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Amsterdam
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Before this salad I ate in Cologne had a chance to settle, the German high speed train(ICE) delivered me in Amsterdam in 2 hours and 40 minutes
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Amsterdam Centraal Station, finished in 1889 has 15 tracks and is the rail hub for the Netherlands
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Walked across the square at the station to my hotel. In all but two cities I was able to walk from the train station to my hotel
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My hotel. My room is on the third floor, the second and third windows from the left. Views from my room follows
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All of Amsterdam passed under my windows, or so it seemed. That's wire mesh over the windows, I assume to keep birds from flying into the windows
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Next view
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One more. The commuter crowds along with the tourists rivaled Nebraska football home days at Lincoln!
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Not letting any "grass"(remember I'm in Amsterdam) grow under my feet I took a canal boat tour about an hour after I arrived from Cologne. This is St Nicholas Church completed rather recently in 1887. It is visible in the previous photo From my room.
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Amsterdam and maybe 40% of the Netherlands is on land reclaimed from the sea. Water was pumped away from the reclaimed land by all those familiar windmills. The Dutch have a saying, God made the earth but the Dutch made the Netherlands. So true.
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Amsterdam is laced with many canals and interesting homes. When houses were built there was a tax on how much frontage a house occupied. To keep the taxes lower, houses were built with a narrow footprint but reached 3-4 stories in height
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Good example of building up not out. Note the arms at the top side of the building. This was for ropes and pulleys so that merchandise, furniture could be hoisted into the house. Narrow front doors and stairs prohibited entry of large objects that way
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Look at the houses on the left. Can we say subsidence? The timber footings are shifting.
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Even a better view of the problem
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One of many interesting bridges over the many canals
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Many high end cars parked in front of these expensive homes. You better know how to parallel park. Many cars do wind up in these canals every year most probably the result of one too many Heinekens!
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Very expensive real estate
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Note the bikes chained to the bridge. By nightfall the bridge will be packed with bikes parked for the overnight
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Near the end of the boat tour we passed Koepelkerk, a former Lutheran church built in 1671. In 1935 the Lutherans vacated the building and it became a concert hall. Today the Lutherans lease the building to a nearby hotel which is connected by a tunnel
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The next morning I took one of my many "free" walking tours. It's a great way to become familiar with the historic district and be entertained by bright enthusiastic young adults. Here is a typical street scene
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More beautiful canals which we crossed on our 2.5 hour walking tour
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See the house with the red brick. That's the thinest house in Amsterdam
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Here you get a good view of the protruding rods for rope and pulleys
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Just more beautiful scenes
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Along our walk we would find memorial plaques in the sidewalk citing the Holocaust death of Jewish individuals who had lived in that neighborhood
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The tour ended near the Anne Frank house. Pictures of that house were not permitted. The boat had its own floating garden
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This young lady who was on the waking tour was from Frankfurt, Germany. She had been to the Anne Frank house the previous day and helped me get a reservation and on line ticket for the the museum. She offered her help, seeing that I could use it!
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Lunchtime before I toured the Anne Frank House. I don't recall what I ate but do remember I had a cold beer. Hey, it was getting warm don't you know!
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On way back to the hotel walked by this coffeehouse of which there are hundreds. More that pizza joints. From its name you can tell the sell something stronger than coffee!
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Selfie time
