We started our first full day in Amsterdam buying some food and visiting a playground nearby. Then it was off to the city to see what this place is all about. We spent the rest of the day on a hop on, hop off canal tour.
What do you do when land gets scarce and prices are steep? You just go onto the water of course.
The buildings have great style here.
These are the organ pipes in an old church where Rembrant is buried.
The two gated platforms are at the train station and are a parking garage for bikes and it looks full. In front of it is one of many, many tour boats going up and down the canals.
Here is a typical street in Amsterdam.
There are canals everywhere. The boats looked so unique to me as they are so flat. Even with being so short, they don’t have much clearance as they pass under a couple bridges at every block.
Leah and Joel hanging out at the side of a canal waiting for our boat. I was surprised at the lack of fences.
The lack of high rises also surprised me. The house fronts look very cool though I would imagine you would lose a lot of space due to stairways.
Here is a typical intersection with a bike lane, a vehicle lane and a transit train. The bridge railings are all used as bike racks.
We ate tacos for dinner tonight which felt a little odd. I’m not sure what the Dutch normally eat for dinner though I was looking out for some bitterballs (a delicious Dutch ball of deep fried goodness) today but didn’t find any. We didn’t look that hard either but I’ll have to up my game tomorrow.
