May 14th 2019
Today we went to visit the inner city of Amsterdam on the other side of the canal by ferry. A really nice thing about the city of Amsterdam is that they have connected both sides of the city, otherwise separated by the IJ canal with free ferries. They debark every day, at least once per hour.
Because the ferry to the Central train Station wasn’t due for half an hour, we went with another ferry to ‘Pontkade’ first. That is straight on the opposite side of the canal from the marina, exactly where we passed the last bridge during the night a few days ago. It was different to see it all by daylight. In the night the stretch of water looks infinitely big, but in bright daylight it’s just a short distance. We took the next ferry back, and then the ferry to the Central train station.
After the trip with the ferry we wandered into the city, wondering where we should go. And there we did something we would never have done before. We bought tickets for a sight seeing tour by canal boat. Normally if we went to Amsterdam, we went there with a purpose, to visit someone, or do something specific, but never as a wandering tourist. And a tour by canal boat is actually pretty neat. You see the whole city on an agreeable pace and you’re explained interesting facts about the architecture and history. We chose a tour that allows you to hop on and off two different boat routes trough the city within 24 hours. And since it was already 2 o’clock we can do it again tomorrow!
The nice thing of such a tour is that you start to notice the lay-out of the city. The Herengracht, which is the inner ring, has the biggest houses. These were built for the rich merchants of the Golden Age. The next ring, the Keizersgracht was for the slightly less affluent, and the outer ring were actually warehouses for goods to be shipped to Haarlem or Leiden. While floating slowly through the city you can clearly see the differences between them, like the growth rings of a tree. It’s like floating through history. Plus we wouldn’t be able to do such a tour with our own boat, due to all the low fixed bridges.
We spent the rest of the day traversing the city in the canal boats and had a great day.