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The Dutch Invented That: An Audio Tour of Amsterdam

By VoiceMap Audio Tours
Free cancellation available
Price is €9 per adult
See tickets

Features

  • Free cancellation available
  • 1h 30m
  • Mobile voucher
  • Instant confirmation

Overview

This isn’t your typical history lesson. It’s a tasting platter of Amsterdam’s quirks, from its obsession with bikes and water management, to the surprising Dutch origins of modern capitalism. On this self-guided audio tour, you’ll discover the city through the eyes of Greg Shapiro, an American comedian who’s become a dual Dutch-American citizen. You’ll find out why Amsterdam is a city of contradictions where historic canals, modern engineering marvels, and centuries-old traditions unapologetically exist alongside one another. The tour starts at Amsterdam Central Station, where you’ll learn why there’s a wind dial on the tower. You’ll discover how Dutch merchants created the world’s first publicly traded company at the harbour. The tour ends at Wynand Fockink, one of Amsterdam’s oldest Dutch gin bars tucked down an alley with a hilariously unfortunate name.

Activity location

  • Norday
    • 9 Stationsplein
    • 1012 AB, Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands

Meeting/Redemption Point

  • Norday
    • 9 Stationsplein
    • 1012 AB, Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands

Check availability

The Dutch Invented That: An Audio Tour of Amsterdam in English

  • Activity duration is 1 hour and 30 minutes1h 30m
    1h 30m
  • Opening hours: Mon 00:00-23:59
  • English
Language options: English
Price details
€8.59 x 1 Adult€8.59
Total
Price is €8.59

What's included, what's not

  • What's includedWhat's included
    Lifetime access to this tour in English before your booking date and after it
  • What's includedWhat's included
    Offline access to audio, maps, and geodata
  • What's includedWhat's included
    Flexibility to explore at your own pace with a self-guided GPS tour
  • What's includedWhat's included
    App for Android and iOS
  • What's includedWhat's included
    Directions to the starting point so that when you’re in the right place, the tour will start
  • What's excludedWhat's excluded
    Smartphone and headphones
  • What's excludedWhat's excluded
    Transport
  • What's excludedWhat's excluded
    Food and drink
  • What's excludedWhat's excluded
    Personal expenses for admission fees not included during the tour

Know before you book

  • Wheelchair accessible
  • Infants and small children can ride in a pram or stroller
  • Service animals allowed
  • Public transport options are available nearby
  • Transport options are wheelchair accessible
  • All areas and surfaces are wheelchair accessible
  • Suitable for all physical fitness levels
  • In accordance with EU regulations about consumer rights, activities services are not subject to the right of withdrawal. Supplier cancellation policy will apply.
  • This activity is provided by a professional trader (a party acting within their trade, business or profession).

Activity itinerary

Amsterdam Centraal (Pass by)

Begin at Amsterdam Centraal and look up at the wind dial on the tower, a working instrument that once helped harbour masters manage the flow of ships into one of the busiest ports in the world. Stand on the steps of this Victorian Gothic masterpiece and consider that everything you are about to see - the canals, the commerce, the contradictions - flows outward from this single point on the waterfront.

A'DAM Tower (Pass by)

Look across the IJ waterway to the A'DAM Tower and take in the former Royal Dutch Shell headquarters that now houses a rooftop swing dangling its riders over the edge of Amsterdam's skyline. Marvel at how this city has always found a way to repurpose the relics of its industrial past into something unexpected, irreverent, and entirely on brand.

Eye Film Museum (Pass by)

Admire the Eye Filmmuseum from the waterfront, its angular white form jutting out over the IJ like a piece of film equipment frozen mid-motion. Enjoy how this striking building captures Amsterdam's instinct for bold contemporary architecture, sitting comfortably across the water from a nineteenth-century train station without either one apologising for existing.

IJpassage (Pass by)

Walk through the IJpassage pedestrian tunnel beneath Amsterdam Centraal and slow down long enough to take in all 50,000 hand-painted Delft-blue tiles lining the walls, each one depicting a scene from Amsterdam's historic herring fleet. Enjoy this hidden gallery beneath a working station, a reminder that in Amsterdam, even the route to the bicycle parking tends to be worth looking at.

Canals of Amsterdam (Pass by)

Stroll along the canals and discover how this intricate network of waterways was not a natural feature of the landscape but an extraordinary feat of deliberate engineering, dug by hand to drain, defend, and connect a city built on boggy ground below sea level. Marvel at the houseboats, the leaning facades, and the relentless bicycle traffic crossing every bridge, and appreciate that water management here is not just infrastructure — it is a way of life.

Tony's Chocolonely Store (Pass by)

Stop at the Tony's Chocolonely Superstore and discover how a Dutch television journalist's investigation into child labour in the cocoa industry turned into one of the world's most recognisable ethical chocolate brands. Step inside and enjoy the deliberately unequal chocolate bar — its irregular segments designed to represent the imbalance of the global cocoa trade — before moving on through the historic harbour district.

Beurs van Berlage (Pass by)

Stand at the Beurs van Berlage and find yourself at the birthplace of modern capitalism, the site where Dutch merchants created the world's first publicly traded company and invented the stock exchange in the early seventeenth century. Explore how this monumental 1903 exchange building later became a gathering point for Occupy protesters, its grand facade bearing witness to both the creation of the financial system and the movements that rose up against it.

Location

Activity location

  • LOB_ACTIVITIESLOB_ACTIVITIES
    Norday
    • 9 Stationsplein
    • 1012 AB, Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands

Meeting/Redemption Point

  • PEOPLEPEOPLE
    Norday
    • 9 Stationsplein
    • 1012 AB, Amsterdam, Noord-Holland, Netherlands

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