For most of the middle ages, Holland was ruled by the Spanish Hapsburgs, which wasn't very popular at the best of times. However, once the reformation swept through Northern Europe, Amsterdam's merchants became strong Protestant supporters and therefore on a collision course with the Spanish monarchs bent on crushing Protestantism. The usual battles back and forth, but to cut a long story short, the Spanish eventually lost Holland, and Amsterdam adopted a severe Calvinist protestant very similar to the pilgrims and puritans of New England. They busied themselves by "redecorating" the Catholic churches at first, but in 1620 they built their first church from scratch, the Westerkerk. The Protestants were hellbent on making churchgoing as boring as possible, so in addition to doling out boring church names like West Church, they also painted everything white, took out all images, stained glass, and pretty much anything of interest. Having said that, the interior is actually quite handsome. The church is very close to Anne Frank's house, and she writes about hearing the bells in her diary. Since I don't have a journal for this trip, these posts are in random order, but I guess that's the reason this post follows the Anne Frank one.