Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
well as British, Scottish, and Irish flags. The Red Light District
is a very popular destination for Brits—who are just a cheap flight
away from Amsterdam—and the money-savvy Dutch know their
best customers.
At #97 is the Elements of Nature Smartshop, a little grocery
store of mind-bending natural ingredients.
At #89, Mr. B's Leather and Rubber Land, marked by the
S&M flag, takes macho to painful and what seems like anatomi-
cally impossible extremes. Downstairs you'll find great deals on
whips and masks.
• Now, backtrack a few steps, and head down to the church.
Old Church (Oude Kerk)
Returning from a long sea voyage, sailors of yore would spy the stee-
ple of the Old Church on the horizon and know they were home.
They thanked St. Nicholas—the
patron of this church, seafarers, and
Amsterdam—for their safe return.
Begun in about 1300 and dedi-
cated to St. Nicholas, the gangly
church was built in f its and starts
during the next 300 years. Even
when the rival New Church (Nieuwe
Kerk) was built on Dam Square,
Amsterdam's oldest church still had
the tallest spire, biggest organ, and
most side-altars, and remained the
neighborhood's center of activity,
bustling inside and out with merchants and street markets.
The tower (290 feet high, with an octagonal steeple atop a
bell tower), which still has original 14th-century components, was
updated in the 18th century and served as a model for many other
Dutch churches. The carillon's 47 bells chime mechanically or can
be played by one of Amsterdam's three official carillonneurs.
Today, there's not much to see inside (but if you're inter-
ested and don't mind paying the €5 entry fee, you can reach the
entrance by going around the right side of the church, circling it
counterclockwise). Of the 2,500 gravestones in the floor, the most
famous is opposite the entrance: “Saskia 19 Juni 1642,” the grave
of Rembrandt's wife. The church is spacious and stripped-down,
due to iconoclastic vandals. In the 16th century, rioting anti-
Spanish Protestants gutted the church, smashed windows, and
removed politically incorrect “graven images” (religious statues).
One renowned girl threw her shoe at the Virgin statue. (Strict
Calvinists at one point even removed the organ as a senseless
luxury, until they found they couldn't stay on key singing hymns
