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extending north from Rozengracht to Westerstraat form the heart of the Jordaan and provide the district’s prettiest moments. Beyond Rozengracht, the first canal is the Bloemgracht (Flower Canal), a leafy waterway dotted with houseboats and traversed by dinky little bridges, its network of cross-streets sprinkled with cafés, bars and quirky shops. There’s a warm, relaxed community atmosphere here which is really rather beguiling, not to mention a clutch of fine old canal houses. Pride of architectural place goes to nos. 87–91, a sterling Renaissance building of 1642 complete with mullion windows, three crowstep gables, brightly painted shutters and distinctive facade stones, representing a steeman (city-dweller), a landman (farmer) and a seeman (sailor). Nos. 83–85 next door were built a few decades later – two immaculately maintained canal houses adorned by the bottleneck gables typical of the period.

The Jordaan and Western docklands | The Jordaan |

Egelantiersgracht

On picturesque Egelantiersgracht (Rose-Hip Canal) at no. 12 is ’t Smalle, one of Amsterdam’s oldest cafés, opened in 1786 as a proeflokaal – a tasting house for the (long-gone) gin distillery next door. In the eighteenth century, when quality control was erratic to say the least, each batch of jenever (Dutch gin) could turn out very differently, so customers insisted on a taster before they splashed out. As a result, each distillery ran a proeflokaal offering free samples, and this is a rare survivor. The café’s waterside terrace remains an especially pleasant and popular spot to take a tipple (see "De Zotte Proeflokaal").

Right on the corner of Egelantiersgracht, the Amsterdam Tulip Museum (daily 10am–6pm; €3) is truly more of a shop than a museum, and sells all sorts of flower-related items in its upstairs shop. But it does sell bulbs too, and the downstairs exhibition space gives a brief but moderately interesting introduction to this very Dutch phenomenon, with lots of detail on the speculative bubble in tulip prices during the Golden Age.

The Jordaan and Western docklands | The Jordaan |

Westerstraat

A narrow cross-street – 1e Egelantiersdwarsstraat and its continuation 1e Tuindwarsstraat and 1e Anjeliersdwarsstraat – runs north from Egelantiersgracht to workaday Westerstraat, a busy thoroughfare, which is home to the small but charming Pianola Museum (Sun 2–5pm; €5; www.pianola.nl), at no. 106, whose collection of pianolas and automatic music-machines dates from the beginning of the twentieth century. Fifteen have been restored to working order, and there are usually one or two playing throughout the afternoon, which are a delight to watch. These machines, which work on rolls of perforated paper, were the jukeboxes of their day, and the museum has a vast archive of over 15,000 rolls of music, some of which were “recorded” by famous pianists and composers – Gershwin, Debussy, Scott Joplin, Art Tatum and others. The museum runs a programme of pianola music concerts throughout the year (except July/Aug), where the rolls are played back on restored machines (exact times are listed on their website). Nearby, hidden behind a white doorway, is the largest of the Jordaan’s hofjes(see "The Jordaan"), the Karthuizerhofje, Karthuizersstraat 89–171, a substantial courtyard complex established as a widows’ hospice in the middle of the seventeenth century, though the present buildings are much more recent. With its picket-fenced gardens and old ornate waterpumps, it makes an appealing, peaceful diversion.

Bloemgracht

The Jordaan and Western docklands | The Jordaan |

The Noorderkerk

At the east end of Westerstraat, overlooking the Prinsengracht, is Hendrick de Keyser’s Noorderkerk (Mon, Thurs & Sat 11am–1pm; free), the architect’s last creation and probably his least successful, finished two years after his death in 1623. A bulky, overbearing brick building, it represented a radical departure from the conventional church designs of the time, having a symmetrical Greek cross floor plan, with four equally proportioned arms radiating out from a steepled