Western Central Area, Amsterdam

In this house, known now as the House of Anne Frank, on the Prinsengracht the Frank family, Jewish refugees from Frankfurt, hid from the Germans with a few friends between 1942 and 1944. Here Anne Frank wrote her famous diary, which has been translated into 51 languages. The final entry is for 1 August 1944. On 4 August they were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Only Anne's father, Otto Frank, survived; Anne herself died in Bergen- Belsen two months before the end of the war. In 1957 the house was given by its owner to the Anne Frank foundation. The foundation had it restored and turned it into a meeting place for young people of all nationalities. The front part of the house contains exhibitions of material documenting the persecution of the Jews under the Third Reich and publications on neo-Nazi movements the world over. The back of the house, where the Frank family had their hiding place, has been kept as far as possible in its original state.

More than 1,000 trains, including 50 international trains, travel in and out of Amsterdam's central station every day. Its architect was P. J. H. Cuypers (also the architect of the Rijksmuseum) and it was built on three artificial islands and 8,687 piles. On the north side of the station (de Ruijterkade), facing the harbor, are the moorings of numerous motorboats and ferries. The need for the station became apparent when in 1860 Amsterdam was linked to Alkmaar and Den Helder to the north. The public joined in its opening in 1889 with considerable enthusiasm and bought as many as 14,000 platform tickets for the occasion. The station building, which has an especially interesting Art Nouveau first-class waiting-room, also received international attention, and when in 1900 the Japanese were looking for a model for Tokyo station they opted for Amsterdam.

The Dam, with the Royal Palace and the national monument, is no longer either geographically or administratively the center of Amsterdam, but has remained the heart of the city. It was the Dam which gave the city its name: built about 1270, it separated the Amstel from the IJ (an arm of the Zuiderzee. Amsterdam's history began here with the founding of the original settlement trading in fish and cattle. As in the past, the people of Amsterdam still assemble on the Dam for official events. In its early days a small market grew up on the square known, in accordance with medieval custom, as the "Plaetse", and today the square still retains its market character.

From the Nieuwmarkt Kloveniersburgwal runs south-west. Off its western side opens Koestraat, at Nos. 10-12 of which is the Wijnkopersgildehuis. Three houses built in 1551 were combined into one in 1611 and then rebuilt between 1633 and 1655. The gable and doorway were built by Pieter de Keyser (1633). The main feature of the interior is the Guild Hall.

From the Dam the broad Damrak, one of the main traffic arteries of the city center, runs north-east to the Central Station, passing on the right the Commercial Exchange, an imposing brick building by H. P. Berlage (1899-1903) which set the pattern for modern Dutch architecture.

Exhibition commemorating the Dutch writer Multatuli, whose real name was Eduard Douwes Dekker (1820-1887), and who in his freethinking, humanitarian novels (including "Max Havelaar or The Dutch on Java"), sharply attacked the Dutch colonial system.

At the Netherlands Crafts Center it is still possible to see demonstrations of crafts such as cheese-making, glass-blowing, making clogs, pewter work, lead glazing, painting Delft china, pottery, silver-working, spinning and weaving.THIS ATTRACTION IS CLOSED.

From the Schreierstoren a narrow stret, Oudezilds Kolk, leads south-west into the Zeedijk, one of Amsterdam's oldest streets, with many houses leaning at an angle from the vertical. At No. 1 is a 15th century house which is thought to be the oldest surviving building in the city.

Spaarpottenmuseum contains a collection of more than 12,000 money boxes from all over the world.

The Noorderkerk (1620-23), has a ground-plan in the form of a Greek cross.