I'd never seen a garrotte up close before, writes Frank Shouldice. Not that it was on my list of priorities but there it was in front of me, a straight-backed chair with manacles and a screw bolt positioned at neck height. The mechanism is simple and gruesome - the bolt turns to slowly crush the spinal column - but every instrument on display at the International Museum of Torture was probably designed with the squeamish in mind.
Amsterdam is a most congenial city of contrasts and so it's fitting that the torture museum should face the flower market. Thumbscrews one side, tulips the other.
The entrance is a corny ersatz jail kiosk and low light compensates for a shortage of actual exhibits. But you get the general idea. Stricken punters have been seen stumbling out the exit door to wake up and smell the flowers.
For all of this the Spanish Inquisition deserves much credit. Playthings included the pear or heretic fork - an iron fork thrust down the throat to regurgitate an ill-advised remark - the rack, ladder and a vice-like skull cracker.
Call it preferential treatment but heretical clerics warranted something different. Presumably after much throwing of miniature basketballs into miniature hoops the Inquisition designers came up with the sling. Wayward priests were bound by the wrists and hoisted from behind on a pulley, prising open their joints without spilling a drop of their once holy blood.
Witches didn't fare much better. As they were suspected of having intercourse with the devil the busy technicians targeted the witches' sexual organs as the chief source of demonology. Unfortunates were seated astride a pyramidal wooden box also called a Spanish horse -- with leaden weights attached to each foot to bring excruciating pain at the point of contact, the genitals.
Rambling through this pleasant collection I was joined by a group of American tourists. Maybe they too were shocked by the implements but each horror was met in a flat southern drawl, whether reacting to the garrotte - "Yep, that'd kill you" - or the branding tongs - "Man, that's gotta hurt."
One of them wondered how the wheel worked. His friend assumed the role of expert and explained how it would hurt. Another pointed to a drawing of a victim being stretched on the rack. "What are they pouring in his mouth?" inquired one. "Heineken," replied the expert.
Nor was sensory deprivation invented in Guantanamo Bay. Iron gags and masks were used in medieval times to curb loose tongues although the idea of blocking out a prisoner's every sensation is attributed to Melbourne State Penitentiary in the 1850s. The practice was duly abandoned as excessive and its appearance this century indicates how far we have progressed as a race.
While we're at it maybe we'll return to the sophistication of the past for the "Scavenger's Daughter" (a neck-to-toe metal brace also known as "the stork"), hanging cages, the drum or the purge-and-purify grill ("It's like a barbecue, honey," explained a tourist to her somewhat confused husband).
But when you're being stretched and quartered a little kindness goes a long way. Traditionally, a piece of straw was left in the mouths of women buried alive to give their souls an opportunity to escape. Or when French physician Joseph Guillon took umbrage at poor quality executions and invented the guillotine in the service of equality for all.
Indeed for some locals, the Dutch royal wedding was enough torture for one week. "It's for the people in the country," shrugged one underwhelmed barman. "Amsterdam people don't care so much about monarchy." Even so, the masses came out in force for a glimpse of Prince Willem Alexander tying the knot with Maxima Zorreguieta of Argentina. Maxima's father Jorge didn't make it however. His association with the Videla junta - he was a cabinet minister during their repressive regime - provoked even the remarkably tolerant Dutch from extending the orange carpet. Jorge stayed away so Willem and Maxi could keep fairytale romance alive.
God knows the Videla regime might have had a few tips for the torture museum albeit nothing to offer by way of exhibits. Thousands of political opponents simply disappeared during its reign, and if the guillotine became synonymous with the French Revolution, being tossed out of airplanes became a Videla hallmark in Argentina. Jorge Zorreguita, father-in-law of the Dutch crown prince, remembers nothing.
Back at my hotel the import of a royal wedding was lost on a fellow guest. Arriving down for breakfast she appeared a little disoriented by storms which delayed her flight from Sunderland the previous night.
"Are we in the suburbs?" she yawned.
"We're in the middle of the centre," replied the receptionist.
"Oh lovely!" enthused the guest, a first-time visitor to the city. "And are we near the canal?"
"Amsterdam is quiet," sighed the receptionist, blaming it all on winter. It's a surprising observation seeing as the hotel is full in three languages. Camera-toting tourists continue to roam the streets in search of Anne Frank.
Actually it was my first time in Europe since monetary union. How simple, how novel, it is to spend Irish money in another country. Price comparisons are now automatic and if it's a sign of our maturity as a nation, Dublin can match - even surpass - Amsterdam in price for almost everything.
Later that night the walk through town to Leidesplein felt safer than Dublin apart from dodging runaway bicycles. Men and women, in groups or alone, walk or cycle home without any apparent bother. You pass supermarkets without bouncers, shop windows with out steel shutters.
I'm definitely abroad but our single currency brings unexpected consequences. Up by Stadenschonburg, the ornate city theatre, a beggar opened her palm as I approached.
"Hey - Euro?" she ventured.