What should I avoid in Amsterdam?

The restaurants lining Damrak between Centraal Station and Dam Square are Amsterdam's most reliable disappointment. You'll smell reheated oil before you see the laminated photo menus propped outside — that's your signal. A kroket at FEBO (the automat built into the wall, hot to the touch, crumbed and greasy in the best way) costs about €2.50 and is more honestly Dutch than any €19 'traditional stamppot' on Damrak. For real food, walk fifteen minutes south to Albert Cuypmarkt in De Pijp, where the Surinamese roti stands serve slow-braised chicken wrapped in thin dhal-soaked flatbread for under €8. The cheese shops clustered around Dam Square sell the same vacuum-packed Gouda you'll find at Schiphol departures — sometimes marked up 40%. If you want cheese worth carrying home, try De Kaaskamer on Runstraat, where they'll let you taste before buying and the aged varieties have that crumbly, salt-crystal texture that supermarket blocks never develop.

De Wallen — the Red Light District — is fine to walk through. Not dangerous. You don't need a guide. What you should skip is paying €25–35 for a 'guided Red Light tour' that covers the same three blocks you'd walk alone in ten minutes, while someone reads Wikipedia at you. The neon-lit windows along Oudezijds Achterburgwal are part of the city; gawking and photographing the workers is not — and it'll get your phone knocked out of your hand. Street dealers near Centraal and along Damstraat sell 'cocaine' that is usually caffeine powder or worse. The coffeeshops are legal and regulated; the street offers are neither. Stick to licensed shops. The Bulldog on Leidseplein is the most tourist-saturated option — loud, packed, overpriced for what you get. Locals tend toward places like Dampkring on Handboogstraat, where the staff explain what they're selling and the smell of fresh herb hangs thick instead of stale cigarette haze.

Amsterdam will try to kill you with bicycles. That's not a joke. The bike lanes are painted red-brown, they run between the sidewalk and the road, and stepping into one gets you a bell-ring at best and a handlebar in the ribs at worst. Listen for the whirr of tires on wet brick — that's often your only warning. Trams run the same way: quiet, heavy, slow to stop. Tourists get clipped crossing Leidsestraat regularly. Rent a bike if you're comfortable on two wheels, but skip the rental stands right outside Centraal that charge €15–18 per day for rusty three-speeds. MacBike at Waterlooplein charges €10–12 and includes a lock that actually works. Never leave your bike secured with just the front wheel — Amsterdam sees roughly 50,000 bike thefts a year. Use the frame lock plus a chain through a fixed object. If someone offers you a suspiciously cheap used bike on the street, it's stolen.

The Diamond Museum on Museumplein is a showroom with a ticket price — the €10 entry funnels you past display cases and into a jewelry shop where the sales pressure is immediate. Your time is better spent at the Stedelijk next door or the Van Gogh Museum across the plaza. Book Van Gogh tickets at least a week ahead; walk-up queues run 90 minutes on summer mornings, and the damp canal breeze at 9am is colder than you'd expect for June. The Bloemenmarkt along Singel canal looks like a floating flower market but currently sells mostly pre-packaged bulbs and plastic tulips aimed at tourists with cameras. If you do want to take bulbs home, check they carry the blue-and-white phytosanitary certificate — without it, customs in the US, UK, and Australia will confiscate them at the border.

Amsterdam rains roughly 175 days a year, and the drizzle comes sideways off the North Sea — umbrellas invert within minutes. A packable rain shell earns its luggage space more than any other single item you'll bring. Worth noting: the city is at its most chaotic on King's Day, April 27, when the entire canal ring turns orange, the streets get sticky with spilled beer, and boat traffic on the Prinsengracht slows to a honking standstill. It's either the best day of the year or the worst, depending on your tolerance for 800,000 extra people in a city built for far fewer. Weekday mornings are when the city feels most like itself — the Jordaan's side streets still carry the smell of fresh bread from the bakeries along Haarlemmerdijk, and the canal water catches that flat grey northern light that makes the old brick facades glow.