As we are world-travelers, we were in Amsterdam for New Year as a part of our large Northern European holiday in 2024-2025. The visit to Amsterdam was one of the highlights of our long trip.

Amsterdam, the city of canals

Of course, Amsterdam is circled by canals. They were originally used for transporting cargo to the various warehouses around the city, and apparently took over 70 years to build. This means that almost all buildings have a water-front. Most houses and buildings are relatively skinny, but they are deep too, and often have a shared courtyard or garden behind them.

Every day, we walked up Kalverstraat, the main shopping street of Amsterdam. This leads to Dam Square, which was a large gathering place for New Year. Off Dam Square, following Damstraat over one of the canals leads to the Red Light District.

New Year celebrations

The crowds for New Year were intense. Everyone wanted to be in Dam Square, in front of the Royal Palace, and earlier in the evening we were concerned that the crowds were getting rowdy – but it turned out to be pro-Palestinian protest, and people protesting against the protest.

The large Christmas tree in Dam Square was a focus, and we noticed that there was a large empty space between the Koninklijk Paleis and the tree – and then we realised that this was where members of the crowd were letting off their own fireworks. This was our introduction to the craziness that would persist all night – random people letting off large fireworks in the streets amongst the crowds.

The official fireworks were cancelled due to predicted high winds, however it did not feel windy to us at all. Instead of official fireworks, any person can buy fireworks in shops, and all it takes is a cigarette lighter, and mayhem then ensues. We experienced people walking down the street, carrying Roman Candle fireworks that were shooting from their hands. We noticed large rockets that missed going into the sky, and instead hit buildings, the Christmas tree, or into the crowds.

When someone would light an aerial mortar “cake” in the street, they would just bend down in the crowd to place the crate of fireworks on the pavement, and once it was lit, people would move away. The people who took longer to notice would then have to run out of the way.

Amsterdam

We really enjoyed our time in Amsterdam – the vibe was great, the food and hospitality was wonderful. We found the streets to be very dirty with litter, but this may be caused by the thousands of people who were in the city for New Year. Even though it is technically not legal to smoke cannabis in the street, we could smell the smoke almost everywhere – even outside De Wallen area. Interestingly, we felt that Copenhagen actually had more bicycles than Amsterdam, but it was still very walkable as a city.

We found that there were a high number of electric cars, as in many other European cities, but in Amsterdam there were a lot of micro cars, some with only a single seat. These were hillarious as they were sometimes parked perpendicular to other cars, and we even saw one plugged in to an accessible free outdoor power socket, to get electricity.