You’ll find Amsterdam’s only surviving medieval fortified gate on the fringe of Chinatown. The many-towered, squat Waag was constructed in 1498 of red-and-white brick and is now the oldest secular building still standing in Amsterdam. The building had many functions over the centuries; it was the site of public executions before morphing into a public weigh house for merchandise brought into the city and later becoming a guild house. One of the wealthy, powerful guilds that lodged here was the Surgeon’s Guild; a fact that is immortalized in Rembrandt’s graphic painting “The Anatomy Lesson” (1632), which depicts a dissection being conducted in the upper-floor Theatrum Anatomicum. Today the Waag is purely dedicated to pleasure; it’s the perfect spot for people watching from the buzzy outdoor bar of the historic Restaurant-Café In de Waag.