When I walk inside, the church seems enormous; the columns so tall and the space so vast that it's a bit like being outdoors. Painted on the wooden ceiling far above my head there is a gilded, blue robed Madonna, who watches the sparse traffic impassively. There are just a small handful of other visitors at this hour, their muffled footsteps the only sound in the church.

The interior is surprisingly Spartan: oak pews are lined up in front of the altar, but everything else seems to be made of cold, gray stone. There are no tapestries, reliquaries, statues, chalices or candles. The glory and pageantry I expected in a church so historic is missing - it feels very empty. In a way, it has barely changed since a fateful day in 1578.

Amsterdam and the Netherlands are so renowned for their tolerance that it's hard to imagine the incredible religious and political upheaval that marked the country in the late sixteenth century. Dutch Calvinists swept through the country, high on victory and anti-Catholic zeal, gutting churches and destroying anything that suggested idolatry and the papacy. Churches like Oude Kerk became shells, leftover husks of their former selves.

Using my little map, I wander in the cold, echoing space. There are giant rectangular stones underfoot, some with writing and beautiful images, some very plain except for a number. Historically, the city's wealthiest families would pay a substantial sum to bury their dead under the church floor. Naturally, there was only so much Oude Kerk to go around, and when demand for hallowed ground went up (for instance during war or epidemic), the church got a little creative. The usual solution was to contact the family and offer to buy back the plot for a respectable amount of money. If they agreed, their loved one's mortal remains would be returned. Then a new tenant would be deposited in the ground and a healthy sum deposited in the church coffers. Far from a final resting-place, it seems more like condo for the dead.

Close to the organ, I find what I am looking for. It was here, on this very spot in 1642 that the painter Rembrandt laid his beloved wife Saskia to rest, under a cold stone tablet in Oude Kerk.

The Master

It is getting close to lunchtime, and my feet are starting to hurt. Cutting across the Eastern Canal ring, I pass the Six Collection on the Amstel. This museum houses one of the most beautiful collections of silver, porcelain and furnishings in the city, and is named for the famous family who amassed it. Jan Six was a poet, and a much younger man than Rembrandt. Nevertheless, the pair formed an unlikely friendship: Six asked the artist to illustrate the frontispiece for a play he had written; Rembrandt painted Six and members of his (very wealthy) family.

There was a creative rivalry, too. Rembrandt once bet his friend that he could complete a sketch of a canal bridge in the time it took Jan's servant to run into town and buy a pot of mustard. Whether this is a comment on the speed of the painter or the now forgotten servant will have to remain a mystery. As I pass the museum and continue down Nieuwe Spiegelstraat, I can feel the credit cards in my wallet fairly vibrating as I pass the window displays: jewelry, leather, shoes (oh, the shoes!), and fashion in sleek, trendy displays line the street. After several blocks (and several near misses with kamikaze cyclists), spires appear over the tops of the other buildings: the roof of the Rijksmuseum.

The Rijksmuseum is a piece of history in and of itself. Built in 1885, it houses the world's best collection of Dutch art, with so many rooms full of paintings, Asiatic art, furnishings, textiles and ceramics that you will need a trail of breadcrumbs to find your way out again. Vincent van Gogh came here to study the masters. He was a great fan of Franz Hals and Rembrandt, and sketched their paintings often. It is fitting that Vincent Van Gogh's own museum now stands just a stone's throw away on Museumplein.

There is such a wealth of history and art here that a complete tour would easily take an entire day, if not more. Tearing myself away, I navigate through the gallery rooms and up the marble staircase to the second floor. On my left, through the glass doors, I find it hanging huge and striking against a great teal blue wall: The Night Watch.

This is Rembrandt's most famous canvas - there is a perpetual swarm of people in front of it, pointing and murmuring reverently. I have to shoulder my way into the current before I can stand in front of it. Next to me, an older man kneels by his two grandchildren. "This", I hear him whisper in a thick accent, "is a Rembrandt". Two pairs of blue eyes stare up at the painting, as if they have just been introduced to a very important stranger, one who might not have a sense of humor.

Close up, the canvas is so big that your eyes can't take it all in. Instead they follow light, on the faces, along gun barrels, down a sash and back up again. If you look to your left and right, you can see what makes this painting unique: formal portraits, commissioned by the wealthy members of civic organizations, show their members seated in starchy positions wearing stiff lace ruffs. Next to these, the Night Watch is spontaneous and warm; the men almost seem to be acting out part of a legend. They are figures from a myth.

From brilliance to bankruptcy

Retracing my steps, I pass through the sidewalk tunnel that stretches under the Rijksmuseum. This is a favorite venue for the city's street performers, as much for the acoustics as for the cover from the elements. I watch a group of Tibetan singers who stand in a knot of bright clothing, their voices and song rolling through the vault in waves, while further on, a young man in a natty tuxedo plays Beethoven on violin. I could linger all day but, true to my itinerary, it is time to visit Rembrandt at home.

Rembrandt's house on Jodenbreestraat has been restored lovingly. It is smaller inside than I expect. The floors are black and white marble, the wooden stairs viciously steep and twisting. I marvel at how anyone could have made ascending the stairs here a daily ritual - how did Saskia do it, in her heavy skirts and small shoes?

This is the place Rembrandt spent some of his best years. He lived here with his wife, had several children, gave art lessons in the attic, entertained buyers in the downstairs parlor, painted some of his most famous canvases and surrounded himself with a vast collection of art, books and treasures.

It was also where he spent some of his worst years. It was here that three of those children died, as did his wife, who succumbed to tuberculosis, breathing her last under this very roof. And it was here that he saw his financial ruin; first spending much of his late wife's money, then getting so far into debt that it ultimately required filing bankruptcy to stave off the creditors. But even this came with a price.

The manifest the Museum Het Rembrandthuis used to reconstruct the home's original interior came from the records of 16th century government auditors, the taxman if you will. To settle with the painter's creditors, they confiscated much of the family's property to be sold at auction. As he and his teenaged son Titus watched, these strangers searched through every room in their home, scribbling notes in their ledgers. They took paintings, etchings, furniture, books, Rembrandt's collection of seashells and coral, Indian and European weapons, Javanese shadow puppets, a bust of Augustus, a Japanese helmet, musical instruments from all over the world, a stuffed bird of paradise from New Guinea. Casting their cold, appraising eyes over items both common and dear, they packed everything off, leaving the home the family had known for almost twenty years like it had been devoured by locusts. Even Saskia's mortal remains weren't safe: Rembrandt finally caved in to financial pressure and sold her expensive plot at Oude Kerk to protect what little he and Titus had left.

Watching at Night

After a few blocks of people watching, I arrive at the Waag for dinner. Once part of the city's medieval defenses, and later a site for public executions, this impressive brick building with its turrets and thick glass windows is now a popular restaurant.

I get a seat by the window. The chairs and tables are simple and wooden, and there is not a single electric light - the restaurant's stark interior is lit with hundreds of white candles.

In 1619, the Waag was used as offices by many of the city's guilds. Guilds acted much like unions do today: they set prices, lobbied the government, and looked out for the welfare of their members. The Surgeons Guild had rooms upstairs here, as well as an operating theatre. Curiously, autopsies held here were attended by both the learning elite and members of the general public, who were permitted to come for the entertainment value. (Remembering this, I consider just having a salad for dinner.) This was where one of Rembrandt's most famous paintings, "The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp", was hung. Tulp, or Tulip for the flower which hung over his door and graced his coat of arms, was a fixture in Amsterdam, another of the painter's influential friends during the good years.

It seems there is almost no place in this city one cannot find his stamp. I sip my wine and look out the window.

There is a profound sense of history in Amsterdam: Calvinists and Catholics battled here, fortunes were made and lost on the price of a tulip, Oriental language, color, spices, and silks choked the docks, Nazi soldiers marched in the streets and Jewish families hid in the attics. There exists an entire panorama of the human experience along these narrow canals. There have been millions of lives that touched this city, who shall forever remain anonymous, their stories hidden in the city's crooked streets and behind glorious facades. But it is Rembrandt van Rijn, for all his genius, and for all his weakness, who remains the most famous ambassador of the Netherlands. It is in his face, his small sparkling eyes and sad smile, which will always stare back at us through time.

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