Keep an eye out for the bronze relief of a hand cupping a breast among the cobblestones outside the church door.
Amsterdam’s Oude Kerk was consecrated over 700 years ago. Before the Reformation of 1578, it was a Roman Catholic church; afterwards, it became an important centre of Calvinism, and remains so today.
The church is set in a square called Oudekerksplein, situated at the edge of the city’s red light district. The square is overlooked by prostitutes’ windows, and is adorned by a 2007 bronze statue named Belle, inscribed with the message ‘Respect sex workers all over the world:’ an arresting conjunction of the city’s oldest building and its oldest profession.
Oude Kerk’s sober Protestant interior makes for a contrast to the city’s Roman Catholic churches. It hosts a magnificent Baroque organ, and its medieval wooden vault ceiling is the largest in Europe, providing extremely good acoustics.
Owing to its previous use as a cemetery, the church floor remarkably consists entirely of gravestones: Johannes Vermeer, perhaps the foremost artist of the Golden Age, is buried here among many other Dutch notables. Rembrandt was a frequent visitor, and the church holds the tomb of his wife Saskia van Uylenburgh.
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