Canals in Amsterdam are everywhere. There are about 100km of them, and about 1500 bridges. To me they all look the same so it is easy to get lost! Last Saturday I took a one-hour canal tour which was a nice way to get a different perspective on the city. Most of the canals are also very old - the three main ones were dug in the 17th century (and were semi-circular concentric canals)! Unbelievably they were designed for mainly residential purposes (and also to help move goods around the city).
Today lots of people live along the canals (and on them - houseboats!!) and there is a canal bus that has three routes as well. In the winter they freeze and people skate on them (new ambition to come back in the winter, forget the Ottawa Canal!) and in the summer there are lots of boats out and they are also used for parades.
Another fun fact: the canal system is totally flushed three times a week when the locks are open and the water flows in from the North Sea. That's a lot of flushing!! They are 2-3 meters deep and range in width up to 31 meters wide.
That's enough chit-chat, here are some pictures! (They were taken through a dirty boat window so aren't as great as they could be!)
Very interesting! I love the canals, and also would like to skate on them in winter!! Why is Toronto such a boring city???
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing all thins info!!!
Mom
The bridges look kind of low....I guess the boats are not very high? It looks like it would be fun to water ski through them!!!
ReplyDeletea.e.
I think you would have to get good at ducking if you were going to ski through them!!
ReplyDelete