3 Best Sights in Nieuwmarkt, Amsterdam

Rembrandt loved to sketch this slightly leaning redbrick tower, which was built in 1516 as part of the city's defenses. In 1606, the Dutch sculptor and architect Hendrick de Keyser oversaw the addition of an octagonal brick superstructure and spire complete with clockworks that was known as Malle Jaap (Crazy Jaap) by locals because the bells pealed at odd times. The year 1610 saw the tower embark on a lean too far, and with lots of manpower and ropes it was reset on a stronger foundation. From 1878 to 2006, it housed the City Water Office. Today it's the office of a company that rents out classic saloon boats (captain included).

Built in 1488, the Waag functioned as a city gate, Sint Antoniespoort, until 1617. It would be closed at exactly 9:30 pm to keep out not only bandits but also the poor and diseased who squatted outside the city's walls. When Amsterdam expanded, the structure began a second life as a weigh house for incoming goods. The top floor of the building accommodated the municipal militia and several guilds, including the stonemasons, who did the evocative decorations that grace each of the seven towers' entrances. One tower housed a teaching hospital for the Surgeons' Guild. The Theatrum Anatomicum (Anatomy Theater), with its cupola tower covered in painted coats of arms, was the first place in the Netherlands to host public autopsies; for obvious reasons, these took place only in the winter. The building is now occupied by Restaurant-Café In De Waag and the Waag Society (Institute for Art, Science, and Technology).

As family home to the two Trip brothers, who made their fortune in the arms trade during the 17th-century Golden Age, this noted house's buckshot-gray exterior and various armament motifs—including mortar-shape chimneys—designed by Justus Vingboons, are easily explained. But the Corinthian-columned facade actually covers two symmetrical buildings (the dividing wall is positioned behind the middle windows), one for each brother, making it the widest residence (at 72 feet) in Amsterdam. From 1817 to 1885 it housed the national museum or Rijksmuseum and is now the home of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Be sure to look across the canal to No. 26, the white building topped with golden sphinxes and dated 1696, which is known as the "Little Trip House." The story goes that Mr. Trip's coachman remarked that he would be happy with a house as wide as the Trippenhuis door. By way of response, Mr. Trip is alleged to have built just that with the leftover bricks. In reality, the domicile was constructed six decades after the Trip mansion, after both of the brothers had already died, possibly as a way to squeeze a house into an existing alleyway. There are a few other very narrow houses in Amsterdam, too: the narrowest rear gable is at Singel 7 at only 3 feet wide, and the building on Oude Hoogstraat 22 is only 7 feet wide and 19 feet deep.