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The oldest church in Amsterdam has been altered and extended over the years, producing a heavenly jumble of architectural styles from medieval to Renaissance (see Oude Kerk).

This vast open square has been a marketplace since the 15th century, and is still the scene of a Sunday antiques market in summer. Alone in the middle stands the bulky Waag (1488), bristling with turrets. The eastern gate in the city’s defences, it was originally called St Antoniespoort. In the 17th century it became a weigh-house and home to numerous guilds, including the surgeons’. It was here that Rembrandt painted his famousAnatomy Lesson of Dr Tulp , now in the Mauritshuis, The Hague. There were few problems acquiring bodies for dissection, since public executions took place in the Nieuwmarkt.

Major refurbishment has recreated the interior as it might have been in Rembrandt’s time. Of special interest are pictures by his master, Pieter Lastman. One room contains exotic collectibles of the day – busts of Roman emperors, spears and shells – as well as Rembrandt’s precious art books and an inventory of his effects (see Rembrandt and The Night Watch).

Built in the early 1300s, the Zeedijk (sea dyke) was part of Amsterdam’s original fortifications. As the city grew the canals were filled in and the dykes became obsolete. At No. 1 is one of the city’s two remaining woodenfronted houses, dating from the 16th century. It is not open to the public. Opposite is St Olofskapel, built in 1445 and named after the first Christian king of Norway and Denmark.

The world’s oldest profession aptly occupies Amsterdam’s oldest quarter, de Walletjes (“the little walls”), bordered by Zeedijk, Kloveniersburgwal, Damstraat and Warmoesstraat. Today, the district is one of the city’s greatest tourist attractions, with scantily clad prostitutes, pouting or indifferent, sitting in windows or lolling in doorways along Oudezijds Voorburgwal and the lanes off it. At night these lanes become the haunts of junkies and pickpockets, and are best avoided.

With the Dutch penchant for clever wordplay, the Stadhuis-Muziektheater is better known as “Stopera” because it combines thestadhuis (town hall) with the headquarters of the city opera and ballet companies. A brutal design in red brick, marble and glass, it was built in 1987 amid intense controversy, since scores of medieval houses, among Jodenbuurt’s few remnants, had to be destroyed in the process. In the passage between Stopera’s two buildings, a bronze button indicates the exact NAP (Normaal Amsterdams Peil ) water level.

Abel Cahen’s prize-winning design for the Jewish Historical Museum (1987) is a perfect marriage of old and new: the four synagogues that house it, built by Ashkenazi Jews during the 17th and 18th centuries, are linked by glass-covered internal walkways. Highlights of the exhibition, which is concerned with all aspects of Jewish life, are the Holy Ark (1791), focus of the Nieuwe Synagoge, the illuminated Haggadah manuscript (1734), and Elias Bouman’s airy 17th-century Grote Synagoge (see Jewish Sights).

The Sephardic Jews, who settled in Amsterdam from the late 16th century, celebrated their new lives in a tolerant society a century later by commissioning Elias Bouman to build this imposing synagogue. It follows a traditional design with the Hechal (Holy Ark), facing Jerusalem, opposite the tebah, from where the cantor leads the service (see Jewish Sights).

Seen through a cloud of incense, exhibits in this tiny but fascinating museum chart the history of hemp (marijuana) from its earliest use some 8,000 years ago to the 20th-century drug wars. Ashennep , it was used in Holland for making lace, linens, fishing nets and fabric for sails, and processed by special windmills calledhennepkloppers . There are displays about smuggling, an array of hookahs and reefers, and a “grow room” where plants are cultivated.

A fortified tower, the Montelbaanstoren was built in 1512 on the eastern edge of Amsterdam, just outside the city wall. Its original purpose was to defend the Dutch fleet; now, more prosaically, it houses the Amsterdam water authority. The open-work steeple was added by the ubiquitous Hendrick de Keyser in 1606, when the city fathers felt that they could at last afford the icing on the cake. It overlooks the lovely Oude Schans, a canal that also dates from the early 16th century, dug to improve access for ships.