Amsterdam Summer Night Walk 2023: Leidseplein

Leidseplein has been a gathering point for outsiders since long before it was Amsterdam's nightlife square. In the 17th century it was where farmers parked their carts before entering the city to trade, named for the Leidsepoort, a city gate built in 1664 that stood here until it was torn down in 1862 to ease traffic. The square only became a genuine cultural landmark in 1894, when the Stadsschouwburg theatre went up on its edge — the building that still anchors Leidseplein today, surrounded now by the terraces and clubs that make it one of the busiest Friday nights in the city.

From the terraces, the walk moves onto Leidsestraat, one of Amsterdam's main shopping streets and, on a Friday night, mostly a route through rather than a destination — trams squeezing past pedestrians on their way toward Koningsplein.

The walk then reaches Reguliersdwarsstraat, which has been the centre of Amsterdam's gay nightlife since around 1980, when the café April opened here and set off a wave of bars and clubs that eventually made this short street one of the best-known gay nightlife strips in Europe.

Nearby sits the Bloemenmarkt, the world's only floating flower market, founded in 1862 — the same year Leidseplein's old city gate finally came down — on houseboats moored along the Singel between Koningsplein and Muntplein. By the time this walk passes, the stalls are shuttered for the night, flowers packed away until morning.

The route was meant to continue to Mercur Casino and on to Rembrandtplein, but the camera died before it got there, cutting the walk off mid-stride on a Friday night that was clearly still getting started.

This is what TravelHubCam is here to show you: not the finished, edited version of a night out, but the real one — a square built on farmers' carts, a street that changed a city's nightlife, a market packing up for the night, and a walk that simply stops when the equipment does.