Hortus Botanicus is one of the world's oldest botanical gardens established in 1638 as an herb garden with medicinal plants for Amsterdam doctors and pharmacists. The plants were brought here from all over the world by the traders of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). Today, Hortus Botanicus holds more than 6,000 different plants, including unique ones, like the 2,000 years old agave cactus and a 300-year-old Eastern Cape giant cycad. The garden's orangery has a beautiful cafe with a large outside terrace open to the garden. Find some peace and quiet here, especially on a drizzly day.

The Singel Flower Market is one of Amsterdam’s most colourful attractions. The small shops are located inside a row of floating barges — a holdover from the days when the flowers arrived in Amsterdam every day from the countryside by boat. At the flower market you’ll find tulips of every colour, either in bouquets or as bulbs to plant at home. If you plan to buy bulbs to take out of the country, be sure they have a "customs cleared" stamp on the packet so you won’t have trouble at the border.

Each year, about 340,000 visitors come to see the Royal Coster Diamonds craftsmen at work. Free guided tours demonstrating the process of cutting and polishing diamonds are led by Coster’s accommodating staff. The tours are available in more than 24 languages.

The Ashmolean Museum was founded in 1683 and is considered the most important museum of art and archaeology in the heart of Britain. It consists of various themed galleries exploring the connections between objects and activities that are common to different cultures representing the human image. Among its treasures are the greatest Anglo-Saxon collections beyond the British Museum, an important collection of pre-Dynastic Egyptian material in Europe, the world's largest group of Raphael drawings, and collections of modern Chinese art in the Western world.