Friday, October 5, 2018 – we take an open-boat tour to see the canals in daylight.
Today we booked a “Blue Boat” open boat tour in a smaller boat than the usual canal cruisers. This one was open to allow us to shoot photos easily, and had a maximum passenger count of 24 – on our trip, there were only about 10 people. The boat captain was a good guide, with a dry sense of humor and an easy delivery. After the boat tour, we went to visit the Museum Ons’ Lieve Heer op Solder, a wealthy merchant house along the canal with a hidden Catholic church in the attic. Linda has more photos of that than I do, so I’ll wait for her to edit and post.
Here are some shots from our morning on the water:
Don’t worry, this isn’t the boat we were on! There are small boats like this all along the canals in the area where we stayed, most in better shape than this one.I don’t know what this is saying – but it’s certainly eye-catching. It’s on a building just a couple of blocks from our apartment.One of the canal bridges near our apartment in the morning hazy light.Plans are being made and courses plotted out!The weather here is lovely this week, with temperatures edging into the low 70s. Flowers are everywhere.This isn’t our boat either, but it looked pretty interesting to me. All aluminum, these are made in the Netherlands by CeeMag Production. I suspect they are pricey.This delightful little guy is on a tree limb in a park on our way to the tour boat.And here is our boat and our captain. We shared the boat with two women who were also serious photographers, two English ladies, and a family of non-stop talkers who, I think, were very amused at all the camera clicking going on.The view from the boat before we head out.Linda is ready to go!There is a lot of traffic along the canal, with many different types of boats.One of the sleepy narrow canals deep in the middle of Amsterdam.The “drunken houses” which lean because the pilings on which they are built sink unevenly. All houses in Amsterdam are built on pilings sunk deep into the mud.
