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the station was built to Cuypers’ design, but it was to be his last major commission; thereafter he spent most of his time building parish churches. Whatever you think about the building it’s a nice place to arrive. Its grand arches and cavernous main hall have a suitable sense of occasion, and from here all of the city lies before you – though for the moment Stationsplein itself is a pretty unprepossessing introduction: a messy open space, edged by ovals of water, packed with trams and dotted with barrel organs, chip stands and street performers in summer, and currently in the throes of a massive redevelopment (see "Old times, new times").

The Old Centre | Damrak and the Nieuwe Zijde |

St Nicolaaskerk

Across the water from Stationsplein, on Prins Hendrikkade, rise the twin towers and dome of St Nicolaaskerk (Mon & Sat noon–3pm, Tues–Fri 11am–4pm; free), the city’s foremost Catholic church, dedicated to the patron saint of sailors – and of Amsterdam. Like the station, it dates back to the 1880s; the cavernous interior holds some pretty dire religious murals, mawkish concoctions only partly relieved by swathes of coloured brickwork. Above the high altar is the crown of the Habsburg Emperor Maximilian, very much a symbol of the city and one you’ll see again and again. Amsterdam had close ties with Maximilian; in the late fifteenth century he came here as a pilgrim and stayed on to recover from an illness. The burghers funded many of his military expeditions, and in return he let the city use his crown in its coat of arms – a practice which, rather surprisingly, survived the seventeenth-century revolt against Spain.

The Old Centre | Damrak and the Nieuwe Zijde |

The Schreierstoren

Just around the corner from St Nicolaaskerk, at the top of the Geldersekade canal, is the squat Schreierstoren (Weepers’ Tower), a rare surviving chunk of the city’s medieval wall. Originally, the tower overlooked the River IJ and it was here that women gathered to watch their menfolk sail away, though like many good stories this is apparently apocryphal: “Schreierstoren” refers to the sharp angle – the “schreye” – at which it was built, rather than the weeping women. Nonetheless, an old and weathered stone plaque inserted in the wall is a reminder of all those supposed sad farewells, and another much more recent plaque recalls the departure of Henry Hudson from here in 1609. On this particular voyage Hudson stumbled across the “Hudson” river and an island the locals called Manhattan. The colony that grew up there became known as New Amsterdam, a colonial possession that was only renamed New York after the English seized it in 1664. These days the Schreierstoren houses a small café with a terrace overlooking the canal.

The Old Centre | Damrak and the Nieuwe Zijde |

The Sex Museum

The first real sight along Damrak, if you can call it that, is the Amsterdam Sex Museum (daily 9.30am–11.30pm; €3), a surprisingly large museum, and very popular given its position designed to draw in the tourist hordes in search of all the titillation the city has to offer. It’s reasonably entertaining, depicting the history of pin-ups, sex and erotica through the centuries, with lots of Victorian porn photos, explicit private porn collections from the 1950s and 1960s and some genuinely antique items – nineteenth – century ivory dildos, Indian prints, ancient Roman sculpture and a room devoted to Japanese erotica. There’s also an ever-running reel of grainy old movies and a (fairly hardcore) “fetish” room. Not for the prudish.

The Old Centre | Damrak and the Nieuwe Zijde |

The Beurs

Just beyond the harbour at Damrak 277 is the imposing bulk of the Beurs, the old Stock Exchange (opening hours and admission depend on exhibitions; guided tours can be arranged on 020/620 8112; www.beursvanberlage.nl) – known as the “Beurs van Berlage” – a seminal work designed at the turn of the twentieth century by the leading light of the Dutch Modern movement, Hendrik Petrus Berlage (1856–1934). Berlage rerouted Dutch architecture with this building, forsaking the historicism