Old City Food Tour

Exploring your city's Historic Food Trails

Overview

It may be really hard to imagine your city without a single supermarket; however, several cities used to supply food to their inhabitants without having supermarkets or megastores. In the OLD CITY FOOD TOUR we travel back in time to explore the history of the city through the lens of food culture. The tour shows the relationship in between urban development and food systems by explaining the story of specific locations, which are grouped by historical period. These locations used to host food related activities in the past, having either a function in food processing or food supply. Viewing the city through the lens of food chains also uncovers political, economical and social changes of the urban environment. Hopefully the tour also helps participants to realize the constant changes in our contemporary city and raise awareness on food systems, which are usually taken for granted. In the last year, CITIES has been conducting this kind of research on Amsterdam, designing an “Old Amsterdam Food Tour” taking place several times per month. We designed two tours, one by bike and one on foot.

In the Old Amsterdam Food Tour we travel back in time to see how the city was born and developed in order to secure food provison for its inhabitants.

We offer a walking tour and a bike tour. In the walking tour, we walk through the old city centre to explore the earliest food history of Amsterdam. The bike tour leads along the 19th century urban fringe, exploring the history of food during the industrial revolution.

The tour takes 2 hours and costs €20 p.p. Children under 12 can join the tour for free. Tours are usually given for groups from 10 to 20 people.

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