Amsterdam

August 4, 2023

Amsterdam was our final port on this cruise. We were supposed to dock in Bruges tomorrow... but it got cancelled because of "tidal" issues. It is so weird. I've never been on a cruise where they've cancelled a port before, and on this one they cancelled two! We were quite disappointed about Bruges as it's been on our list for a while. Have you ever seen "In Bruges"? It's a movie with Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson. Steve and I find this movie hilarious and were really looking forward to saying Colin Farrell's classic line as we arrived in town. It was not to be though... so it'll have to be another year! 

Here's my first important tip about Amsterdam. It is BIGGER than you think... even the central area... which looks not so big on the map... is rather large.

We didn't really have a plan (which is so unlike me... and was really a mistake) so just started wandering.

Where the ship docks you can easily walk into the central area.

Take a look at this map of central Amsterdam...

It's kind of like a rainbow... and all the little arches as the rainbow grows are the canals. I had seen somewhere that the prettiest canal was the "prinsengracht" (Prince's canal)... which is kind of the outer one. My plan was we walk the length of that one first and then work our way in to the other canals.

THIS IS NOT A GOOD PLAN. Amsterdam is bigger than it looks on this little map. We made it about 3/4 of the way through the prinsengracht and my feet were killing me! Now to be fair... it is beautiful and there are a ton of things to look at. I'm just saying... my plan was a bad one 😀

Here are some photos of the beautiful things you might see while you walk through the canals:

Do you notice how it seems like the dark brown building is tipping forward. We assumed it meant that the buildings were shifting or sinking because many of the buildings in Amsterdam are built on wooden pilings. We found out later in the day it is purposeful. There are hooks at the top of the building. When they need to load things into the upper floors they use those hooks on a pulley system. The buildings were built leaning out like this so that when they pulled things up they didn't hit the building. You learn something new every day!

Here's a video I managed to catch of them loading in some construction materials. Genius! At the very end of the building you can also see a few of the buildings in a row with hooks at the top.

Lots of beautiful barges lined the canals. Later we found out that these are not cheap homes at all, and are quite pricey to live in!

Do you notice all the plants on the top of the canal boat? Apparently these are not just decorative. If you have a heavy piece of furniture inside your boat on one side... you can balance it out by putting a set of heavy plants on the other side. Clever right?

As you can imagine, with so many canals there were so many bridges. Many of them had amazing viewpoints for photos. Often they were adorned with flowers and bicycles... and sometimes bicycles with flowers!

Amsterdam is definitely a biking town. There were bicycles everywhere. Attached to bridges, along the canals, on the sidewalks... everywhere. Also bikes appear to have the right of way over pedestrians. Watch out... they will not stop for you. You need to stop for them!

Later when we took our canal cruise, one of the facts our guide told us is that every year many bikes are pulled out of the canals. When I just looked it up it is estimated to be around 15,000 bikes per year. That means 41ish bikes are going into those canals every single day! How is that happening you wonder? Surely some of them just fall in when they aren't carefully parked... however, our guide said that if someone parks their bike in a spot someone considers to be "their spot"... they might just throw the offending bike in the canal to guard their territory! Typically the depth of the canals is 2 or 3 metres. Our guide joked that a meter of that is just bicycles!

Speaking of bikes! How could I not show you this one?!

Now I'm known as someone who likes to break the rules (not really!) but this is one rule I would definitely not break. What must have been going on here for the city to feel the need to create this sign... and this fine?!

Now you know... so if you come to Amsterdam... don't do that... actually don't do it ANYWHERE!

It was pride week (well longer than a week!) in Amsterdam and many houses and businesses went all out with their decorations. This was one of my favourites!

Dutch houses are quite narrow, but tall and deep. This is apparently because 100's of years ago you were taxed depending on the width of your house! I also found it fascinating to see these little staircases under the stairs. These were originally the servants entrances, but it did look like there were some apartments under these houses now.

Eventually, I realized that my plan was not a good one, and we decided to find a canal tour. Guess where you could pick up a canal tour? Yes! Exactly where we first started... Conveniently we just cut right through the middle of the center and found a canal tour. There are a ton of them and they are all around 20 Euros a piece. We chose this one because it was an open boat and was ready to go when we walked up to it. I quite enjoyed the stories are guide told. It's also always interesting to see the city from the water. A different vantage point lets you see different things.

Amsterdam is famous for a few different foods. One that I could not wait to try were the fries. They did not disappoint. They and their famous fry sauce were delicious!

After a long day of walking and exploring we headed back to the cruise ship for dinner. Steve spotted this right away from the dining room window... and was disappointed that we didn't have a visit... there's always next time, Steve 😉

We were staying in port over night (because of the Bruges cancellation) so headed back out after dinner. We decided to do a walk around the red light district (which is conveniently not far from the ship... because my feet were killing me!) There were no photos and I'm not really going to talk about it here for obvious reasons. If you're curious about this part you're going to have to talk to us in person!

Next we head to Southampton to get off the ship... and then five days in London!