The Western Islands

Neighborhood · Centrum-West (Bickerseiland / Prinseneiland / Realeneiland)Amsterdam,Netherlands

Three man-made harbour islands in Amsterdam dug from 1613 for the trades that caught fire, still shared by warehouses, houseboats and a working boatyard.

The Western Islands are three man-made islands in the old harbour where boatyards, warehouses and houseboats still share the same water. They are Bickerseiland, Prinseneiland and Realeneiland, dug out of the shallows of the IJ from about 1613. Amsterdam made them to push its dirtiest trades off its own streets: tar boiling, herring smoking, salt refining and rope making, all of which caught fire easily. Prinseneiland alone came to hold more than a hundred of the roughly nine hundred warehouses in the city. The islands are much quieter now than the rest of the centre. Warehouses have become flats, with their loading doors and hoist beams still on the fronts, and one small boatyard still hauls hulls out of the water, the last one working in the city. Houseboats are moored along the Bickersgracht and the Realengracht, lived in all year. Narrow wooden double drawbridges join the islands and are still cranked open by hand when a boat comes through. Almost everything here is private property, so this is a place to walk through rather than to go into.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Start on the Zandhoek and work eastward — From the quay of merchant houses, three short bridges take you over Prinseneiland to Bickerseiland in about twenty minutes.
Look for the wooden windlass on the Nieuwe Teertuinen — It is the last of the hand winches that hauled tar barrels off the quays, and it stands where the tar yards were.
Keep off the gangplanks and out of the yards — Nothing charges admission, but the boats are homes and the yard is a business, so the quays are as far as visitors go.
Come on a weekday morning if you want the islands to yourself — Weekends bring walkers over from the Haarlemmerstraat, and the cafes on Bickerseiland fill up in the afternoon.
Shoot along the Realengracht rather than across it — The narrow channel lines up the drawbridge, the moored barges and the warehouse fronts in one frame, which a straight-on view loses.

Things to do

1
Find the coin that gave the island its name
Walk the Zandhoek to number 14 and look above the door. The gable stone shows a gold coin with the head of Charles V and reads In den Gouden Reael. Reinier Reael built this whole row in 1645 and 1646, and the family name is why the island is Realeneiland.
2
Watch the Drieharingenbrug swing open by hand
Stand at the Drieharingenbrug on the Realengracht. When a boat needs to pass, someone walks up, unhooks the deck and swings the counterweight beams down by hand. The two leaves rise, the boat slides under, and the whole thing takes about a minute.
3
Read the warehouse fronts on the Prinseneilandsgracht
Look up at the top of each front. The projecting beam with a hook lifted goods straight off a barge into the loft, which is why the doors above the ground floor are wide and the stairs inside are narrow. Many still carry the name the warehouse traded under.