Amsterdam Pipe Museum — iPijpenkabinet, Amsterdam (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Ready-made walk · Amsterdam

Golden Age Canal Houses

7 stops · ~4 hr 45 min · 2.6 km

Canal Ring

A walk along the grandest stretches of the canal ring, from the Pipe Museum and the mansions of the Gouden Bocht to the Kattenkabinet, an art museum devoted to cats. Pass the Munttoren, step into the period rooms of Museum Van Loon and Willet-Holthuysen, and end at the wooden Magere Brug over the Amstel.

The stops, in walking order

iPijpenkabinet, Amsterdam (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Stop 1: Amsterdam Pipe Museum
~1 hr here
Pijpenkabinet is the former name of the Amsterdam Pipe Museum, a museum devoted to smoking pipes and tobacco-related objects.
iJvhertum (Public domain)
Stop 2: Gouden Bocht
~3 min here
Gouden Bocht is the celebrated curve of the Herengracht, the canal section between Leidsestraat and Vijzelstraat.
iJean-Christophe BENOIST (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Stop 3: Museum Van Loon
~1 hr here
Museum Van Loon occupies a canalside house on the Keizersgracht, and the building itself is the museum’s main story.
iRudolphous (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Stop 4: Kattenkabinet
~1 hr here
The Kattenkabinet is an art museum devoted entirely to pictures and sculptures of cats, housed in this canalside building on Herengracht.
iThe original uploader was P.H. Louw at Dutch Wikipedia. (CC BY 2.5 nl)
Stop 5: Munttoren
~3 min here
Munttoren is the tower rising at Muntplein, where the Amstel and Singel meet.
iWikimedia Commons (Public domain)
Stop 6: Willet-Holthuysen
~1 hr here
Willet-Holthuysen is a canal house museum, with historic rooms that let you experience the refined domestic world of Amsterdam’s nineteenth-century elite.
iS Sepp (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Stop 7: Magere Brug
~3 min here
Magere Brug carries Kerkstraat across the Amstel as a wooden drawbridge, linking the riverbanks between Keizersgracht and Prinsengracht.