Het Scheepvaartmuseum, Amsterdam's National Maritime Museum, occupies a building that was itself a weapon of war. Constructed in 1656 as the Admiralty of Amsterdam's central warehouse, it was the direct response to the Dutch losing the first Anglo-Dutch War: the Netherlands packed it with spare masts, sails and cannons enough to convert a hundred merchant ships into a war fleet, almost overnight.

That strategy paid off spectacularly. When England declared war again in 1665, Dutch warships sailed up the Thames, raided Medway's dockyards and towed away the English flagship, the Royal Charles, as a trophy. Its ornate stern piece still sits in the Rijksmuseum.

Moored alongside the museum today is a full-scale replica of the Amsterdam, a 1749 East Indiaman, preserved in remarkable detail because the original sank on its maiden voyage.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours use the museum to trace Amsterdam's naval ambitions across the 17th-century harbour, connecting the building's baroque rooftop orbs and compass-flag details to the wider story of a trading empire that briefly outmuscled England at sea.