East of the centre Travel Guide

East of Rembrandtplein across the Amstel, the large, squat Muziektheater and Town Hall - dubbed the "Stopera" after the 1980s campaign to stop the construction of an opera house here - flank Waterlooplein , home to the city's excellent flea market. Behind, Jodenbreestraat was once the main street of the Jodenhoek, the city's Jewish quarter (emptied by the Nazis in the 1940s) and is the site of the Rembrandt House at no.4 (Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 1-5pm; €6.80; www.rembrandthuis.nl ), which the painter bought at the height of his fame, living here for over twenty years. The interior was renovated in 1999 and displays a huge number of the artist's engravings. Close by, the most tangible mementoes of the Jewish community are shown in the Portuguese Synagogue (Mon-Fri & Sun 10am-4pm; closed Yom Kippur; €3.40), completed in 1675 and once the largest synagogue in the world. Across the way, the excellent, award-winning Jewish Historical Museum (daily 11am-5pm; closed Yom Kippur; €3.60; www.jhm.nl ) is cleverly housed in a complex of Ashkenazi synagogues dating from the late seventeenth century and gives a broad and imaginative introduction to Jewish life and beliefs.

Down Muiderstraat from here, the prim Hortus Botanicus , Plantage Middenlaan 2 (Mon-Fri 9am-4/5pm, Sat & Sun 11am-4/5pm; €3.40), is a pocket-sized botanical garden whose 8000 plant species make a wonderfully relaxed break from the rest of central Amsterdam; stop off for coffee and cakes in the orangery. Some 400m down Plantage Middenlaan, and entered off Plantage Kerklaan, is the Zoo (daily 9am-5/6pm; €12.70; www.artis.nl ). Across the street from the zoo stands the eye-catching Plancius Building, which houses the Dutch Resistance Museum , Plantage Kerklaan 2 (Tues-Fri 10am-5pm, Sat & Sun noon-5pm; €3.60). Here a variety of exhibits depict the ways in which the Dutch people opposed Nazi oppression. A short walk northwest, the Maritime Museum on Kattenburgerplein (Tues-Sun 10am-5pm; €6.60; www.scheepvaartmuseum.nl ), housed in a fortress-like seventeenth-century arsenal, has maps, navigational equipment and weapons, though the most impressive exhibits are the large models of sailing ships and men-of-war plus the replica of an old clipper outside in the harbour.