Centraal Station - ( Central Station )

Central Station is many people’s first point of contact with Amsterdam.

Its construction at the end of the 19th century brought controversy, as the large structure blocked off the view over the harbour, seeming to sever the city from the sea that was its lifeblood and forcing it look inwards for its identity.

However, the elegant red-brick neo-Renaissance building is hardly an eyesore. Designed in the so-called “national” style by Petrus Josephus Hubertus (better known as P.J.H.) Cuypers, who designed the similar-looking Rijksmuseum, it was built upon 26 000 wooden piles on an artificial island in the IJ, the city’s old inner harbour, and is adorned with monumental sculptures.

The station gives little evidence of its watery origins until you cross over Prins Hendrikkade towards Damrak. Only then are you aware of the redundant stretch of water that was once the western terminal of the Dutch empire, its quaysides and warehouses chock-full with goods on their way from East Indies to Germany and the Baltic.

For people arriving by train, an encounter with Amsterdam begins among the organ-grinders, street musicians, jugglers, harried commuters, weary backpackers, never-weary pickpockets, tram stops, taxis and bicycles that daily crowd Stationsplein, in front of Centraal Station.

If you want to get to the Centrum of Amsterdam just take the tram lines 1, 2, 4, 5, 9, 13, 16, 17, 24, 25 and 26 and there you go!