For two years, eight people lived in complete silence inside this canal house on Prinsengracht — the Frank family and four others, hidden behind a movable bookcase. Anne Frank was thirteen when she entered the annex and fifteen when Nazi police finally found them in August 1944. She died in Bergen-Belsen the following spring. The diary she kept here was later published in more than seventy languages, and in 1960 the house opened as a museum preserving that hidden space exactly as they left it.
Audio guide Amsterdam
Tella is a free audio guide for any place on Earth. Here are 30 places in Amsterdam worth a story. Open one on the map and hear it read aloud in English, or take the Android app on a walk and let it narrate whatever you pass.
Places worth a story
Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
art museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands
Olympic Stadium
Olympic stadium in Amsterdam, Netherlands
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
university in Amsterdam, Netherlands
Dam Square
central square in Amsterdam, Netherlands
Napoleon’s brother Louis made Amsterdam the capital of his new Kingdom of Holland in 1806, and needed a palace fit for a king. He turned the city hall on Dam Square into one. The building began two centuries earlier, when Amsterdam was at the height of its Golden Age, and the city fathers wanted a hall that would outdo anything else in Europe. It rests on 13,659 wooden piles driven into the marshy ground — a fact the locals repeat with pride. The square takes its name from the dam built on the Amstel River in the 13th century, the very beginning of the settlement.
Photo: Fernando · CC BY-SA 4.0
Natura Artis Magistra
zoo in Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Photo: The original uploader was Mtcv at Dutch Wikipedia . · CC BY-SA 3.0
Westerkerk
church in Amsterdam
Rembrandt was buried somewhere under the Westerkerk, though nobody can point to the exact spot. The church was finished in 1631, and its tower, the Westertoren, still marks the western edge of Amsterdam’s old canal ring. Anne Frank could hear its bells from the annex where she hid, and she wrote that the chimes gave her comfort. The tower rises eighty-five metres, the highest in the city.
Rembrandt House Museum
historic house and art museum in Amsterdam in the Netherlands
Wereldmuseum Amsterdam
anthropological museum located in Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Photo: Sneeuwvlakte · CC BY-SA 4.0
Nieuwe Kerk
church in Amsterdam, Netherlands
The Nieuwe Kerk hasn't held regular Sunday services since 1955 — instead, it became Amsterdam's grandest exhibition space. World Press Photo fills its nave each year, and its vaulted ceilings have hosted everything from fashion shows to royal ceremonies. Built in the 15th century on Dam Square, its tower was never finished, which is why it looks slightly truncated against the city skyline.
Photo: Diego Delso · CC BY-SA 4.0
Munttoren
tower in Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Its clockwork was made by the same brothers who built the bells of Paris's Notre-Dame. The Munttoren is the landmark that ends the Kalverstraat shopping street, standing where the Amstel river meets the Singel canal. The tower is a surviving fragment of one of the old city gates, rebuilt in 1620. For a single year in 1672, when the French occupied much of the country, Amsterdam had to mint its coins here instead of in the occupied mints — the tower has kept that name ever since.
Photo: The original uploader was P.H. Louw at Dutch Wikipedia . · CC BY 2.5 nl
Allard Pierson
archive, library, and museum at the University of Amsterdam (2019-)
Photo: Hnapel · CC BY-SA 4.0
Jewish Museum
Jewish history, culture, and religion museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands
Photo: S Sepp · CC BY-SA 3.0
Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ
concert hall in Amsterdam, Netherlands
Photo: Building by 3XN ; photo by Flickr user Metro Centric · CC BY 2.0
Stories are written by an AI from public map and encyclopaedia data and may contain mistakes.