Begijnhof

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 sudden, silent break in the noise of central Amsterdam. This space began as a sanctuary for the Beguines, a sisterhood of single and widowed women who lived in community and served the poor without taking formal monastic vows.