There are lots of low bridges and walkways and the scenery was beautiful except for the drizzly rain which made photography difficult thru the glass windows.
We passed Anne Franks house which is about half the size of the souvenir shop next door and there was queue out the door stretching about 100 meters even in the rain.
Amsterdam is built on floating foundations, like its on a big sponge, and the foundations are long wooden poles which sometimes rot away and the houses lean on each other. There are lots of interesting things such as draw bridges and lochs and they even have a system to flush out the rubbish in the canals twice a week.
We returned to the ship for lunch (of course) and then we had free time to go and discover Amsterdam in the afternoon. It is very picturesque although everywhere you look there are stacks of push bikes - it seems the whole population rides bikes to work! We wandered around taking photographs and stumbled ( how did that happen!) on to the Red Light District with its women in windows and lots of "Adult Shops" and Live Porn Shows . The prostitutes were dressed because it was daytime but they still had plenty of customers.
Speaking of riding, the Dutch seem to have more bikes than people and they ride flat out along specially marked "roads" which fit between the road and the footpath. Just when you thought you had safely crossed the road the bike riders (with attitude) would be cursing while they run you over. There are thousands of bikes parked in every spare inch of space as you can see from the photos.
The ship departed at 4.45pm and we were amazed at the amount of ship traffic on the river/canal compared to the Rhone River. It is weird to be traveling along in a boat and looking at the countryside which is lower than the water we are on. There are drainage canals running thru the fields and little pumping stations to push the water up to the river.
We cruised overnight bound for Cologne.
 |
| Leaning houses in Amsterdam |
 |
| Little vehicle to travel on the bike paths |
 |
| The Red Light District |
 |
| Pump House |
 |
| One of the ship traffic Control Tower |
 |
| The Industrial side of the Rhine |
No comments:
Post a Comment