zimmah wrote:zwolle is a big city with history, and in 1652 it was actually maybe bigger then amsterdam, and it looks a lot cooler, because it was a 'fortified city' like we had a lot in holland especially around 1600-1800
FYI, I am Dutch too.
Zwolle may have been bigger and more important then, being one of the cities in the Hanseatic league, but what counts is the appeal to the CC community nowadays. I'm sure Amsterdam has more appeal than Zwolle.
About the fortifications: almost ALL cities had them (The Hague being one of the very few exceptions), including Amsterdam, ofcourse. Building fortifications was one of the rights cities had over villages. Amsterdam became the capital after the independence of the Dutch Republic in 1642, and the leading financial centre of the world during the 17th century (losing much of its wealth again in the many following wars with England and France). Enough reason to not only heavily fortify the city, but to be the only city to get a new defensive ring around the city in the 19th century (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stelling_van_Amsterdam) after medieval fortifications had become useless for defense and had been taken down.