﻿One of the most enjoyable things to do in Amsterdam is wander along the beautiful canals,
which are lined with picturesque, historic buildings and have an endless variety of boats of
all shapes, size, variety and function going by. Canals are the heart and soul of Amsterdam, the
defining icons that make this city unique. With so many attractions and such visual beauty, this
is one of the world's great cities for discovering on foot and in a boat. The canal boat tours
take about one hour and provide an excellent, very popular introduction to these waterways.
There are some 120 different canal cruise operators in Amsterdam. You have a choice of
self-hire, some of which are pedal boats that can carry four people. It's kind of like riding
a bicycle, a very Dutch thing to do, but you're in the water. Plus you're getting good exercise,
not polluting the air, and gliding along so quietly you can come up real close to
the swans. Or you could rent a small electric boat such as from Mokum Boot, the biggest boat
rental company in Amsterdam. You can choose your own route, go wherever you want, with room for a
bunch of your friends. Just get out on the water and go. No experience or license is required as
long as the boat is under 15 meters in length. Or board one of the larger commercial operations,
some of them with open-top boats, and others are enclosed, some are elegant and vintage, some have
full meal service on board, while others provide a standup outdoor bar where you can enjoy some
fun with your friends. And most of those smaller open boats can usually offer a picnic for sale,
making that experience a floating party. You can also charter a boat for private hire with
a captain, or you could design your own route, or leave it up to the expert who
does these trips all the time. With so many different kinds of boat tours to pick from,
you can really cater the trip to your own personal tastes and interests, like in the smaller
boats where you'll meet new friends and have a casual conversation as you're cruising along.
But with all of these different choices, there's no question that the most popular kind of canal
boat tour is on that bigger boat, and for good reason. It's quite comfortable, it's economical,
it does a one-hour standard route. You'll have some narration explaining what you're passing by,
and there are plenty of windows and open tops that you can look out and get a good view.
It's Amsterdam's most popular tourist attraction, with nearly 4 million annual passengers riding
on 320 different boats. The main place to start that boat ride is at the Damrak. It's a boat basin
midway between the train station and Dam Square. Departures start at 10 a.m. and continue into the
night. You can also get this type of boat at the Rokin Canal in the south part of town.
It's wonderful to see how many locals are out in their boats enjoying the canal scene.
There are about 10,000 privately owned boats in Amsterdam for personal use,
sometimes as basic transportation to get around, other times just to relax, kick back,
and cruise through the canals. After all, the Netherlands has a rich nautical heritage. There
is over 4000 kilometers of navigable waterways in the country, with one boat for every 32 people.
So, it's a recreational hobby as well as a practical means of transportation.
You're going to see a lot of those groups of friends sharing a boat as you walk around.
Most of them are local. Amsterdam's new Green Party mayor is banning diesel engines from the
center's canals by the year 2025. Currently, only 5% of the boats are emissions free, so 95% of
these boats are going to have to be converted to electrical motors, creating no pollution or noise.
A boat tour at night can be fun with those bridges all lit up, as we'll show you a little bit later.
Nearly 2000 historic homes line these canals, each with similar harmonious architecture, and yet
every one of them is a unique creation with custom design details that are delightful to admire.
You will not get lost while walking around because the central canals follow straight
lines in a grid pattern, with many connecting side streets featuring little shops and restaurants.
This central area with four main canals is called the Canal Belt or Canal Ring. It was
the wealthiest part of 17th century Amsterdam, with beautiful homes built by some of the world's
most powerful and wealthy businessmen With Dam Square at the center of town,
you can see that Amsterdam has many canals, shown in the blue lines, but there are
four major canals in the center. There's Singel, Herengracht, Keizersgracht and Prinsengracht.
Now we're going to take a close look at those four canals along with some pedestrian shopping
streets and side canals. Average length of each of these four canals is about
three kilometers. So all four of them total about 12 kilometers in length,
too much to walk in one day. What most people do is meander around, walk along part of a canal,
then take a side street over to the next canal, maybe follow a plan or just go with the flow and
see what looks interesting. Then on the next block, you'll always come upon another canal.
Singel was the first major canal to be built in the late 15th century. Then in the early 16th the
city needed to expand with rapid construction that quickly built up this new part of town.
At the south end of Singel you will find one of the prettiest sites in town,
the famous Floating Flower Market, with thousands of fresh blooms for sale.
The Dutch are world-famous for flower production, and while tulips are the best known, they have
countless other varieties, which you will see in this unusual floating market. As the tourist
board says on their website. "Rain or shine, this stretch of the Singel canal in the city center is
filled with the vibrant colors and fragrances of fresh flowers, every Monday to Saturday, serving
tourists and locals alike. Head home with tulip bulbs for your garden or plants for your home,
as well as a fun selection of typically Dutch souvenirs." Now we're relocating from the
flower market at the bottom of Singel up to the top of the canal belt at Brouwersgracht.
The name translates as Brewers Canal because this is where they made the beer back in the 16th and
17th centuries. There were many breweries and warehouses filled with barrels of beer.
There were also goods like leather, coffee, whale oil and spices stored and processed here in giant
warehouses. Now, those same historic buildings have been converted into luxury apartments.
Notice the outdoor dining terrace on the canal bank. De Belhamel Restaurant has a great location
here with a cuisine that's traditional French and Italian, and includes some Dutch and Flemish.
Herengracht extends south from the Brewer's Canal, and we'll be taking you there next. But first,
a little look at the neighborhood and find out where the kids play. Amsterdam
is a densely populated city and does not have many neighborhood parks in the center of town.
So this is a great place for kids to get together and have some fun. The side lanes connect over to
Haarlemerstraat. Herengracht translates as Lords' Canal or Patricians' Canal, because it was home to
the wealthiest of all the merchants. It had the biggest homes, with most beautiful ornamentation,
with inner gardens, coach houses and elegant interiors suitable for these powerful occupants.
The canal bank is another lovely setting for a terrace restaurant, this one featuring a
modern Dutch-French menu. The next canal over is Keizersgracht, named after the Holy Roman Emperor,
Maximilian the First, who made the Hapsburg Empire the largest ever created, including
the Netherlands. Another terrace restaurant, a great spot to eat, drink and watch the canal.
Running at right angles is Reguliersgracht, which connects three of the main canals, and it's noted
for its seven bridges. This intersection is particularly beautiful. We've now reached the
last of our four main canals, the Prinsengracht, named after the Prince of Orange. It's the
longest of these main canals, at 3.2 kilometers. There are quite a few houseboats on this canal,
some of the 2500 houseboats in Amsterdam, many of which are available as vacation rentals.
We will come back in a few minutes to see more of these main canals, but for now,
we're venturing just beyond them to another interesting neighborhood with little side
canals and some busy streets. Spiegelgracht is one of the shortest of the canals in the center, at
just over 100 meters long, which somehow makes it even more attractive and quaint in a human scale.
The bike lane gives very good protection, as well as offering a scenic ride for bikes,
mopeds and standup scooters. That canal connects up with Lijnbaansgracht, which is another short
and beautiful waterway. It's a fine neighborhood for pedestrians and for bikes. You're going to see
what they call cargo bikes whizzing by, with one or two or three kids in front. The Dutch really
know how to conserve energy, where a whole family can carpool in one bicycle, sometimes with four
kids and a driver. That's five people on the bike. A good way for the visitor to safely ride is to
join up in a bicycle tour. Some of these streets can get very busy with automobiles, pedestrians,
bicycles and trams going by, so Dutch have learned to be courteous to keep the crowd flowing.
Well, this neighborhood is slightly off the beaten track. It's not a famous place that you're going
to find emphasized in guidebooks and yet it's fascinating in its own right. It's a slice of
Dutch life a bit away from the tourist center, which is certainly worth seeing, and it's a good
example of why it's helpful to be spending several days in Amsterdam, so you have time
to get all around to these fringe areas. And then suddenly you'll find yourself at the heart of an
art district. It's almost door-to-door antique and art dealers. It's one of the most well-preserved
parts of the city, including galleries that have remained in business for generations.
We're going to wind things down by heading back into the center with some general observations.
Amsterdam is often called the Venice of the North, but Venice has fewer canals with 150,
while Amsterdam has 165. And Venice canals total about 41 kilometers in total length, compared to
Amsterdam's canals totaling 100 kilometers. Venice has 409 bridges, while Amsterdam has
1281. So maybe we should flip the terms and call Venice the Amsterdam of the South.
It is not only the wonderful canals and great historic sites that make Amsterdam so wonderful.
It's the little lanes, the little back streets, the shops,
unexpected surprises around the corner that make this city so fascinating. For most visitors, the
attraction of Amsterdam is wandering around these little lanes, observing the beautiful canals, the
sidewalk café while enjoying refreshments, doing some shopping, maybe for Royal Delft ceramics,
or maybe just window shopping. And how about a horse carriage ride to see the sights of town
more comfortably? Finding hidden gardens and enjoying the historic architecture,
perhaps getting a little lost while having our fantastic time. When you take the Canal Boat
tour, you have a choice of daytime or nighttime. In the evening, it's dark and the lights are on,
which gives a rather dramatic effect. You might not see the buildings quite as well, so you could
do a daytime cruise and a night cruise. As usual, the tour starts out at the Damrak boat basin
and then passes the train station and ferry terminals. Those are the free ferries that go
back and forth across Ij harbor. We have another video showing those ferry rides from the train
station. As we cruise along through that harbor, you'll see some of the sights like the Eye Museum
and then shortly the boat enters some of those main canals that we've already been
observing earlier. During the cruise you'll hear narration describing some of the history,
which I can summarize right here for you. Those four main canals that we've been viewing earlier
have such an important history that they were declared a World Heritage site by UNESCO.
The UNESCO's statement said that "the new port city built at the end of the 16th and beginning
of the 17th centuries, allowed the development of a homogenous urban ensemble that is still present
in a good general state of conservation, alive and active today." They concluded that "Amsterdam was
seen as the realization of the ideal city that was used as a reference urban model for numerous
projects for new cities around the world." Between the years 1610 and 1620, Amsterdam doubled in
size, and by 1650 the population had shot past 200,000. Amsterdam then became the third largest
city in Europe after London and Paris. By that time, Amsterdam had developed the best waterway
system in the world, which helped make the city an enormous amount of money over the centuries,
through the trade in goods on water. During their Golden Age of the 17th century, Dutch
merchants ruled the oceans, sending ships out to the Far East, monopolizing the trade in spices
from Southeast Asia and in silk, sugar, tea and porcelain from Japan and China. Those merchants
used their immense wealth to create these canals and houses which stand today as manifestations
of their brilliant achievements. As we end the program, returning back to Damrak marina,
I invite you to have a look at our many other movies about Amsterdam and the Netherlands.