Got a head for numbers and a keen eye? We have a game for you. Not very complicated. All you have to do is count what Amsterdammers call gevelstenens, or gable stones. Set into the façade of houses in days past, the sculpted and painted tablets identified the different trades. So the butcher had a plaque. The fisherman as well. Same went for the miller. Even the plaque-maker had a plaque. At least until Louis Napoleon, named king of Holland in 1806, decided to eliminate the plaques in favour of a standard registration system. But the plaques remain. Six hundred to be precise. Now it is up to you to find them. Some advice, because we are nice: start counting in the gardens of the Rijksmuseum. Rijksmuseum gardens - Museumstraat 1, 1071 XX, Amsterdam
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