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Photo: Remi Mathis, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
One of the oldest museums in Amsterdam, this is a Catholic church stuffed into the upper stories of a house built in 1663, when Catholics were persecuted and had to disguise their churches. It's amazing to see how they fit worshippers, an organ, and an altar into such a narrow place.
Ons' Lieve Heer op Solder is a 17th-century canal house, house church, and museum in the city center of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The Catholic church was built on the top three floors of the canal house during the 1660s. It is an important example of a "schuilkerk", or "clandestine church" in which Catholics and other religious dissenters from the seventeenth-century Dutch Reformed Church, unable to worship in public, held services. The church has been open as a museum since 28 April 1888, and has 85,000 visitors annually.
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The oldest of the five main churches in the historic centre, and probably the oldest building in Amsterdam. It is right in the heart of the Red Light District. You can climb the tower from April to September on Saturday and Sunday, every half-hour. Also open in the winter by group appointment (maximum 10 people) cost €70 per hour. E-mail for more information.
Take a guided tour and check out the view from the top of the old stock exchange tower. It was built in 1903 (by Hendrik Petrus Berlage) and is considered the beginning of modern Dutch architecture. Costs €3.50, located on Beursplein near Dam Square.
The latest gimmicky tourist attraction near the Centraal Station, it's a small museum about medieval torture and torture devices. In the Middle Ages, torture was a widely known punishment for almost all crimes committed, ranging from rape to murder, and above all for heresy. The type of punishment depended on the victim's crime and social status. The Museum of Medieval Torture Instruments displays over 100 devices used to torture people. Before its make-over, it used to be the Vodka Museum; the vodka shop is still open in the basement with free entry.
The largest and most prestigious museum for sex art and sex history in the Netherlands. It shows a lot of sex oddities. Only ages 16 and up are allowed entry.
This beautiful building is an attraction in itself, so if you did not arrive in Amsterdam by train, it is well worth making a special trip to look at the station's facade. The station was built between 1881 and 1889 on three artificial islands. It was designed by Pierre Cuypers who also designed the Rijksmuseum in a similar neo-late-Gothic/Renaissance style. At the time, the project was highly controversial as the new station would effectively cut off the city from the IJ waterfront. Politicians in The Hague pushed it through anyway, and now it is widely regarded as the most beautiful station in the country.
Opened for over twenty years, the Hash Museum is dedicated to debunking the lies and demonization about one of our most useful plants, the hemp plant. Although small, busy and seriously overpriced, it is a well-done museum where people go to get informed.