I am back now from Amsterdam. I did a post after our first day, but thought I would wait before posting more as doing it from my phone can be hard work.
This stretch had a fair few new buildings. The old ones can be about 400 years old and many have suffered from subsidence or perhaps war damage. A standard feature is a hook at the top to get large items such as furniture to the upper floors. New buildings often have this too. The local taxes charged by house width, so they tended to build upwards with narrow stairs. You can see the weather was good.
Boats are everywhere and there are some vintage specimens around the harbour. This was near the science museum. We did not go in, but we climbed the steps up to the roof to enjoy the view.
I did not see as much graffiti as in some other cities, but it is around. There was even some in the metro tunnels. There are also stickers everywhere.
I had done a canal tour during Hivefest, but my wife wanted to do one too. The tour was great with lots of fun information about the city. The driver said we were safe with him as he had done this for many years. On the way back he turned a corner and had to pass under another bridge. These are not very high and I thought he was cutting it very close. Then there was a big crunch as the corner of the window hit the bricks. The front windows shattered and the canopy frame bent in several places.
Nobody was hurt, but some drinks were spilled. It looked like repairs would be expensive.
Our B&B host recommended a visit to The Oude Kerk (the old church) which dates back about 800 years. It is huge and very impressive. The vast floor is covered by thousands of tombs. There was an art exhibit called garden of scars. It had loads of casts of tombs from there as well as from dutch forts in Ghana where slaves were traded. The bats hanging from the beams are part of the artwork.
We also visited the Anne Frank House. Photography is not allowed inside, but it was a very personal experience. We must not forget the horrors of history.
Dinner was at The Golden Temple.
We had some slight issues with the meal, but those could be put down to personal preference. The vegetable tikka masala I had was a little spicy for my taste, but I was able to eat it. My wife had a mushroom pizza. It did have truffle oil on it and she found it a bit too much for her taste. My beer was a Gulpener organic pilsner that was fine.
The resident cat was not bothered by all the people.
