stüssy

Stüssy the Stüssy.

 

| Patta

Patta is the Amsterdam-founded streetwear/sneaker label — started in 2004 by Edson Sabajo and Guillaume "Gee" Schmidt as a sneaker store on Zeedijk, and grew into a global name with Nike and Jordan collabs. The name comes from the Surinamese word for "shoe sole."

 

| Applied Art Forms

A cool store — Applied Art Forms is a menswear label founded by Coldplay bassist Guy Berryman, drawing on vintage utilitarian and workwear clothing. This flagship on Utrechtsestraat sits inside a building dating back to 1764, fitted out with bespoke and mid-century furniture.

 

| Laan

Good vintage store with a really good taste in their selection. Some menswear, but mostly women's. 100% worth a visit.

 

| Cowboys to Catwalk

Selection store in the Nine Streets carrying men's and women's stuff.

 

| ØLÅF Hussein

I passed by this one — their minimal style is exactly my style. Full name's ØLÅF Hussein, a brand founded in 2014 known for pairing technical details with minimal silhouettes.

 

| Hermès

Only went in for the glass brick facade — this is MVRDV's Crystal Houses, a 2016 building on P.C. Hooftstraat that recreates the street's traditional brick facade entirely in cast glass, dissolving into real terracotta brick higher up. The glass brick system came out of research into turning discarded glass into a strong, transparent building material.

 

| Maha

Maha Amsterdam, a women's-only streetwear and sneaker store built around female representation in a scene that's mostly aimed at men.

 

| Carmen

Mostly women's stuff, and they also have a café on the second floor. Carmen Amsterdam is set inside two 17th-century canal houses on Keizersgracht — part shop, part café, part guesthouse, started by Carmen and her partner Joris, a chef. The racks mix her own pieces with labels like Maryam Nassir Zadeh and Super Yaya.

 

| The New Original

The New Originals started in 2011 as a creative collective and became an official label in 2015. This flagship sits on Zeedijk, wedged between the original Patta store and Stüssy's Dutch headquarters.

 

| Gallery Boekie Woekie

It's an independent artist-book shop I found run by an old guy — actually one of three co-founders (Jan Voss, alongside Henriëtte van Egten and Rúna Thorkelsdóttir) who've kept it going since 1986. They carry something like 7,000 books from independent and artist-run presses.

 

| Afura

Afura is a multi-brand lifestyle store founded in 2010, tucked in Old West near Vondelpark. Clean Scandinavian-meets-Parisian interior, and a lineup that includes Our Legacy, Asics, and Studio Nicholson.

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Museums

| Stedelijk Museum

Amsterdam's museum for modern and contemporary art and design. The original 1895 building is a Neo-Renaissance red-brick structure by Adriaan Willem Weissman; the white fiberglass wing tacked onto the back — nicknamed "the Bathtub" — was added in 2012 by Benthem Crouwel.

I really liked this exhibition on Kho Liang Ie — an Indonesian-Dutch interior and furniture designer (1927–1975) who moved to the Netherlands in 1949. He designed furniture for Artifort and, in the 1960s, the interior and wayfinding system for Schiphol Airport, working alongside graphic designer Benno Wissing on its iconic yellow signage.

I ended up getting one of these tile-design pieces by Kho Liang Ie.

 

| Van Gogh Museum

A must-visit place in Amsterdam. I didn't know you had to get a ticket in advance — they were sold out several days ahead. But the staff told me they release a few spots the day before, around 4:00 to 6:00 PM, so I ended up grabbing one that way. The museum has a huge amount of Van Gogh's work. Really crowded.

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Vondelpark

Amsterdam's largest and most popular city park. A place to lay down on the grass and relax — worth visiting if the weather's nice. Pretty chill.

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SE

Student Experience Amsterdam Zuidas, a well-known building in Amsterdam. The area has some cool architecture too, if that's your thing.

Not sure what this one is, but it's not my type...

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Zaanse Schans

A half-day trip out to the windmill village outside Amsterdam — about an hour by train. Also packed with tourists. I expected a lot of windmills, but it turned out there were only 4 or 5 of them.

The place is also famous for its goat cheese — there's a big store where you can try samples.

When getting in and out of the village, you have to pass over a bridge. When I was heading out, the bridge was open for a boat to pass through. Lucky timing.

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Around the City

A few shots from wandering around.

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I dropped all these spots into a list below. If you want to visit them yourself — it also has a few places I didn't get a chance to check out this time, so take a look.

Amsterdam Google Maps list

 

Hope you like Amsterdam! ◡̈