During the last two years of the pandemic a lot has changed. Amsterdam for instance has added three new museums.
In the south, Europe's largest Instagram museum, The Upside, has been opened. In the north, there is the NXT, a museum for new media art. The third new museum that should be part of any visitor’s Amsterdam travel tour is Straat, the world's largest street art museum. The latter are on the north bank of the Ij, a former port and shipyard site where a new creative district has sprung up with galleries, artists' studios and fun cafés. Its landmark is the Dutch Film Institute Eye, a design by Viennese architects Delugan & Meissl that resembles a UFO that has just landed or a gigantic oyster.
Right next to it, since June 2021, there is Amsterdam VR Ride, where you can take a virtual roller coaster ride through the city. The new north can be reached by an armada of small ferry boats that swarm out from behind the central station and invite visitors to take a free sea voyage.
There is also news on the Wallen, as the notorious red light district is called. The lockdowns have been seen as salvation by the residents, who had already drawn up a catalog of measures. The city government, which has long wanted more cultural tourists and fewer stoners, has implemented some measures: Group tours have been banned, and prostitutes are to move to a new erotic center.
The number of canal cruise boats has been decimated, and the city has a tourist quota of no more than 20 million overnight stays per year. If you absolutely want to go on the Wallen, it's best to do so early in the morning. For the rest of the day, we recommend the Jordaan, an idyllic neighborhood in the western canal belt, and the old working-class neighborhood de Pijp in the south, known as Amsterdam's Latin Quarter. The current Amsterdam travel tours have many new attractions to include in the itinerary.