Amsterdam Cycle Route 5:
city cross-section, new nature, heritage town

Non-tourist cycle routes around Amsterdam. This one follows the historic route out of the city to the east, and crosses the Amsterdam-Rhine Canal to the 'heritage town' Weesp. Return through the failed housing projects, and the new retail/entertainment zone, of south-east Amsterdam. 39 km, 4 hours. Revised January 2008.

Dit is geen recreatieve fietsroute, en geen zinvolle tijdsbesteding voor autochtone Nederlanders. Zij worden verwezen naar de fietsroutes van bijvoorbeeld de ANWB.

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Recommended maps: the best map of landscape and structure of the Amsterdam region is the ANWB/VVV Topografische Fietskaart Amsterdam / Noord-Holland Noord, map 13 in this series, at scale 1:50 000. The map costs € 10, but these are probably the best cycling maps in the world. For historic comparisons see the Topografische Dienst reproduction of the 1854 military map, sheet 25. There are two specialised map shops in Amsterdam: Pied à Terre / van Wijngaarden (Overtoom 135-137), and A la Carte (Utrechtsestraat 110/112).

start at the Waag or weigh-house, a castle-like building on the Nieuwmarkt square. This was in fact built in 1448 as a city gate: the city wall followed the line of the canal at Gelderse kade. See the computer simulation of its original appearance.

go into the Konings straat, beside Café Stevens, and go straight on.

at the end, cross the bridge over the Oude Schans canal. The tower visible left is the Montelbaanstoren - first built in 1516 as a defensive tower.

after the bridge, turn right, and immediately left, into Nieuwe Batavieren straat.

turn first left along the Nieuwe Uilenburger straat. This island, Uilenburg, was once a slum area. Pass right a row of warehouses with the names of German cities.

cross an iron girder bridge, on into Peper straat. At the end, turn right along Prins Hendrik kade.

pass over the tunnel access road, which enters the IJ-tunnel under the green NEMO building.

at the next corner, beside Café De Kluis, turn right along the Schippers gracht, toward the iron girder lifting bridge. (There is no name sign on this corner).

cross the iron bridge, and turn right into the arched gate marked Entrepot-Dok (1830).

Beside the gate on the left, note the Koffiehuis van den Volksbond. The classically Victorian Volksbond provided alcohol-free coffee-houses for the Working Man, to keep him from the Demon Drink.

inside the gate, turn left onto the quay of the former Entrepot dock basin, an early-industrial extension of the Amsterdam port (1827-1840).

At that time, ships reached the North Sea through the former Zuider Zee (now enclosed by the 1932 Afsluitdijk). Although the North Sea is only 25 km to the west, cutting through the dunes only became feasible in the second half of the 19th century. After the North Sea Canal opened in 1876, port development shifted to the western edge of the city. The Entrepot-Dok was by that time already obsolete. The warehouses on this side survived, and were in use for storage until the 1980's. Their conversion into expensive apartments was one of the first dockland gentrification projects in Amsterdam. The entire eastern dock zone is now an up-market housing / professional area, and gentrification has begun in the western docks also.

continue along the quayside: the old warehouses form a 400 m block. Inside, the original structure has been cut away, to create interior courtyards.

pass a preserved dock crane, then (across the dock) a 'savanna' extension of Artis Zoo. The architects intended the gnus and zebras to graze at the waterside, but they prefer to huddle at the back.

cross an old swing bridge, the lock basin here is the access to Entrepot-Dok. Pass 1840's warehouses converted to expensive apartments, the calender block or Kalenderpanden - each unit is named after a month.

continue along the quayside, pass new apartments, and go up the wooden ramp with metal railings, to the Sarphati straat, the route of tram line 10.

The long block across the street is a former barracks, built on the orders of Napoleon - the Netherlands was under French control for 18 years. Renamed the Oranje Nassau kazerne after the return of the House of Orange, it is part of a cluster of military uses in the east of Amsterdam.

cross the road, and go through the door with the name Oranje-Nassau, at the centre of the long facade. Go straight on, and cross the footbridge: the canal here is the former moat outside the city walls, the Singel gracht.

cross the road: as you see from the blue street name signs, this is the junction of the Pieter Vlaming straat and the Maurits kade. Turn into the Pieter Vlaming straat: it still has some of the original 19th century housing. This was always a low-income area, at present with a largely immigrant population. However, the street is now being gentrified.

after 100 m turn right into the Dapper straat. This is a street market, one of the classic street markets of Amsterdam: you may have to step off and walk. The street is famous through the last line of a poem, the kind that everyone learns at school: De Dapperstraat by J. C. Bloem.

at Eerste van Swinden straat, at the ETOS shop, turn right. 300 m further is the Linnaeus straat, the route of tram 9. The building with the tower, diagonally to the right, is the Tropenmuseum, the former 'colonial museum'.

turn left along Linnaeus straat, passing Oosterpark, a late 19th-century urban park. This is an exit road from Amsterdam: the housing will get younger, as you cycle out of the city. The website of the Amsterdams Historisch Museum has an animated map of the growth of the city from 1000 to 2000.

pass on the left the Stadsdeel offices (borough, Stadbezirk) in a former 19th century hospital. Pass under the rail viaduct carrying the line to Utrecht.

at the HEMA store, cross the ring canal of the polder Watergraafsmeer. Immediately after the bridge, turn left, onto to the canalside Linnaeus kade.

at nr 20, turn right into Linnaeus park weg, a quiet residential street built around 1900. The area has a specific urban character, with low density by Amsterdam standards. The Watergraafsmeer is a lake polder, reclaimed around 1650.

go straight on for 600 m. At the cycle shop turn right, into the Wethouder Franken weg - back toward the route of tram line 9.

at the traffic lights, turn left along Midden weg, past interwar and 1950's housing. Tram 9 here follows the route out of the city, originally used by the Gooi steam tram (1881).

Together with the railway, the steam tram allowed the early suburbanisation of the Gooi region around Hilversum. The trams served Naarden, Bussum, Laren, and Blaricum, now expensive residential areas. Blaricum is the highest-income municipality in the Netherlands.

cross the Kruis laan: this is the centre of the polder, where the middle (midden) axis road meets the cross (kruis) road. The small canal immediately after the traffic lights is one of the original drainage canals.

Diversion, early 2008, for roadworks. Use the cycle path on the opposite side of the road, as far as Wembley laan.

continue past the eastern municipal cemetery: note that it is raised, to keep the graves clear of the ground water.

200 m after the corner of the cemetery, at the traffic lights, cross the tram line. On the other side, go straight on, into Wembley laan.

cycle along Wembley laan, past new housing: it is built on the site of the old Ajax stadium. At the end of the cycle path, turn right, along a cycle path beside sports fields.

cross the ring motorway A10, and then the ring canal of the Watergraafsmeer polder. You are now in Diemen, a separate municipality, population 24 000.

go to the left of the first block, cross the Arent Krijt straat, and continue along Oranje laan, past well-kept 1960's housing.

at the end of Oranje laan, go 20 m left, turn right, and continue along Rene Cassin laan. At the end of Rene Cassin laan, turn right, past the shops.

Opposite the shops is the town hall: this is the centre of Diemen. The first village was originally located at the mouth of the river Diem, further north. It was largely destroyed by flood in 1422, and the village shifted south. In the 18th century, its population shifted again, to an advantageous location beside the trekvaart (towpath canal) to Weesp. The canal opened in 1638, and until 1893, it was the main shipping route from Amsterdam to the Rhine, via the river Vecht and Utrecht. The trekvaart was the best transport infrastructure in pre-railway Europe. The path beside the trekvaart became the main road out of Amsterdam to the east, the 1874 rail line ran roughly parallel to it, and later the motorway as well. Diemen now has an excess of transport infrastructure, and its population increased tenfold between 1910 and 1990.

at the octagonal Diemer Apotheek (pharmacy), turn left into Prinses Beatrix laan. After 300 m, at the letter box, go right along the Prins Bernhard laan.

at the end, you are back at the route of tram 9: turn left along the cycle path. Before the motorway was built, this was the main road from Amsterdam to the east of the country.

900 m on, at the Overdiemer weg , follow the cycle sign for Diemerbos, go along the access road for number 59c.

Note the sign "Penbos": this is a CO2 compensation forest. The former provincial electricity company PEN planted the trees, to compensate the CO2 emissions from the Diemen power station. The area was once grazing land. The mound behind the sign is a heavily "restored" Napoleonic battery - part of a defence line of the Batavian Republic, built between 1806 and 1810.

at 59c, carefully cross the access road for the A1 motorway: go straight on.

Visible left is the 4-track rail line to Almere and to Amersfoort, the eastern Netherlands, and Berlin. The Amersfoort line was built relatively late, in 1874: until then traffic to Germany went via Utrecht.

pass (right) the Claudia Sträter warehouse, the last building along the old main road, and the edge of the continuous built-up area of Amsterdam. The cycle path ends, go on along the dead-end road (Muider straat weg).

approx 10 km from start.

after another 150 m, turn right: follow the cycle sign for Muiden / Weesp, into the park, Diemerbos. This is one of the new generation of parks on former agricultural land, often referred to as Nieuwe Natuur, New Nature. All over the EU land is being withdrawn from production, even in densely populated areas.

at the next cycle sign turn left, again in the direction Muiden / Weesp. The path curves to the right, then to the left, and passes under the A9 link motorway in a low tunnel.

after the tunnel, the path turns right: at the sign continue toward Weesp. At this point, you can best appreciate what Dutch planners mean by new nature. You are in between the rail line, the motorway and the Amsterdam-Rhine Canal - and you are under a high tension power line.

700 m after the tunnel, the cycle path splits: turn left, toward Muiden /Weesp. Just after the sign, a weir in the ditch has a blue enamel water-level indicator, the water here is about 2,4 m under sea level. Pass over a cattle grid: although part of the field has been excavated to provide habitats, it is still used for grazing: a typical compromise in 'new nature' areas.

nearing the rail bridge, cross a second cattle grid and cycle up to the dike of the Amsterdam-Rhine Canal. The present canal is an enlarged version of the 1893 Merwede canal.

A route to the Rhine through narrow rivers and canals existed since the late middle Ages. It was first created by the canalisation of the Smal Weesp, which you pass later, and a canal south of Utrecht. The 17th-century towpath canals shortened the route to Weesp. The Merwede canal avoided the small rivers, and ran directly to a main channel of the Rhine. It was enlarged in the 1930's and again in the 1960's, and renamed. The present 'Amsterdam-Rhine Canal' passes through the eastern suburbs of Utrecht, and joins the main channel of the Rhine at Tiel.

pass under the bridge, and turn left (direction Weesp), onto the cycle path leading up to the bridge. From the bridge there is a good view over the flat countryside - with good visibility, the Gooi ridge forms the horizon to the east.

To the left is Diemen power station, and the A1 motorway bridge over the Canal: to the right of that, there is a gap in the trees where you see the IJ-Meer (lake, former sea). On the other bank below you, a white brick building with blue doors: a pumping station draining the area.

after the bridge, the path follows the rail line as it drops toward Weesp station. The land on the left is the Bloemendaler polder, reclaimed in 1555. There are plans to build housing here, a controversial project: some people want to build over all agricultural land in the western Netherlands.

1 km after the bridge, turn right into Weesp, through the underpass under the rail embankment, into a light-industry area.

Weesp station is only 15 minutes from Amsterdam Centraal Station, so the town (18 000 inhabitants) is in effect a suburb, part of the growth zone outside the ring motorway. Most industrial employment arrived after the Second World War, but the industrial tradition started in the Middle Ages: first cloth, then beer around 1600, then distilleries in the 17th and 18th century, and finally chocolate. Weesp in the late 19th century had a mono-industrial structure: half the population was dependent on the Van Houten chocolate factory. After a long decline it closed in the 1970's, but its vitamin department formed the basis of the present chemical industry in Weesp.

go straight on, past flats on the left, industry on the right. 1 km further, pass Taxi Centrale Weesp-Muiden. Across the road is a semicircle of apartments, with a sculpture in the form of a wind-surf sail. Cross the road towards the sculpture.

you can then see that this project, Aquamarin, encloses a harbour. It opens onto the Amsterdam-Rhine Canal, and was built in the 1960's to attract heavy industry, unsuccessfully. Turn left at the 'sail', along the access road.

at nr 5, turn left onto Korte Stammerdijk. The path bends to the left, and runs along a canal which leads to the centre of Weesp. This is the Smal Weesp, a canalised river - part of the old shipping route from Amsterdam to the Rhine, via the Vecht river and Utrecht.

after 400 m pass a windmill, Molen 't Haantje: the yellow superstructure is a reconstruction, built in 2003. Continue into the older part of Weesp.

stay on this side of the canal, continue along Heerengracht, past the church. The other bank of the canal is the old town quayside: many small towns were accessible for shipping (and have similar heritage quaysides).

at the end of the Heerengracht there are lock gates: turn right here, over the lifting bridge.

The first lock here was built in 1564, where the Smal Weesp joins the Vecht river. Weesp originated in the 11th or 12th century on the higher ground - just 2 m higher - near the confluence of these two rivers.

continue along the Hoogstraat, a gentrified waterside street. After 300 m turn left, across the wooden lifting bridge.

on the other side, go the around the right of the circular fort at Ossenmarkt. It was built in 1861, as part of a defence line, the Stelling van Amsterdam (featured in most cycle routes at this website). This well-preserved fort is not open to the public: other forts of the Stelling are sometimes open.

continue past the fort, on across a bridge with white railings. The overgrown ruins of 18th-century bastions are visible left and right.

Weesp was originally controlled by the Bishops of Utrecht, but was conquered by the Counts of Holland. They fortified it as a border town, at first a defence against Utrecht, and it retained a defensive function until the Second World War. It formed part of three successive defensive lines, the Holland Water Line in the 17th century, and the New Holland Water Line and the Stelling Van Amsterdam in the 19th century.

on the other side of the bridge, turn right. As the road bends you can see the remains of World War II bunkers on the old bastions.

visible across the river, after the bend, are the two main windmills of Weesp, De Eendracht and De Vriendschap.

Windmills! Windmills!

In the fields is a rail junction, the 1987 Almere line diverges here from the older Hilversum/Amersfoort line. Behind the railway is open grazing land, and the trees of the Naardermeer nature reserve.

to start the return route turn back, and go back past the fort.

cross the wooden lifting bridge again, and this time go straight into the alley, in front of it. Go to the end, and turn right (Nieuwstraat, no sign here).

pass right (nr 41) the 1776 Town Hall, now the local museum. Opposite it are the present municipal offices, Stadskantoor.

pass the late-mediaeval church (1462). At the end of Nieuwstraat, at Shoarma De Mazzel, turn left into Slijk straat. (It has a cheese shop with sandwiches, an ice cream salon, and a baker).

at the end of Slijk straat, cross the bridge: go straight on, along Binnenveer and Buitenveer. Pass the traffic lights: you are again on the bank of the Smal Weesp, this time on the southern bank.

continue past the harbour, with the Aquamarin project visible on the northern side. The road continues to the bank of the Amsterdam-Rhine Canal, going toward the arched road bridge visible ahead.

The arched bridge carries the provincial highway (N236) to/from Hilversum. It was built around 1930, one of the first roads in the Netherlands built specifically for motor traffic between cities.

first go under the arched bridge, then turn left, up the cycle path (cycle sign for Amsterdam). Then make a U-turn towards the bridge, again follow the cycle sign for Amsterdam.

cross the Amsterdam-Rhine Canal: visible right is the rail bridge, which you crossed earlier. Go on downhill, to the small village of Driemond (part of the Amsterdam municipality).

at the traffic lights, cross the bridge with blue-and-white railings, and immediately turn left along the bank of the small river Gein, following the sign for Abcoude.

after 10 m a sign marks the end of Driemond, the end of Amsterdam, and in fact the end of the province: you are now in the Province of Utrecht.

The County of Holland was originally a strip of land along the coastal dunes: the land around Amsterdam was almost uninhabited, and disputed between the Count of Holland and the Bishop of Utrecht. The boundary is about halfway between their capitals, Haarlem and Utrecht.

continue along the Gein through a rural landscape, with working farms. As you will see in 15 minutes, this is deceptive. The Province of Utrecht protects this landscape: if it was annexed to Amsterdam, it would be filled with housing in 5 years. Only rigid planning controls can prevent erosion by suburbanisation here, and many of the farms are already gentrified.

pass right at nr 59 a small former Sunday School (Eben Haëzer). It is not very old - about 80 years to judge by the style - but the rural society of Christian farmers which produced it, has disappeared since then.

at nr 54 turn away from the river, along a cycle path toward Amsterdam - the cycle sign indicates the recreational areas Gaasperplas / De Hoge Dijk. Visible on the left a windmill further along the Gein, and the two church spires of Abcoude.The large building visible ahead is the Academic Medical Centre of Amsterdam (AMC).

pass some trees on the right, and then the first houses. The housing is a sharp urban edge - in this case determined by the provincial boundary, at the ditch left of the path. One of the central issues in Dutch planning is whether to preserve such boundaries: if market forces were allowed to operate, there would be houses left of the path within 6 months.

100 m after the first house, turn right, at the green sign with white letters. Follow the direction W.C. 't Gein, into the housing, along Jan Schaefer pad. This neighbourhood is Gein, named after the river - the beginning of Amsterdam Zuidoost, the south-eastern extension of Amsterdam.

This extension with about 100 000 residents, is strongly socially and ethnically differentiated (for instance, almost all Ghanaian immigrants live here). It includes the most notorious failed housing projects in the Netherlands, built in the late 1960's and the 1970's. They were originally known as Bijlmermeer or Bijlmer, after the polder in which they were built. However their reputation became so bad, that the name was abandoned in favour of the neutral 'Zuidoost' (South-East). The 2-storey terraces and 4-storey blocks are a reaction against the slab-block modernist architecture, which you pass later.

500 m on, turn left along another cycle path, again following the direction W.C. 't Gein. (WC means Winkel Centrum, shopping centre).

cycle on, along a strip of open space between the houses: you follow this path for 1 km, almost to the Reigersbos metro station.

the cycle path ends at shops, in front of a supermarket. Turn right here, into the local shopping street. Pass under the viaduct of metro station Reigersbos. The public is ethnically mixed, although some parts of Zuidoost have almost no ethnic Dutch residents.

before the last shops, at the next green cycle sign, turn left, in the direction AMC. The area still has traffic segregation, a feature of the original plans: the newest zones have abandoned this principle.

this cycle path ends at a T-junction with another cycle path: turn right, direction AMC. This is the Abcouder Pad, a cycle path along the whole length of Zuidoost.

pass a local cluster of shops: continue straight on along the cycle path, direction Arena.

600 m after the shops, cross under the concrete viaduct of the A9 link motorway. You enter a zone of 11-storey gallery flats, most of them in a hexagonal pattern, an icon of failed urban planning of the 1960's and 1970's.

The blocks acquired a reputation similar to the US "projects": a place avoided by the white majority, but in some cases also a centre of minority social life. It is normal for housing-wanted ads in Amsterdam to end with "Geen ZO", no Zuidoost. In 1999, the borough council and the local housing association decided to demolish most of the blocks and build low-rise owner-occupied housing. The intended 'ethnic cleansing' failed however, since few white people would ever consider buying a house here.

many infill projects have been built in the original zone of slab blocks, which had a low overall density. 600 m after the motorway, you pass an infill block on the left, a long block called Hoptille.

Hoptille became notorious as a sink block, made uninhabitable by a deliberate concentration of 'problem cases'. It was cleared and renovated - the standard response to such problems. If it happens again, the response is almost always demolition. On the right the slab blocks have been reconstructed. The ground floor was originally storage spaces hidden behind shrubs, and not surprisingly ended up full of illegal activity. The rebuilt versions have a pseudo-street with front doors: conventional wisdom is that conventional wisdom cuts crime.

continue toward the angled shapes of a 'ecological' office building: the much publicised 'low energy use' did not materialise.

go on under this building, into the main shopping centre of Zuidoost. The centre was built long after the first housing - a classic planning error in urban expansion projects.

in the shopping centre, turn first left, between We and Adam Menswear. This is the main pedestrian route to the Bijlmer station. Step off your bike - zero-tolerance police here.

pass under a viaduct and an office block: ahead is the new metro and train station. High-speed trains to Germany will stop here, but the investment is not intended for the inhabitants of blocks like Hoptille...

pass under the station viaducts - the old station was demolished section by section, while new viaducts were built around it. The station forms a classic social, ethnic and economic divide - on the other side you are in a different city.

go straight on, along the boulevard.

This development zone is a magnet for investment in the urban region, equalled only by Schiphol airport. The centrepiece is the 50 000-seat stadium Amsterdam ArenA. It replaced the old Ajax stadium, but a stadium is no longer simply a sport facility. Here it is the core of a shopping/ entertainment zone, in what was already the largest office employment zone in Amsterdam. The Arena Boulevard is planned for 'theme shopping', there are megastores such as MediaMarkt and Prenatal, and at the end a single-sector mall, Villa Arena (furniture/home). The station expansion is part of the strategy, yet rail is not the preferred transport here. In the surrounding office towers, most employees arrive by car - and not from Hoptille, or anywhere like it.

at the end of the Boulevard, after Perry Sport, turn right. Pass under two road viaducts which enter the stadium. After the viaducts, go straight on, over the bridge with the white metal railings, on along the road away from the stadium.

at the traffic lights, at the main road (Holterberg weg), turn right toward Amsterdam. Pass under new rail viaducts, the older lower viaduct is the ring rail line. Duivendrecht station is then visible right, built in the form of a cross, where the ring rail line crosses the line Amsterdam- Utrecht.

The east-west line is at the lower level, the Utrecht line and the metro at higher level. The new rail viaducts connect Utrecht and Schiphol via the Zuid/WTC station. In fact that was the original plan, but instead Duivendrecht station was built 'to save money'. Now the expensive station has lost its original function - as you can see, there is no other reason to have an Intercity station here.

continue toward Amsterdam, straight on along Spakler weg. Pass under the ring motorway: note the BMW building, specifically designed for high visibility from the motorway.

after the motorway, pass under the viaducts of a three-way metro junction. The rounded metallic building is a sewage pump. Ahead are the six towers of the Bijlmer prison, Bijlmerbajes. This building became an instant symbol of repression when it was opened in the 1970's.

pass the entrance to Spaklerweg metro station. The view ahead is dominated by the towers at Amstel Station. The nearest, Mondriaan, almost hides the Rembrandt tower, the highest in Amsterdam.

cross the cable-lifted bridge, and then go straight on, onto the cycle path, diagonally between the towers. (Don't turn under the railway bridge).

pass (right) the Hogeschool van Amsterdam - Hogeschool is the equivalent of the former British polytechnics. They are allowed to call themselves 'universities', but only outside the Netherlands. Behind it is Amstel Station, built in the 1930's as the southern gateway station of Amsterdam - a function it never fully acquired. Now it is one of several peripheral stations with clusters of office employment.

continue along the riverside road Weesperzijde: this route now follows the Amstel river back to the centre.

pass (left) the Berlage bridge: here, Canadian troops entered Amsterdam in 1945. Continue along Weesperzijde: car traffic is concentrated on the opposite bank.

at the Ruysch straat, cross the tram line, continue past grander 19th-century riverside houses. Cycle through a tunnel under a bridge approach road, and pass the Amstel Hotel, the most prestigious in the city. Then turn diagonally left to rejoin the riverside road beside Grand Cafe De Hoge Sluis: the road here is simply called Amstel.

at the 19th-century bridge with lanterns, Blauw brug, the Amstel river bends west (left). Ahead is is Amstel 1 - the Town Hall and Opera complex, the end point of this route.