For visitors in search of scenic walking routes, the province of North Holland is perhaps not an obvious choice. The landscape is famously as flat as the local pancakes and picturesque mountains, forests and waterfalls are in short supply.
Head into the countryside south of Amsterdam, however, and you can find lovely walking routes amid a quintessentially Dutch landscape of green fields, windmills and waterways. Walks along the Amstel River, which flows north into Amsterdam, also offer an opportunity to follow in famous footsteps. Rembrandt van Rijn lived for much of his life close to the river, was fond of walking its banks and produced some beautiful pictures here. With Amsterdam about to celebrate its 750th birthday in June, it’s a good moment to see the city from another angle, along the waterway which gave the city its name.
My walk in Rembrandt’s footsteps begins in Ouderkerk aan de Amstel, a small town a few miles south of Amsterdam. Ouderkerk isn’t big but it’s exceedingly pleasant; a warren of narrow brick streets cradled by the river, with a tall church tower standing at the centre like an upturned drawing pin. I don’t linger long but take a moment to see the Beth Haim Jewish cemetery, where dozens of old gravestones tilt in the soft grass. Nearby, streets are filled with diggers piling sandbags, and signs warning: Let op! Drijfzand (Watch out! Quicksand) – a reminder that much of the area I’ll be walking through was reclaimed from the water over many centuries, and remains below sea level today.
Leaving Ouderkerk, I walk north along a narrow gravel footpath that tracks the Amstel like a handrail. It is a glorious sunny day, with birds flitting in and out of the tall rushes on the riverbank, and rowers skimming across the water like skittery insects. Yet despite all this movement, the Amstel itself is as tranquil as a mill pond – in a land without hills, you can barely tell many waterways are moving.
As I walk north, the Amstel is at first lined with terrace houses but the landscape soon opens out, with raised riverbanks offering views across the emerald fields beyond. During Amsterdam’s Golden Age in the 17th century, many of the city’s wealthy merchants owned weekend homes here. Today, most of the older homes have been replaced by modern mansions, but there’s still one magnificent 18th-century creation left, the Oostermeer, with a sweeping gravel drive. I take a photo and resolve that if my little book on Amsterdam turns out to be a bestseller, I’ll buy a palace here too.
Continuing north, I pass a stone obelisk as high as a house, engraved with the words Terminus Proscriptionis. Studying my map, I realise it is a banpaal (ban pole), marking the outer boundary of Amsterdam, which any criminal banned from the city would be forbidden to pass. Rembrandt, as a notorious spendthrift and love rat, may have been lucky to have avoided being banished himself. A mile or so later, on a big bend in the river, there’s a pretty windmill next to a big statue of Rembrandt kneeling on the grass in hat and cape, sketching on a pad that rests on his knee. Looking south, I see a view that hasn’t changed much since Rembrandt etched it in 1641: a rumpled meadow, a slender church tower in the distance, and a small boat sailing along the river.
Five miles after leaving Ouderkerk, I arrive in Amsterdam proper. After the tranquillity of the countryside, the bustle of the city comes as a shock. The narrow riverside trail is replaced by wide streets with clanging trams, joggers, cars and cyclists. Here, the Amstel is perhaps half as wide as the River Thames, and lined with big old sailing barges converted into houseboats. Rembrandt sketched another picture showing this area, known as the Omval, with a massive tree standing like a gnarled fist by the river. Things look rather different these days. Just after midday on a weekday, restaurant terraces overlooking the Amstel are already filled with people drinking white wine and eating expensive salads. The Dutch work some of the shortest hours in Europe, and it shows.
I continue north, past the H’ART museum, which will host a Rembrandt exhibition from 9 April. Then I cross the river over the stately Blauwbrug, or blue bridge, which isn’t blue. Rembrandt drew a famous view of the Amstel from the Blauwbrug in the late 1640s, now in the Rijksmuseum. Looking west I see the grand waterside home of Rembrandt’s patron Jan Six, who commissioned many works. If you ask nicely, many weeks in advance (via the Six Collection website), you may be allowed inside to see the portrait Rembrandt did of Jan Six in 1654, now hanging so Six appears to be keeping a watchful eye on the river.
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After a brief detour to see the big Rembrandt statue on the touristy Rembrandtplein , I head away from the Amstel to the Nieuwmarkt, a wide square ringed by bars and cafes. The space is dominated by the Waag, a big turreted building. It was here that Rembrandt created one of his most famous works, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp, showing doctors dissecting the corpse of an executed criminal. Nearby, on the Nieuwe Doelenstraat, you can also see the spot where Rembrandt delivered his most famous work: The Night Watch.
I walk south along the Sint Antoniesbreestraat. My final stop is hard to miss: in a street of ugly modern buildings there’s one beautiful 17th-century facade; a five-storey brick mansion with red shutters on the windows like the doors on an Advent calendar. This is the house where Rembrandt lived for nearly two decades, now a museum. The interior is largely a modern reconstruction but it’s hard not to feel a shiver of excitement when you see the sunlit studio where he painted some of history’s most famous art.
The museum closes and I decamp to the Sluyswacht, a pub just across the street in a little lockkeeper’s cottage which looks as if it’s been lifted from the pages of a fairytale. This place is not quite as old as Rembrandt – it was built 26 years after he died – but it is surely one of most picturesque pubs in Europe. I sit outside by the canal, drink a pilsje of beer and eat a plate of cheese, and think: that Rembrandt, he had good taste.
The Invention of Amsterdam, A History of Europe’s Greatest City in Ten Walks by Ben Coates is published by Scribe UK (£12.99). To support the Guardian and the Observer buy a copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
