The place in photo is Amsterdam. I was there about 2 months ago and one morning watched a cleaner pitching his ladder on a sloping road to about 30 feet. He then whipped up there and started cleaning these big restaurant windows. I wish I had taken a photo for you all...he was stretching out to reach the corners with a cloth on the corner of his squeegee. The ladder had wheels at the head and was rattling about all over the wall he was pitched onto. He was on his own with no safety device at all.
They all have the same wooden ladders out there...open top with splayed feet.
Sometimes when I have been up a ladder and up at top, it seems really high but when I have got down and looked up, the height doesn`t seem so great, but this fella in Amsterdam WAS high...frightening!!