Heading east from Central Station, you do not need to go far along Prins Hendrikkade before you arrive at the Schreierstoren (Tower of Tears) at Nos. 94 – 95. This is the oldest surviving tower in Amsterdam and was built in 1482 as part of the city walls. The tower got its name from the sailors’ wives and lovers who would stand here sadly as they watched their menfolk depart on voyages that could last months or years, and who might learn of the death of their partners when their ship returned.

The Schreierstoren stands at the head of a pretty canal side outlook, down Oudezijds Kolk towards Zeedijk, and along Geldersekade towards Nieuwmarkt. Today it houses an atmospheric bar – it could hardly be otherwise, given the setting – called the VOD Café, which takes its name from the Dutch initials for the United East India Company. It has attached to it three clues to Amsterdam’s nautical past.

A 1927 tablet from the Greenwich Village Historical Society commemorates Henry Hudson’s departure from here in 1609, the beginning of a long voyage to what is now New York and the Hudson River. Another tablet, from 1569, shows a weeping woman and a ship weighing anchor. The third was placed in 1945 and reads: Eerste schipvaart naar Oostindi’1595 (First voyage to the East Indies, 1595).

Further along Prins Hendrikkade, across Waals-Eilandsgracht, is the massive and exuberant Scheepvaarthuis (Maritime House), an appropriate name for a building that overlooks the Oosterdok (Eastern Docklands), even if it doesn’t date from the city’s seagoing heyday. Build in 1915, it was designed as shipping-company offices by Jo van der Mey, an architect of the Amsterdam School that flourished in the early 20th century. This was not only the building that launched the style, it is also one of its finest expressions. Internally and externally, the building’s lively, imaginative and humorous seafaring motifs and decorations recount Amsterdam’s maritime history in delightful detail.

Bas-reliefs of ships, chains, anchors, whales, dolphins, seals and mermaids ornament the façade, and the railings ripple like waves. Four female forms on the cornices represent the cardinal compass points, and above the entrance is an image of the constellation Ursa Major (the Great Bear, or the Plough). The edifice now houses offices of the municipal transport company, GVB Amsterdam, but there are plans afoot, though not yet approved, to turn it into a luxury hotel.

Admiral Michiel Adriaensz de Ruyter (1607 – 1676), a naval hero credited with making the Dutch navy powerful enough to overcome British and French fleets, lived at 131 Prins Hendrikkade. A frieze over the front door commemorates him. De Ruyter is buried in the Nieuwe Kerk.

Landward from here, on the south side of Waals-Eilandsgracht was an important area known as the Lastage, the site of the city’s earliest shipbuilding yards. These lay outside the now vanished defensive walls. You can pinpoint this locality by visiting the Montelbaanstoren, in a scenic location a short walk along the west bank of Oude Schans.

This tower was constructed in 1512 as a fortification to protect the Lastage, which was a vital element in the prosperity of a town that depended so much on shipping and shipbuilding. Its decorative spire was added in 1606 by Hendrick de Keyser, the architect responsible for many of Amsterdam’s other pinnacles, not to mention some of its finest buildings.

Behind the tower is the old Lastage area. Along the narrow Recht Boomsloot canal are converted warehouses that display some fine exmplaes of spout, neck and bell gables. At No. 22, a monumental stairway leads to a warehouse that in 1714 was converted to an Amenian church. Binnen Bantammerstraat leads across Geldersekade into the Red Light District.