The Amstel is the reason the city has its name, and walking its banks is the one route here that runs from medieval stone to glass towers without a break. Just under five kilometres south along the river the whole place was dammed to make — Amstel-dam — best done in the evening, when the Magere Brug lights up.
Start on the Blauwbrug, the ornate stone bridge that borrowed its manners from Paris, and look south. Then the Magere Brug, the white wooden 'skinny bridge', at its best at dusk when it's lit and reflected. Past the domed Carré theatre of 1887 and the Amstelsluizen, the 1674 locks still shut each night to push clean water through the canals — cross here to the Weesperzijde, the east-bank café quay.
De Ysbreeker is the one to stop at, a wide terrace on the water. Then the long, calm stretch south to Berlage's brick Berlagebrug of 1932, and finally De Omval, where the river bends past glass towers and the old walk ends in the new city. Amstel station is right there.
