Visitors to Amsterdam rarely venture beyond the historic core with its boat-lined canals and elegant Golden Age houses. But while the facades may hark back to the past, this is no historic ghost town. Development is booming around the edges, derelict docklands are being regenerated, stylish modern hotels have sprouted throughout the city, contemporary arts are flourishing and the great Rijksmuseum has undergone a breathtaking transformation.

As for famous Red Light District, this is changing too. In an effort to reduce organised crime, city officials have been clamping down on the number of Red Light windows and cannabis coffee shops, replacing them with high-end restaurants, speciality shops or studios for young Dutch designers. The campaign, named Project 1012 after the postcode, is ongoing but is not intended as a clean sweep. Walk around Oudekerksplein, in the heart of the Red Light District, and you’ll still see hot-pink shop fronts face to face with Oude Kerk, the oldest church in Amsterdam.

THE NEW RIJKSMUSEUM
The chances are you’ll arrive in the city at Central Station, a rail hub of Holland, only 20 minutes by train from Schiphol Airport. This grandiose Victorian building was designed by Pierre Cuypers, architect of the famous Rijksmuseum, so it’s not surprising that the two neo-Renaissance piles look similar in many respects.
But while the station is in shambles as it undergoes long-running and over-budget reconstruction work for the new North-South metro line (due for completion 2017), the Rijkmuseum (www.rijksmuseum.nl) is looking magnificent after a decade-long facelift. To get there from the station just hop on a No 5 tram and alight at Museumplein – or do as the Dutch and take to two wheels. Rent-a-bike outlets are plentiful and there’s one just by the station.

Following a €375 million restoration the Netherlands’ number one art museum reopened to rapturous acclaim in 2013. The transformation is stunning, with decorative and historic exhibits for the first time shown alongside the artistic treasures, the previously gloomy entrance replaced by a soaring, light-filled atrium. The delay in reopening was largely due to the lengthy battle between the Spanish architects and the all-powerful Dutch cycling lobby who objected to the proposed closure of the cycle passageway which runs smack through the centre of the museum. The cyclists finally triumphed and the vaulted thoroughfare, used by 13,000 cyclists daily, was retained.

Cuypers designed the original museum around Rembrandt’s Night Watch and this vast masterpiece still retains pride of place at the head of the Gallery of Honour. It was the only work among 8,000 exhibits to be returned to its original location after restoration. This beautifully restored gallery is the main crowd-puller, hung with glowing Vermeers, Rembrandts and other jewels of the Golden Age, when the Netherlands was centre of the Western world.

MODERN ART ON MUSEUMPLEIN
It’s not just the Rijksmuseum that’s seen a transformation. The nearby Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art (www.stedelijk.nl) was closed for eight years for renovation and a giant extension. When originally built in 1895 its rooms were filled with the heterogeneous collection of antiques, jewelry, watches and trinkets bequeathed by Sophia Adriana Lopez Suasso, an eccentric dowager and daughter of an Amsterdam merchant. Most of her collection was cast out in the 1960s to make way for a large collection of paintings, sculpture, applied art and industrial design, for the most part uncompromisingly modern.

Today the Stedelijk is one of the world’s leading modern art museums, with exhibits ranging from masterpieces by Cézanne, Picasso and Mondrian to cutting-edge contemporary installations. The museum has almost doubled in size with a huge shiny white extension, aptly nicknamed ‘The Bathtub’, added to the neo-Renaissance brick building. Love it or loathe it, the extension has given much needed space for temporary shows plus a shop and a restaurant which has become a favourite with locals. Visitor numbers have shot up since the renovation.

Between the Rijksmuseum and the Stedelijk is the unmissable Van Gogh Museum (www.vangoghmuseum.nl). Its reopening after restoration last year meant that for the first time in a decade all three of these major museums on the same square were open. This hugely popular museum holds the world’s largest Van Gogh collection, tracing the evolution of the artist from the sombre studies of peasants, including the famous Potato Eaters, through the brighter, livelier scenes of Paris, the vivid landscapes, portraits and sunflowers at Arles to the later heavily-impasted scenes reflecting the depth of the artist’s mental anguish. It is an irony that the works of an artist who was seen as a failure and misfit in his own lifetime now command some of the highest auction prices in the world.

FILM AND PHOTOGRAPHY
If the moving image is more your scene hop on the free ferry from Central Station and cross the River IJ to the new EYE Film Museum (www.eyefilm.nl).

The dynamic white building is the most eyecatching feature on the river in Amsterdam Noord, once a no-go area, now a hip enclave of cultural avant-garde venues. This buzzing museum has a collection of 40,000 films (both Dutch and foreign) spanning the entire history of film, from the first movies by the Lumière brothers to the latest digital productions. It has four cinemas, a spacious exhibition gallery, free 3-seater digital booths for movie-watching and a fabulously spacious café/restaurant with terrace on the waterfront for watching the boats go by.

Photography is all the rage in Amsterdam. The classical canal facade of the fashionable FOAM Photography Museum (www.foam.org, Keizersgracht 609) belies a bright white interior devoted to all facets of photography. The first museum of modern art in Amsterdam it opened in 1863 as the Fodor Museum to exhibit the private collection of Carel Joseph Fodor, a collector with a passion for the contemporary. While other collectors were buying up Old Masters, Fodor was spotting works by Dutch and French Romantics. Fodor’s collection was spread around the main city galleries during the last century so that the museum could again focus on the contemporary.

The new hip FOAM opened in 2001, transformed as a modern space for regularly-changing exhibitions of photography. Groundbreaking exhibitions here have included retrospectives on some of the biggest shots in photography, Henry Cartier-Bresson and Mario Testino among them; but the museum also serves as a stage for young and innovative talent as well as established photographers.

Follow Keizersgracht (Emperor’s Canal) westwards and you’ll come to the delightful Huis Marseille Museum of Photography (www.huismarseille.nl). Exhibitions here change quarterly and works span the history of medium over many of its genres, with emphasis on contemporary Dutch, South African and Japanese photographers. Don’t miss the lovely little garden at the back.

UNSEEN
‘A photo fair with a festival flair’ is Unseen’s motto. This recently established annual fair, held in September at the renovated 19th century gasworks site, Westergasfabriek at the city’s western edge, celebrates photography in all its forms.

It brings together over 50 international galleries focusing on both undiscovered talent and unseen works by established photographers. This is where you rub shoulders with photographers, graphic designers and curators, take in cutting-edge photography, pick up collecting tips and perhaps unearth some new exciting work from one of the best talents in the business. You don’t have to spend a fortune – prices start at €10 and nothing is over €1000. It’s a lively, exciting fair and very much a creative hub with lectures and panel discussions with professionals. The award-winning Westergasfabriek, a leading cultural hub, forms part of Westerpark, a recreational park with green spaces, music venues, bars and restaurants – another example of a successful transformation of former wasteland.

MICROPIA
You can’t see them but they’re here. They’re on you, in you and you’ve got more than 100,000 billion of them. They’re with you when you eat, when you breathe, when you kiss. They shape your world: what you smell and what you taste; whether you get sick or get better. They can save or destroy us.

The introduction to Micropia (www.micropia.nl), where you discover that an average adult carries 3.3 lbs (1.5 kilos) of tiny microbes, might put you off wanting to know more, but don’t be deterred. This is a fascinating brand new museum and the first of its kind in the world. The Director of the neighbouring Artis Royal Zoo, Haig Balian, came up with the idea of a ‘micro-zoo’ 12 years ago to reveal the importance of microbes for the future of the planet. One of the most revealing exhibits is the microbe scanner which shows the micro- organisms living in and on your body at that moment in time – and magnifies them when you zoom in. Equally revealing is the Kiss-o-meter where you and a partner can find out how many microbes are transferred during a kiss.

As Haig Balian says ‘A visit to Micropia will forever change the way you see the world’.


BOATS AND BIKES
No trip to Amsterdam would be complete without a tour of the 17th century canals. Amsterdam’s beautiful waterways were designated a Unesco World Heritage Site in 2010. Modern glass topped launches take you through some of the loveliest parts of the city, with a commentary on the historic houses as you float past. Choose from 45 minute basic cruises, hop-on and hop-off boats, cocktail cruises or saloon steamers (Canal Company, www.canal.nl). One of the houses you’re likely to pass – usually with long queues outside - is Anne Frank Huis (www.annefrank.org) where, during the Nazi occupation, the famous young diarist and her family hid for two years in an attempt to avoid deportation.

Everyone in Amsterdam cycles: from tiny tots to octogenarians, clubbers to curators, factory-workers to financiers. There are more bikes in Amsterdam than cars or permanent residents and it’s one of the most bike-friendly cities in the world. Cyclists go at some speed and as a pedestrian you need to keep your wits about you. Accidents are rare and you never see a helmet. One useful tip: watch out for the tram trails – it’s not much fun getting stuck in the tracks.

ON THE MENU
Wander along a few of the busier streets of Amsterdam and it will soon become apparent that choice is the name of the game when it comes to eating out: Japanese sushi, Moroccan couscous, Chinese dim sum, Spanish tapas, Kurdish stews - not forgetting Dutch soups, pancakes and herring - which in Amsterdam is chopped up with onions and sweet pickles, bought from a street stall and eaten with a toothpick (ie not the traditional Dutch way of swallowing it whole). Don’t miss out on Rijsttafel, the Dutch interpretation of Indonesian cuisine. It’s a veritable banquet of up to 32 small spicy meat, fish or vegetable dishes with enough flavours to excite any palate.

But there’s a notable move towards lighter, contemporary cuisine, often with Mediterranean-inspired menus using locally sourced produce. Hip brasseries and cafés are opening on the edges of the city, typically in industrial chic style, with designer-savvy clientèle. In Amsterdam West for example De Hallen occupies a former tram depot with an array of fashionable shops, cinema, hotel and the newly opened Foodhallen (www.foodhallen.nl) an indoor food market with over 20 different stalls, from Michelin star concepts to international street food. And if that’s not sufficient there are two adjoining restaurants: the hip Brasserie Halte 3 or the pricier Meat West for succulent steaks.

For views you can’t beat REM Eiland (www.remeiland.com), an oil rig-like bar/restaurant in the harbour, which was formerly a pirate radio station. Or try the restaurants and cool new bars of Amsterdam Nord with sweeping terraces on the River IJ. For a room with a view book one of the high-end suites at the Faralda NDSM Crane Hotel, right at the top of a lofty industrial crane. Rooms come complete with Jacuzzi, optional bungee jumps – and prices as high as the venue.

But some of the best things in Amsterdam never change: the Golden Age mansions, the boat-filled canals, the bridges and the bruin cafés (brown cafés), the quintessential drinking haunts named after the centuries-old smoke stains. At the end of a day’s sightseeing spare an hour or two for one of these cosy, candlelit haunts with a glass of the local brew or a reviving shot of jenever (Dutch gin).
Amsterdam is ideal for a short city break. Not only does it pack a cultural punch (it has more museums per square kilometre than any other European city), it has colourful markets, some great bars and restaurants, and a wonderfully free and easy atmosphere. It is a small city, easy to get to and easy to get around. Cheap flights are often available on low-cost airlines - and getting there maybe even cheaper from December 2016 when Eurostar launches a new direct service between London and Amsterdam.

EDITOR'S NOTE

Susie Boulton

Susie Boulton is the author of 25 guidebooks on Europe and co-author/contributor to dozens of others. Freelance writer for national magazines and online publications. Specialist on Italy (author of three guidebooks on Venice), Portugal and Mediterranean destinations in general; also a specialist on Amsterdam, the Channel Islands and home town of Cambridge. Publishers of guidebooks include Dorling Kindersley (Eyewitness Guides), Insight Guides, Berlitz, the AA and Thomas Cook.