Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Kalverstraat
This pedestrian-only street is lined with many familiar franchise
stores and record shops. (If you're on a bike, you must dismount
and walk it.) This has been a shop-
ping street for centuries, and today
it's notorious among locals as
the
place for cheesy, crass materialism.
For smaller and more elegant stores,
try the adjacent district called De
Negen Straatjes (“The Nine Little
Streets”), where 190 shops mingle
by the canals (about four blocks
west of Kalverstraat).
•About120yardsalong(justbeforeandacrossfromtheMcDonald's),
pop into...
De Papegaai Hidden Catholic Church
(Petrus en Paulus Kerk)
This Catholic church, while not exactly hidden (after all, you
found it), keeps a low prof ile, even now that Catholicism has
been legalized in Amsterdam. In the late 1500s, with Protestants
fighting Catholics and the Dutch fighting Spanish invaders,
Amsterdam tried to stay neutral, doing business with all parties.
Finally, in 1578, Protestant extremists (following the teachings
of Reformer John Calvin) took political control of the city. They
expelled Catholic leaders and bishops, outlawed the religion, and
allied Amsterdam with anti-Spanish forces in an action known to
historians as the Alteration.
For the next two centuries, Amsterdam's Catholics were
driven underground. Catholicism was illegal but tolerated, as
long as it was practiced not in public, but in humble, unadvertised
places like this. (The stuffed parrot—
papegaai
—hanging in the
nave refers to the house formerly on this site, which had a carving
of a parrot in its gable stone.)
Today, the church, which asks for a mere “15 minutes for
God”
(een kwartier voor God)
, stands as a metaphor for how reli-
gion has long been a marginal part of highly commercial and
secular Amsterdam (free, daily 10:00-16:00).
•Fartheralong(about75yards)at#92,whereKalverstraatcrosses
WijdeKapelSteeg,looktotherightatanarchwayleadingtothe...
entrance and Courtyard of the
Amsterdam History Museum
On the arch is Amsterdam's coat of arms—a red shield with
three Xs and a crown. Not a reference to the city's sex trade, the
X-shaped crosses (which appear everywhere in town) symbolize
