Westertoren Amsterdam: Can You Climb It, and What Is Inside

At 87 metres the Westertoren is the tallest church tower in Amsterdam, and the one Anne Frank could see from the attic on the Prinsengracht. Most guides will tell you to climb it for the best view of the canal belt. As of September 2026 you cannot: the tower is closed to visitors for restoration. The church below it is open, and free.

What the Westertoren is

The Westerkerk was built between 1620 and 1631 to a design by Hendrick de Keyser, and finished by his son Pieter after his death. It was the largest Protestant church in the world when it opened, built for a city that had just become rich and wanted to look it.

The tower is the part everyone knows. Eighty-seven metres, brick below and wood above, topped by a blue and gold imperial crown — the crown of Maximilian I, granted to Amsterdam in 1489 and used by the city ever since as a sign of imperial favour. It is not a decoration; it is a piece of civic bragging that has been up there for four centuries.

Inside the spire hang fifty-one bells. The fourteen largest were cast by François Hemony in 1658, and the carillon is the only one in Amsterdam that chimes right through the night. Anne Frank wrote about those bells from the annexe at Prinsengracht 263, two hundred metres away: at first they kept her awake, and later she missed them when they were taken down for the war effort.

	Westertoren and Westerkerk
Address	Prinsengracht 279–281, 1016 GW Amsterdam
Height	87 metres — the tallest church tower in the city
Built	Church 1620–1631, by Hendrick and Pieter de Keyser
Tower climb	Closed for restoration. Not possible at the moment
Church opening hours	Monday to Friday 11:00–15:00, free entry
Closed on	Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, King’s Day, Ascension Day and Whit Monday
Carillon	51 bells; the 14 largest cast by François Hemony in 1658. Concert on Tuesdays 12:00–13:00
Buried here	Rembrandt van Rijn, 8 October 1669, in an unmarked grave
Getting there	Tram 13 or 17 to Westermarkt. Ten minutes on foot from Dam Square

Can you climb the tower?

Not at the moment. The Westerkerk states on its own visitor page that climbing the tower is not possible for the coming years because of restoration work. The exterior scaffolding came down in early 2025 after an eighteen-month job on the pointing, the stonework, the clock faces and the seventeenth-century bells, but the tower itself has stayed shut to visitors.

This matters because almost every guidebook and listings site still describes the climb — thirty minutes, six people at a time, a guide, the best view in Amsterdam — and people turn up expecting it. If you want the view, the honest alternatives are these:

• A’DAM Lookout — across the IJ, five minutes by free ferry from Central Station, and the highest public viewpoint in the city.
• The Westerkerk itself — you cannot go up, but you can go in, and it is free.
• The Oude Kerk tower — open from late April to the end of October, Wednesday to Sunday. 155 steps to 67 metres, and the one tower climb in the old centre that is actually running.
• The bridge at Prinsengracht and Reguliersgracht — no ticket, no queue, and the classic canal-belt photograph.

Before you plan a visit around the climb, check the tower’s own site, westertorenamsterdam.nl, for the current status. We check this page regularly and will update it here when it reopens.

Inside the Westerkerk

The church is open on weekday mornings and costs nothing. It is worth twenty minutes.

• Rembrandt’s grave — he died poor in 1669 and was buried here in a rented grave. After twenty years the remains were cleared, as was normal for the poor, so nobody knows where he lies. A memorial marker was placed in 1909 near the north wall.
• The interior — Protestant, whitewashed and deliberately plain, which is the point: this was built as a preaching hall, not a shrine. The scale is what impresses.
• The organ — Duyschot, 1686, with painted shutters showing scenes from the life of King David.
• The carillon concert — Tuesdays from noon to one, played from inside the tower and heard from the whole Jordaan. You do not need a ticket; you just need to be standing on the Westermarkt.

Outside on the Westermarkt are two things people walk past: the Homomonument, the first monument in the world to persecuted gay men and women, and the small statue of Anne Frank facing the house where she hid.

Practical points

• Entry to the church is free, but there is a donation box and it is a working congregation, not a museum.
• Weekday mornings only — from eleven to three, Monday to Friday. It closes for services, weddings and concerts, so check before making a special trip.
• The Anne Frank House is two hundred metres up the same canal. Combine them; the tower is in every photograph you will take there.
• The church is wheelchair accessible at Prinsengracht 279. The tower, when it reopens, will not be.
• Tram 13 and 17 stop at Westermarkt, right outside. From Dam Square it is a ten-minute walk through the Nine Streets.
• This is the edge of the Jordaan, so it works as the start of a walk rather than a destination in itself.

The rest of the city’s paid and free sights are listed on our Amsterdam attractions page.

Frequently asked questions