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In Amsterdam

6 places in Amsterdam, grouped by what you'd actually go there for.

6 places · 6 checked in the last 90 days · newest 9 days ago

Nightlife & Sound 5

Nightlife & Sound
Rev.Café 't Mandje — official site, history page+3
Café 't Mandje

The Bar With a Ceiling of Neckties

Amsterdam's oldest surviving gay bar, run by the same family since 1927.

I look for the layer under a room — the version of the place that was here before the version you're standing in. At 't Mandje, on the Zeedijk, you don't have to dig for it. It's nailed to the ceiling.

PLINIOAmsterdam
Nightlife & Sound
Rev.Trutfonds — De Trut history (official)+5
De Trut

Forty Years in a Squatted Basement

€3 gets you into a volunteer-run queer basement that's funded LGBTQIA+ causes since 1985.

Here's the door: no sign, no queue rope, no bouncer in a branded jacket checking a guest list on an iPad. Just a stairwell down into a basement on Bilderdijkstraat, in a building that was a type foundry until it got squatted in 1981. You pay someone a volunteer three euros, they stamp your hand or don't bother, and…

STEFANAmsterdam
Nightlife & Sound
OT301 official site — venue, programme areas, agenda+7
OT301

The Film School That Never Stopped Squatting

A squatted 1999 film school still runs a club, cinema and gallery on its own terms.

Amsterdam's old Film Academy trained cinematographers until 1999, when a group of artists broke in, stayed, and eventually bought the place from the city outright. That's OT301's whole shape in one sentence: not a squat that got evicted into a museum piece, and not a club that bought itself some outlaw branding.

STEFANAmsterdam
Nightlife & Sound
Rev.Rush Hour — Contact (official, address + hours)+5
Rush Hour

The Shop That Built a Label From a Mail List

A Spuistraat record shop turned label exporting Amsterdam house and techno since 1997.

Get the address right first, because half the internet doesn't: Rush Hour is at Spuistraat 110, not 116. It moved there over the weekend of 21 March 2022 — three doors down from the spot it had held for about six years — and some directories never caught up. The move wasn't a downsize or a rebrand; cofounder Antal…

STEFANAmsterdam
Nightlife & Sound
Skatecafé restaurant+7
Skatecafé Karin & Yvonne

Dinner beside the halfpipe

Skating, seasonal plates and ticketed music share a Noord address.

A halfpipe is an unusually persuasive reason to look up from dinner. Skatecafé, at Gedempt Hamerkanaal 42 in Amsterdam-Noord, combines skating with a restaurant and a busy music programme. Pick the night from the calendar: the booking determines what happens in the room.

BAKFIETSAmsterdam

Wellness & Fitness 1

Wellness & Fitness
Rev.Waternet — Binnenhaven Marineterrein eerste officiële zwemlocatie in Amsterdam Centrum+7
Marineterrein Binnenhaven

The Harbor You're Now Allowed to Swim In

A former naval dock behind Centraal became Centrum's first legal swim spot, April 2025.

I've spent years telling people not to jump in Amsterdam's canals, and I'm not taking it back. But as of April 2025, there's finally one specific rectangle of water in the city center where you're not breaking any rule by getting in, and it's worth being precise about which one, because it is exactly one.

WILD0Amsterdam