The Open Garden Days (Open Tuinen Dagen)
Not many visitors realize that behind every stately canal house in Amsterdam, there is a garden sometimes so big that is has another small house at the back. As most of these gardens adjoin one to another, they create a vast green space inside each block of canal houses. This space is covered from all sides by the houses and remains not visible from the street.
The old center of Amsterdam with its canals, old houses and tiny streets between, seems cramped beyond imagination. But inside every block of houses, there is a vast space of gardens adjoining one to another with big old trees, flowers, sometimes a pond and even a garden house, often rebuilt from an old carriage house. Some of these trees are more than hundred years old and are today a registered and protected by the law monument. This large green space is usually inaccessible for a visitor. Only visiting the museums located in the canal area as Museum of Bags and Purses or Museum van Loon, which have gardens, you may get a glimpse of this space of green.
Once a year, about thirty private Amsterdam gardens open to the public. In addition, as the only way to get to the gardens is through the house, when visiting the selected gardens you have a chance to feel the atmosphere of the adjoining houses. The Open Garden Days exist now for twenty years. Each year different Amsterdam citizens participate with their houses and gardens, opening them to the public. Usually the event has also a special theme like Garden Designs - by modern Dutch garden designers (in 2007). All the proceeds of this event go to a good cause, usually being a restoration of some public garden.
If you are in Amsterdam in June, do not miss this opportunity to see the beautiful gardens and to meet friendly people who live in Amsterdam canal centre.
Timing
The third weekend of June every year, Friday until Sunday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Venues
Change every year. However, each year the garden of the Museum van Loon is one of the presented gardens, you may always get more information about The Open Garden Days at this museum.
Tickets
A pass to all participating gardens on all three days of the Open Garden Days is € 15.
The pass can be bought at one of the following places - already mentioned Museum Van Loon, Keizersgracht 672; TIN - Theater Museum, Herengracht 168; The Bible Museum, Herengracht 366-368; Huis Marseille, Keizersgracht 401; and Museum Willet-Holthuysen, Herengracht 605.
More information: www.opentuinendagen.nll