Amsterdam's Rooftops

Last week my former roommate from university, Meghan, visited me here in Amsterdam. She had just finished a geological field camp in Spain and Portugal, and took the opportunity to fly up north for a few days. It was so nice having her here, and getting to show her around my new neighbourhood. We visited the van Gogh Museum, the Anne Frank Huis, and toured the majority of the city. We had tea parties in the afternoon with scones from the Bakkerswinkel and cake from De Taart van m'n Tante and watched America's Next Top Model on YouTube. In short, we did all of the girly things that we used to do in university, including shopping extensively on the Kalverstraat.

Koffie at a traditional Amsterdam "bruin cafe"

One of the coolest things we did was climb up the Westertoren on the Prinsengracht. The Westertoren is the tower of the Westerkerk, the church next door to the Anne Frank Huis. It was built in around 1630, and was initially a watch tower. Watchmen would sit atop the tower and search the city for fires. If one was found, they would alert the rest of the city, who would then act as a fire brigade by passing pails of water from the canals to the fire. The tour was given to Meghan, myself, and one other Canadian. For only 6 euros we were allowed to climb up 3/4 of the way and were given a brief lesson on the tower. We saw the original bells that used to ring through the city, and even saw someone's name etched into the wooden beams from 1636!

Westerkerk

The stairs ascending the tower were incredibly steep, twisting, and didn't have hand-rails. Instead, a thick rope hung down from the top of the tower, and we had to use that to pull ourselves up. Just when we thought the stairs couldn't get any steeper, they did. Then they twisted. Then they became more narrow. It was fun climbing up, and we learned that an American man got stuck in the tower last summer.

When we reached the look-out point, we were escorted outside to the balcony. It was incredibly cold and windy up at the top, and we could see 360 degree views of Amsterdam. It was interesting to see the city from a bird's eye view. I had been to the cafes in the Kalvertoren and the Metz department store, both of which have 360 degree views of the city. However, this was outside and much higher than both of the cafes. I really enjoyed seeing the gabled rooftops, the canals, and the houseboats.

This is an activity that is not usually mentioned in tour guide books, and thus, is not busy and packed with tourists. After having visited the majority of tourist attractions in the city, I can honestly say that this was one of the best places I have visited, and would highly recommend it to anyone capable of scaling up and down (going down was the hard part) a beautiful old church tower.

I want to see more of Amsterdam's rooftops...does anyone know of other great "lookout" points in the city?