Medieval Center and Dam Square

The Schreierstoren, or Weepers Tower, is the last remaining defense tower of Amsterdam’s medieval city wall, built in fourteen eighty-seven. You can identify it by its heavy stone masonry and its position at a distinct junction where the…

Restaurant-Café In de Waag occupies a heavy, castle-like structure in the center of the Nieuwmarkt. Built in fourteen eighty-eight, this stone edifice originally served as the Saint Anthony Gate, one of the three primary entrances into…

The Oude Kerk is recognizable by its massive, dark silhouette rising above the surrounding narrow buildings, topped by a tall bell tower completed in fifteen sixty-five. As the oldest building in Amsterdam, its history began around twelve…

Wynand Fockink Proeflokaal and Spirits is tucked into the Pijlsteeg, a narrow alleyway located just behind the National Monument on Dam Square. You can identify the site by its historic, wood-paneled interior that holds rows of antique…

Dam Square is marked by a twenty-two-meter-tall white stone obelisk, known as the National Monument, which sits directly across from a massive palace. Around twelve seventy, settlers built a dam here across the Amstel River to manage…

The Nieuwe Kerk, or New Church, dominates Dam Square with a scale and Gothic architecture that once served a city bursting at the seams. Consecrated in fourteen oh nine, it was built because the older parish church could no longer hold…

The Royal Palace Amsterdam sits on the west side of Dam Square as a massive stone structure, famously built upon over thirteen thousand wooden piles sunk into the soft ground to support its weight. During the seventeenth century, this…

The Begijnhof is an enclosed, medieval courtyard that sits roughly eighty centimeters below the street level of the surrounding city. You can identify the site by the quiet, residential garden ringed by tall townhouses, which creates a…