Vondelpark

Vondelpark is Amsterdam's best-known urban park, laid out in 1865 as a public English-landscape garden and named after Dutch playwright Joost van den Vondel. Covering 47 hectares with meandering ponds and mature tree stands, it offers a green counterweight to the dense canal-belt city surrounding it. In the early 1970s the city briefly permitted camping on its lawns, turning the park into a gathering point for the international hippie movement — a chapter still associated with its identity. Today locals use it daily for cycling, running, and picnicking; the Art Nouveau pavilion houses a café, and the open-air theater runs a free program of concerts and children's shows from June through August.

English landscape garden in the middle of Amsterdam — 12 million visitors a year, open-air theatre, running loops, picnic lawns.