Museum Our Lord in the Attic

Museum Our Lord in the Attic, Ons Lieve Heer op Solder in Dutch, is the hidden gem every guidebook promises and few cities can match. From the outside it is an ordinary merchant's house on the Oudezijds Voorburgwal, one of the oldest canals in the city, in the area now known as De Wallen. Inside, after a climb through a perfectly preserved seventeenth-century home, you emerge into a full church spanning the attics of three connected houses, with galleries, an organ, an altar with a painting above it and space for well over a hundred worshippers. It exists because of Amsterdam's famous but limited tolerance. After the city turned Protestant in 1578, Catholic Mass was officially banned in public, but the authorities tolerated private house churches as long as they were invisible from the street. In the 1660s a wealthy Catholic merchant, Jan Hartman, bought the house and its neighbours and built this church under the roof, and it served the neighbourhood for some two hundred years until a large new church replaced it in the late nineteenth century. Saved by a group of local Catholics, it opened as a museum in 1888, which makes it one of the oldest museums in Amsterdam. The visit is as much about daily life as religion: the grand front parlour, the kitchen with its Delft tiles, the box beds, the confessional tucked into a stairwell and the priest's tiny room show how the household lived. A modern building next door holds the entrance, a café and a small exhibition, and an audio guide in many languages tells the story well.

Why it matters: Amsterdam likes to describe itself as a city of tolerance, and this house shows what that really meant in the Golden Age. Catholics, Mennonites, Lutherans and Jews could practise their faith, but discreetly, and the city was full of these schuilkerken, or clandestine churches, behind ordinary facades. Our Lord in the Attic is the only one to survive with its interior intact, and stepping from the cramped, creaking stairs into the light, tall church is a genuinely memorable moment. The rooms below are among the best-preserved seventeenth-century interiors in the Netherlands, so even visitors with little interest in church history find the visit fascinating as a portrait of a merchant family's home.

Visiting well: the audio guide is included with the Tiqets ticket and adds a great deal, with stories of the people who lived and prayed here. The route involves several steep, narrow staircases, so it is not suitable for wheelchairs or anyone uncomfortable on ladder-like stairs; the modern entrance building is accessible. It is a small museum, and the church can feel crowded when groups are inside, so aim for the first hour of the day or late afternoon. Allow about an hour, more if you like to linger. The church is still occasionally used for services, concerts and weddings, which may affect access to some areas on certain days.

Around the museum: you are in the oldest part of Amsterdam. The Oude Kerk, the city's oldest building, is a few steps away; the Nieuwmarkt with its medieval weigh house is five minutes east; and Centraal station is a ten-minute walk north. The surrounding streets are part of the Red Light District, which is busy, sometimes rowdy, in the evenings and on weekends, but perfectly ordinary in the daytime, so a morning visit is ideal for families. Walk on to the Rembrandt House via the Nieuwmarkt and the Zwanenburgwal, or head west to Dam Square and the Royal Palace. Respect local rules: photographing sex workers is forbidden, and street drinking in the area is not allowed.