Johan Cruijff Arena
The renaming of Ajax football club’s home stadium has been hotly debated among garrulous Amsterdammers since the death of the country’s greatest ever player – but it will finally happen this year.
De Hallen
This former tram depot has recently been converted to a heaving indoor food hall. Escape the crowds by visiting library café Belcampo or the art deco cinema, Filmhallen, inside the complex.
The Evenings
Seventy years after publication, the greatest Amsterdam novel has finally been given its first English translation. Follow Gerard Reve’s disillusioned office clerk Frits van Egters in this post-war tale of pathos and ennui.
Noord
Take a free ferry from Central Station across River IJ to the city’s hippest district. Dine at the former NDSM shipyard (IJ-Kantine) or enjoy panoramic views from a 100 metre-high swing (A’DAM Tower).
Canal cruising
You can’t visit the city of canals and not take to the water. Leave the touristy waterbuses and rent a skippered sloop sailing boat – or better still, a chic saloon boat with onboard bar and catering.
Draadjesvlees
Translated as ‘meat braised to threads’, this beef stew is a staple of Dutch meat-potato-veg cuisine. No-reservation and no-nonsense Hap-Hmm has been serving up the city’s most succulent version since 1935.
Cathay Pacific flies to Amsterdam from Hong Kong seven times a week
