Advertisement
Published: August 6th 2017
Amsterdam the capital and largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, sits at the weirdest of elevations; minus 2 metres - go figure! Originally a small fishing village in the late 12th century it now has around 850,000 residents in the municipality with another 1.3 million urban dwellers. Some of it's more famous residents being Anne Frank, artists Rembrandt and van Gogh, philosopher Baruch Spinoza and it lays claim to having the oldest stock exchange in the world. It has a few other claims to fame, including being near the top of the list in every category tested for drug levels in wastewater (except for methamphetamine) and for it's sex and drug tourism. We've never smoked so much hooch in our lives - even if it was all second hand.
With Carol travelling from Belgium and Chris from St Petersburg, we successfully met up as planned at the Hampshire Hotel in the Theatre District, our abode for the next three nights. Thanks to the easy to spot Hard Rock Cafe, we found our way on foot to our first adventure to board the evening canal cruise departing from Stadhouderskade 501, and without being bowled over by any of the
maniacally aggressive cyclists. You need eyes in the back and sides of your head. As was Carol's plan, with sunset timed for 9.48pm we scored the last of the daylight ahead of the ever present twilight that we have become used to at this latitude. A very pleasant trip despite a poorly engaged skipper who didn't bother to lift his arm once to point out the places of interest, despite the taped commentary telling us to look to where the Captain was pointing, we weren't always convinced we were in the right place as the commentary sometimes didn't match what we were seeing. However it was really interesting to see and hear about the developments from the 17th century Dutch Golden Age when the city could boast some slightly more salubrious achievements, at that time being the leading centre for trade, science, military, finance and diamonds. There are so many unique aspects to Amsterdam including the Defence Line of Amsterdam's 42 forts (on the UNESCO World Heritage List), the lowlands that can be easily flooded to protect the city, its incredible 100 kilometres of canals, 90 islands and 1,500 bridges to manage all that water and keep everyone's feet and
houses dry.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.092s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 6; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0541s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
