October 3, 2015
The alarm sounded at 7:30 a.m. After a good night’s sleep, we opened the
curtains to see fog shroud the river and land, but not too thick since we could
see the river cruise dock. A ship was arriving from the northwest, then a few
minutes later, another ship docked coming from the southeast making nine river
cruise ships. There were tugboats and
barges passing and by 8:30 even canal harbor tour boats started passing. We enjoyed the breakfast buffet in the Silk Road
dining room, which featured cheeses and cold cuts; scrambled and hard boiled
eggs; breads, buns, croissants and Danish pastries; bowls of mixed fruits;
cereals, juices, yogurt and more. We returned to our room and fought with the internet
setting on the laptop to connect to the hotel internet and posted yesterday’s blog. We had time for a quick walk to the tourist
information office across from the Centraal Station, finding the direct route
away from traffic and a seven minute walk each way. We were back at the hotel before 10 and checked
in for the walking tour led by Michiel. The 22 people were given head sets so
that we could hear the commentary, even if we lagged behind 50 meters to take
photographs. We started along the same route as we took to the Tourist information
office. Our first stop was to look at the
building connected to the hotel on the north side, which was a modern concert
hall. Its main hall has the ability to
change the ceiling height depending on the performance to give the best
acoustics. There is also a smaller hall for frequent jazz concerts. We could see the National Maritime Museum from
a viewpoint as well as the Nemo Science Museum, where you can walk up its
slanted roof for a view of Amsterdam. The
National Maritime Museum was built in the early 1600s as the warehouse for the
Dutch East India Co. which traded or owned plantations in Japan, Indonesia, India
and the Caribbean. The warehouse stored
spices, coffee, cocoa and teas. This area’s underground garage and recycling
bin container system was explained to us. The Centraal Station was built in
1889 and has 15 rail tracks which are covered by glass sheds. At the Centraal
Station, we turned into Old Town and passed a shipping company building built
around 1900 and now the 5 star Amstel Hotel.
We had logged 5,509 steps. We passed the Weeping Tower which used to be
on the waterfront but it is now several blocks from the River Ij. From this tower
Henry Hudson left to explore North America, including establishing New Amsterdam
(modern day New York City) and having Canada’s Hudson’s Bay named after
him. We continued the walking tour
stopping by a “coffee shop” which sells coffee, tea and marijuana. These are tolerated in the Netherland, but it
is still illegal to smoke marijuana but people openly stroll about smoking a
joint. Our guide noticed an open house
for a second floor 4 bedroom apartment that was for sale and found out from a
person, that had just viewed it, that the selling price was 795,000 Euros,
which converts to about 1,250,000 Canadian dollars. It is in a prime area. We strolled through many streets of gabled narrow
houses dating back to the 1600s in the Red Light District, walked through China
Town and ended the tour after 2.25 hours at Dam Square, which was teeming with
people, many more than when we walked through it around 7, last evening. Today
there was a horse drawn carriage and driver waiting to give tourists a drive
around the Old Town. We learned that house taxes are paid on the width of the
front of the building. In the early 1800s, when Napolean Bonaparte’s brother,
Louis (whose portrait we viewed yesterday in the Rijksmuseum), ruled Amsterdam,
after Napolean conquered the city, numbers were added to the houses. Previously
each house had a gable stone that had a unique carving and you would go to a
certain canal and look for the house with that gable stone for your
destination. Merchants had gable stones
with the kind of goods that they sold. These stones could also relate to where
your family originated, if you came from outside Amsterdam. Before World War 2, there were 100,000 Jewish
people living in Amsterdam; when the war ended only 5,000 lived there due to
the Nazis having headquarters in Amsterdam. Amsterdam was not bombed by the
Nazis, because the Dutch surrendered after they saw the bomb devastation of
Rotterdam caused by the Nazis. Amsterdam
is built on a swamp and every building is built on piles that go down 14 to 30
meters to a sand base. The older
buildings’ piles are wooden. The canals were all hand dug and have a depth of
three metres. There are 165 canals built
in the 17th century. They are
occasionally dredged, we passed a dredger.
There are also two rivers in Amsterdam the Ij and the Amstel. There are 12 provinces in the Netherlands only
two provinces are called Holland, so Holland is not the correct way to refer to
the country. Amsterdam, the capital, is located in North Holland and The Hague,
where the Dutch government offices and the Royal working palace are located, is
in South Holland. On our tour, we noticed flags, signs and souvenirs with XXX.
This is the Coat of Arms for Amsterdam and previously represented Water, for
flooding at least once each century; Fire, for when the houses were made of wood
and the Plague. After World War 2, the
Dutch queen decreed that the XXX would have a new meaning representing the
courage of the Dutch people. There is also a crown on top of some of the XXX
symbols and it represents the crown given to Amsterdam by a Hapsburg king after
being grateful to be loaned money. Dutch
flags with the crown and Xs, protected Dutch ships from attacks by Spanish
ships who did not want to engage ships that appeared to have the protection of
the powerful Austrian empire in the 1600s and 1700s.
When the tour ended, we decided go to the Van Gogh Museum
which was a 15 minute walk away, in Musuemplein, just a few minutes away from
the Rijksmuseum. There was a lineup of several hundred people waiting to enter
the building, so, instead, we stopped for coffee and a muffin and bought
tickets for a 75 minute canal tour. It
went through Magereburg on the southern canals, the Prinsegracht canal, the
Leidseplein area and through the Jordaan neighbourhood, past Westerhuk and back
to the start near the Rijksmuseum. Along
the canal about a block away from the front of the Rijksmuseum is the home of
Prince Constantine, of the Dutch royal family.
We saw so much on the canals. We
floated under dozens of low bridges, where if you were a little over two meters
tall and stood up, in the open boat, your raised hand would touch the bottom of
the bridges. The arches of the bridges
have a string of lights so that the boats can navigate through them in the
dark. There are 1,400 bridges in Amsterdam. We saw a larger tour boat pass through
a drawbridge that opened; stopping pedestrian, bike and car traffic, when the
bridge’s deck split and lifted to allow the boat’s passage. We passed lots of
houseboats whose owners need to purchase a permit for up to 400,000 Euros just
for berth rights, plus, monthly fees for sewage, water and electricity services.
They have addresses for all of the 10,000 houseboats in the Netherlands. Houseboats vary in size and became popular
during the housing shortage in the 1950s. We passed some museums, one called
the Bags and Purses Museum, as well as the Anne Frank Museum which had a line
of people waiting to enter it. There are
many elm trees planted along the canals since their roots grow down and do not
damage the canal walls. Just a few trees
are starting to turn yellow. Just before
the tour ended we passed a part of the canal that had narrow floating gardens.
After the canal tour we walked over to the Amsterdam Hermitage
museum for coffee and to check on the hours for visiting on Sunday. Step count was 17,349. We walked back to the hotel by way of the National
Maritime Museum to check its hours for tomorrow afternoon. We got to our room and worked on the blog
entry before going to the ferry terminal to take a free ride across the Ij (pronounced eye) river and find a restaurant
for dinner. At 7, just as we ventured
out, we looked out the window to see the red setting sun barely visible through
the clouds. We took the morning route to Centraal Station and went past it and
turned toward the river to get to the ferry landing area. There are two ferries that travel across the Ij river every five minutes. There are also ferries that go to terminals
further northwest and southeast. We took
a quick 15 minute walk and passed a river cruise boat docked, which had
bicycles chained to its third level open deck and about 50 people, many looked
over 60, eating in the ship’s dining room. The ship has a German website stenciled
on the side. It looked like on the middle
level there was the kitchen, where we saw five people working, was at one end,
then the dining room, about maybe 12 cabins at midship and then a bar/lounge at
the other end. The lowest level at the
water line looked to have 25 or so cabins.
It looked like a very comfortable way to take a bicycle tour. Too bad
that we do not speak German! Then we
walked back to the ferry dock and had 20 second to race on to the ferry for the
three minute crossing. We decided to
walk through the Centraal Station to return to the ship. There are 15 tracks and there were stairways
up to the different track platforms above street level. Our plan was to stop at
the Sea Palace Chinese Food restaurant, which floats at the side of the canal,
but we had not made a reservation and decided not to wait 45 minutes for a
table. This 500 seat, three level restaurant is based on a bigger Sea Palace Chinese
Food restaurant in Hong Kong. We may
add Hong Kong, as a destination to visit, on our travel bucket list. Plan B was
to return to the hotel and have dinner again in the Silk Road dining room. At 8:30 p.m., the restaurant was not full and
we were escorted to the same table as last evening. Today we chose either a Caesar Salad with a
sliced chicken breast or eggplant parmigiana.
We had the same fresh buns as the evening before and finished with a
chocolate wafer each, which accompanied the bill. We returned to the room to complete the blog
and try to log back onto to the hotel internet to post the blog. The final step count for today 29,972 which is
a distance of 23 km. Tomorrow we hope to visit the Amsterdam Hermitage in the
morning, taking about a 30 minute walk
to get there by the 10 a.m. opening time. Then
return by noon to check out of the hotel, maybe by taking a tram back, boarding the river cruise ship for lunch and then
walk the 15 minutes to go to the National Maritime Museum and getting back by 5
to have time to unpack before dinner.
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