The former headquarters of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), tucked away on a quiet courtyard off Kloveniersburgwal. This is where the directors of the most powerful trading company in history held their meetings from the early 17th century onwards. The building is handsome rather than grand — a restrained Dutch Renaissance facade that gives little hint of the vast commercial empire administered from within.
The Oost-Indisch Huis is now part of the University of Amsterdam and not generally open to tourists, but you can walk into the courtyard and admire the exterior. The rooms where the VOC's "Heeren XVII" (Gentlemen Seventeen) made decisions that shaped Southeast Asia, South Africa, and the global spice trade look much as they did 400 years ago.