Walking Tour in Amsterdam

On our first day in Amsterdam, we had - guess what? - another walking tour. This would be our last walking tour in Europe.



Amsterdam is a very straight forward name. The city was built on a dam on the river Amstel. This picture is of the royal residence which used to be a city hall. No one lives there any more because the king and his family live outside of the city. Amsterdam used to be a republic but when Napoleon took over, he established his brother on the throne and turned it into a kingdom again.



Most of the old buildings are very thin but tall because they were taxed on how wide your building was. Because of this, the stairs are very steep.



It was impossible to get furniture up the stairs, so the houses are leaning forward with a hook at the top so you can use a rope to pull up furniture.



Because Amsterdam is built on a swamp and has multiple canals, flooding used to be a likely possibility so a lot of the houses have steps up to the front door. Amsterdam used to be next to the sea but now they have blocked it off so it hasn't flooded since 1916.



Supposedly the Holy Roman Emperor went to Amsterdam to try to heal his son who was sick. I guess it worked because then Amsterdam was a popular place for pilgrims to visit. The emperor let Amsterdam use his crown on the lamp posts.



A popular symbol of Amsterdam is the three crosses of Saint Andrew to protect them from flood, fire, and plague. This is a door outside of an old workhouse. You can tell it is a workhouse because there's a lady weaving and getting whipped.



Small two seater cars like this are popular in Amsterdam because they can be used in the many bike lanes. They look pretty funky though.



This is a stroopwafel or a syrup waffle which is two waffle cookings with syrup (or caramel) in the middle.



After the tour, we thought we'd get some bubble tea. In this one of a kind Cha Time, the old house that the shop was in was too small for the workers to make the bubble tea on the same floor so they make it upstairs and have a conveyor belt to bring it down to you.



Amsterdam was probably my favourite city so far because there aren't too many cars, there's a lot of bikes, there was a lot of nature, it's not very loud, and there's a lot of English. The trains were clean and it didn't smell weird either.

Thanks for reading and, until next time, try not to work at a workhouse.