Realengracht

The Realengracht is a canal framed by two distinct rows of seventeenth-century warehouses topped with stepped gables. These buildings once stored grain, salt, and whale oil brought in by the ships of the Dutch West India Company. In sixteen eighty-five, the poet and playwright Joost van den Vondel lived in one of these houses, writing verses while canal boats navigated the narrow waterway beneath his window. Today, the warehouses are converted into apartments, keeping their original narrow, timber-framed facades intact.