Jordaan

The Jordaan was laid out between 1613 and 1625 just outside the grand canal ring, built to house the working class, craftspeople and religious refugees the wealthy Herengracht residents didn't want as neighbours. Living conditions were rough for centuries — open sewers, overcrowding, families of eight or ten crammed into single rooms — and the district developed a famously rebellious streak, from 19th-century anarchist and socialist organising to a 1934 rent strike led by local women against Depression-era benefit cuts.

That gritty history has almost entirely inverted: since the 1960s the Jordaan has gentrified into one of Amsterdam's most sought-after and expensive addresses, prized for exactly the narrow-street, low-rise, canal-laced character that once marked it as a slum. It holds more hofjes (almshouse courtyards) than any other Amsterdam district — 21 in total, though not all are publicly accessible — along with small independent galleries, vintage shops, brown cafés and the Saturday Noordermarkt organic and antiques market.