Before and After Stays: The 7 Best Day Trips From Amsterdam

A Celebrity River Cruises℠ Before and After Stay in Amsterdam gives you more time to experience the city’s art, canals, architecture, and local culture before or after your sailing. And with a little extra time in the Netherlands, you can also explore beyond the city limits.

What are the best day trips from Amsterdam? They’re easily accessible destinations that reveal another side of the Netherlands, from windmills and tulip fields to historic towns, castles, and national parks.

Many of the best day trips are easy to reach by public transportation, with frequent trains departing Amsterdam Central for cities such as Delft, Haarlem, and Utrecht. If you have limited time before or after your river cruise, choose day trips that align with your interests, whether that means architecture, history, art, or nature.

Just as a Before and After Stay adds more depth to your river cruise, a day trip can add another layer to your time in Amsterdam. To inspire your vacation planning, here are seven unforgettable day trips from Amsterdam that pair naturally with your Rhine River cruise.

Explore Amsterdam With Before and After Stays Designed for You

A couple in front of the peaceful Amsterdam canal.

Amsterdam is one of the cities guests can enjoy through Celebrity’s Before and After Stays, giving river cruise guests more time to explore Europe by land. With its world-class art museums, scenic canals, and historic districts, Amsterdam offers much more than visitors can experience in a day.

Celebrity makes it easy to extend your time in the Dutch capital with a two- or three-night stay before or after your river cruise. Carefully planned by local experts, these extensions combine iconic sights with lesser-known corners of the city, allowing you to spend less time organizing logistics and more time enjoying Amsterdam. Your stay includes hotel accommodations, daily breakfast, one excursion per day, and transfers between your hotel and ship. 

While the details are thoughtfully arranged for you, there is still plenty of room to tailor the experience. Guests can choose between a Premium stay at the Clayton Amsterdam or an Ultra Premium accommodation at the Mandarin Oriental Conservatorium, Amsterdam, where historic architecture and contemporary design come together in one of the city’s most desirable neighborhoods.

Guests can also shape their time in the city through themed experiences designed to offer different ways to explore Amsterdam. With insight from a Destination Insider℠, these experiences help you connect with the city through local stories, cultural traditions, neighborhood discoveries, and opportunities to explore more independently.

Depending on the options available during your stay, you may join themed tours led by a Local Storyteller℠, take part in hands-on cultural activities, or explore at your own pace with insider recommendations. Each experience is designed to help you discover more of Amsterdam in a way that feels personal, informed, and easy to enjoy.

You will come away from your Before or After Stay with a deeper, richer understanding of Amsterdam. But to immerse yourself more fully in all that the Netherlands has to offer, you may want to explore beyond Amsterdam with day trips outside the city.

Best for History: Haarlem

Haarlem is one of the easiest day trips from Amsterdam, with direct train routes between the two cities. History lovers will get a thrill strolling along the city’s cobblestone streets and peeking into secret courtyards dating from the Middle Ages, called hofjes. Get your bearings in Haarlem’s main square, Grote Markt, with the Gothic St. Bavo’s Church at one end and the medieval city hall on the other. From there, you could grab a coffee and take off for the shops on the Golden Streets, but if it’s history you seek, there’s much more to see.

Haarlem’s excellent museums include the Teylers Museum, the oldest in the Netherlands. Its unique collection includes fossils, antique books, and coins, plus rotating exhibitions on art and science. The Frans Hals Museum is attractive both for its location in a 17th-century former almshouse and for its collection of Dutch Golden Age fine art. Visitors seeking to understand more modern history can stop at the Corrie ten Boom House to see where Jews hid from the Nazis during WWII.

For a more leisurely journey back in time, take a canal tour on the Spaarne River to view Haarlem’s historic architecture and perhaps an 18th-century windmill.

Best for Tradition: Zaanse Schans

The traditional Zaanse Schans architecture with colorful tulips against a clear blue sky.

First-time river cruisers and visitors to the Netherlands should prioritize a day trip from Amsterdam to Zaanse Schans, an open-air living history museum focused on Dutch industry in the 18th and 19th centuries. Artisans ply their crafts in historic buildings, providing an immersive introduction to the most important Dutch traditions packed into one half-day visit.

The first thing you’ll see is Zaanse Schans’s many windmills along the banks of the canal. Enter one to see how the mill inside is powered by wind or climb to the deck for panoramic views. Back on the ground, wend your way along greenery-lined pathways to discover Dutch handicrafts, such as casting pewter, carving wooden clogs, weaving sails, and making barrels.

If you prefer the culinary arts, you can sample traditional Dutch chocolate drinks, cheese, and liqueurs. Browse the many shops to pick up authentic souvenirs and stop for a snack at the traditional Dutch bakery. Pose in the giant wooden shoe for a photo to post on your Instagram account on the bus ride back to Amsterdam.

Best for Castles: Utrecht and De Haar Castle

De Haar Castle’s grand brick towers and turrets surrounded by a peaceful moat.

For a two-in-one day trip from Amsterdam, river cruisers can combine a city visit to Utrecht with a tour of De Haar Castle, one of the Netherlands’ most beautiful.

If you love a city view, climb the 465 steps to the top of Utrecht’s Dom Tower, then head underground to the DOMunder attraction to explore 2,000 years of the Domplein. If you loved Rudesheim’s mechanical music museum on your river cruise, you’ll want to check out the Dutch version, Museum Speelklok. Train enthusiasts can visit the city’s Railway Museum, while architecture buffs should take a short bus ride to the Rietveld Schröder House, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that showcases the De Stijl movement.

No matter which sites you visit, you won’t have the true Utrecht experience unless you stop for a Broodje Mario sandwich (salami, chorizo, veggies, and cheese on an Italian roll).

When you’ve finished your urban exploration, hop on a bus out to De Haar Castle for the second half of your excursion. The Van der Haar family likely built its first house on this spot in the 14th century, but the version you’ll see dates to the late 19th century. De Haar Castle is notable for its ornamented wood carvings, artistic pieces from the Rothschild collection, and extensive gardens that include a rose garden, maze, and deer park.

Best for Natural Beauty: Keukenhof

The Keukenhof’s vibrant tulip gardens showcase a dazzling display of color.

The Netherlands is famous for its tulips, and the best place to wander among beautifully manicured flower gardens is Keukenhof. If a visit to the world’s largest spring flower showcase is on your bucket list, you must time your river cruise right. The gardens are only open for two months a year, from March to May.

In season, shuttle buses run directly from Amsterdam to Keukenhof, and you can purchase combo tickets that include round-trip transfers and admission to the garden. Across Keukenhof’s extensive grounds, hundreds of flower growers present 7 million bulbs of a variety of blooming plants, including tulips, crocuses, and daffodils. The park’s gardeners plant the bulbs in pleasing, colorful arrangements, strategically arranging bulbs to bloom earlier and later to keep the grounds vibrant throughout the festival.

Millions of visitors pilgrimage to Keukenhof each year, so if you’d like to view the flowers with fewer crowds, consider an early morning or late afternoon visit, or come on the quieter days at the beginning of the week.

Best for Art: Delft

A beautiful aerial view of the historic Oude Kerk surrounded by Delft’s traditional rooftops.

The Netherlands’ blue-and-white ceramics are known throughout the world, and with an easy day trip from Amsterdam, you can be in the city so renowned for its pottery that it gave the collection its name. An hour from Amsterdam by train, Delft is home to several pottery factories still producing the iconic Delft Blue. Make your first stop the Royal Delft Museum, the only factory established in the 17th century that’s still hand-crafting pottery today.

Art lovers have more to see than just ceramics in Delft. Dutch Golden Age painter Johannes Vermeer (of “Girl with a Pearl Earring” fame) hailed from Delft, and you can learn about his oeuvre in the Vermeer Centrum Delft, though all Vermeer paintings in the city are reproductions. Visitors can also step back in time in the house museums of 19th-century artist Paul Tétar van Elven and 17th-century art collector Lambert van Meerten.

If religious art and architecture are more your style, Delft is known for its many churches. Climb the tower in the Nieuwe Kerk, where William of Orange and other Dutch royals are buried. Or pay your respects to Vermeer at the crooked Oude Kerk, Delft’s version of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The Maria van Jessekerk stands out for its murals and stained-glass windows.

You can also swing by Delft’s signature windmill, Molen De Roos, or enjoy lunch or a drink in one of the city’s many charming squares.

Best for Outdoor Recreation: De Hoge Veluwe National Park

You’ll want to rent a car if you plan to spend a day outdoors at De Hoge Veluwe National Park, one of the best-known Dutch parks for outdoor recreation. But once you’ve made the hour-long drive east, leave your vehicle and hop on a free White Bike to cycle the park grounds through forests and heathlands. For a slower pace, lace up your hiking boots and head out on one of 13 walking trails.

If you’re lucky, you’ll spot many of De Hoge Veluwe’s resident birds and wildlife, including deer, pine martens, wild boar, and six species of reptiles.

The national park is worthy of a day trip, not just for its nature reserve. Its grounds also contain the Kröller-Müller Museum, home to an amazing Van Gogh collection, as well as works by Picasso, Monet, and Mondrian. If you prefer to take your art alfresco, wander the museum’s 25-hectare sculpture garden, with more than 100 sculptures by artists like Auguste Rodin and Henry Moore.

Best for Architecture: Bruges

If you’re up for a long day, you can visit neighboring Belgium on a day trip from Amsterdam. You’ve got plenty of destination choices, but I’d suggest Bruges if you love historic architecture. You’ll want an early start; the train ride is approximately three hours, and you’ll need to change trains at least once.

But the journey will be worth it when you step out of the train station into one of Europe’s prettiest cities. Cobblestone streets, medieval canals, and Gothic architecture set the scene as you meander through this UNESCO World Heritage City. Gaze up at (or climb up) City Hall’s octagonal belfry from the Market Square or stumble upon relics of Bruges’ past as a trading center within the Hanseatic League, such as the Oude Beursplein (Old Stock Exchange Square) and the Toll House. Listen to the city’s carillon bells ring out from above or linger in the silence of the Begijnhof, long the home of pious women.

Once you’ve taken in all the sights and sounds of the city, it’s time to activate your senses of taste and smell. Will you savor a local beer at a traditional brown pub (named for its dark wood décor), enjoy the sugar rush of a Belgian waffle topped with berries or chocolate, or satisfy your salty cravings with thick-cut frites (Belgian fries), with or without accompanying mussels? You’re certainly welcome to sample all three; after all, you are on vacation.

Make the Most of Your Amsterdam Trip

You can make the most of your Before and After Stay by adding a day trip outside Amsterdam, but a little planning will help you maximize enjoyment.

Most of the best day trips from Amsterdam are accessible by train from Amsterdam Central, the main train station, but a few places are more easily reached by bus or car. Research public transit schedules or reserve your car in advance to avoid wasting time with transportation delays on your outing day.

A smartly packed day pack is your best friend on any day trip. Prep your cross-body bag or backpack the night before with the following items to be ready for your day out of the city:

• Wallet, with ID, credit cards, public transit card, and euros.
• Cellphone and power bank.
• Bottle of water.
• Granola or protein bars.
• Small first aid kit (adhesive bandages, pain medication, tissues, etc.).
• Sunglasses and an extra layer or a rain jacket.
• A foldable shopping bag for souvenirs.

With only a few days in Amsterdam before or after your river cruise, you won’t want to waste one minute of your time in this cultural capital. The local experts who support Celebrity’s Before and After Stays will ensure you hit all the city highlights, but they can also guide you to the best day trips from Amsterdam. 

By the time you board your river ship or flight home, you’ll be satisfied that you made each hour of your visit count as you immersed yourself in the region’s history, culture, nature, and culinary traditions.

Explore Amsterdam river cruises and discover how Celebrity’s Before and After Stays can help you discover the city closer than ever before.

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