If you were to have an aerial view of Amsterdam, you would immediately recognise its characteristic street pattern: a city centre surrounded by a ‘singel’, a certain type of town canal and three town canals that run parallel to each other. The canal ring around the city is clearly recognisable on the photographs. This is Amsterdam’s canal ring, a unique historic area laid out according to a structured street plan.

You have now come to Herengracht, the most inwardly of the three city canals. The canal ring was built in the Golden Age – the era in which the Netherlands and Amsterdam flourished, when the rising economic affluence around the year 1600 forced the city to expand. But the expansion had to be both good for the economy and good to look at: buildings could not be constructed any old how, but according to a well-considered street plan. Using its many waterways as transport lines for shipping and allowing plenty of room for fine houses, this expansion eventually produced the ‘Grachtengordel’, this canal ring.