Amsterdam, Netherlands: Munttoren Clock Tower

Walk a few blocks in downtown Amsterdam and you are bound to bump into a good-looking building. Literally. You gotta keep your head down at times.

This was an interesting one. It's the Munttoren Clock Tower, and it is located at the Muntplein - a busy square at the south end of the Kalverstraat - a major street.

It seems the tower was part of a gate in a wall that surrounded the city around 1480. Some of it burned up in 1618 in a fire so the Dutch fixed it up. Munttoren translates to "mint tower," as coins were minted there in 1672 when the British and French were upset about something and had occupied much of the Netherlands - including where the other mints were located.