Cities Worth Visiting Near Amsterdam

Alkmaar, for the cheese market

Alkmaar is about 40 minutes north of Amsterdam and holds a traditional cheese market on Friday mornings in season, with porters in white uniforms and colored hats carrying rounds of cheese on wooden carriers, a ritual that's part genuine trade tradition and part performance at this point, but an enjoyable one.

Outside of market day, Alkmaar is a pleasant, quiet canal town with a weighing house tower worth climbing for the view. It's a straightforward half-day trip, best timed for a Friday if the cheese market is the draw.

Deventer, further out and quieter

Deventer sits about an hour east of Amsterdam, on the river IJssel, and has one of the best-preserved historic centers in the Netherlands, largely because it was spared the worst of wartime bombing that reshaped so many Dutch cities. Its Hanseatic-era streets and the Bergkerk church give it a medieval feel that's rarer than you'd expect this close to Amsterdam.

It also hosts a large annual book market, one of the biggest in Europe, when the whole town center fills with stalls. Outside of that event it's simply a calm, underrated stop.

Zwolle, a Hanseatic city with its own character

Zwolle, close to Deventer and also on the old Hanseatic trade route, has a star-shaped fortification pattern still visible in its street layout and moat, along with a Gothic Onze Lieve Vrouwe basilica with a leaning tower that locals refer to affectionately, if a little strangely, as 'Peperbus,' or pepper pot.

It's about an hour and ten minutes from Amsterdam, similar to Deventer, and the two can reasonably be combined in a single overnight trip given how close they sit to each other.

Haarlem and Utrecht, the closer options

Haarlem is barely fifteen minutes from Amsterdam and often gets treated as a suburb rather than a destination, which undersells it. It has its own Grote Markt square, its own Frans Hals museum, and a noticeably calmer version of the canal-town atmosphere Amsterdam is known for.

Utrecht, about half an hour away, has canals with a lower quay level than Amsterdam's, meaning cafés and restaurants sit right at the water, plus the Dom tower, the tallest church tower in the Netherlands, which you can climb if the stairs don't put you off.

Putting a few of these together

Given how compact the country is, it's realistic to base yourself in Amsterdam for the whole trip and simply take day trips out, rather than moving hotels each night. Haarlem and Utrecht work well as half-day trips squeezed around a longer Amsterdam stay, while Deventer and Zwolle, being closer to each other than to Amsterdam, are better combined into a single overnight excursion.

Alkmaar sits somewhat on its own to the north and pairs naturally with a trip that also includes the coastal towns further up that direction, if you have the extra day.

• Alkmaar: 40 minutes, cheese market on Fridays in season
• Haarlem: 15 minutes, a calmer, smaller-scale Amsterdam
• Utrecht: 30 minutes, low canal quays and the Dom tower
• Zwolle: 1 hour 10 minutes, Hanseatic fortifications and a leaning church tower
• Deventer: 1 hour, well-preserved medieval streets and a major book market