Amsterdam III - Monday 4th June

Our apartment rocks!! It's like living in a mansion compared to the very average accommodation we've been used to on tours over the past few weeks. We even have free internet connection in our lounge room - something we haven't had since we left - which makes the church bells right next to our bedroom, that ring a merry tune hourly, almost tolerable!

Today we took a canal cruise around the old and new parts of Amsterdam. Let me explain the architecture for you.. Firstly, all the houses are built on pillars that have been sunk 20-30m down through the water & silt until they hit sand. Because of this, most houses have amazing tilts on them as they're not built on solid foundations. Dunc came up with the motto, 'Amsterdam: Where even the houses aren't straight!'

The houses here are predominantly built above shops. To make more living space, they've built staircases at about a 50 degree angle... almost straight up! Certainly made it 'fun' getting our luggage up to the apartment. One slip, and you'd be done for. We reckon you almost need to fit a safety harness on to go downstairs here!

Because of this, all houses have a pulley attached to the top of their roofline which allows furniture to be leavered up and into the houses when people move in or out.

We also saw the smallest house in Amsterdam. At only 1 m wide, we have no idea how they would go about fitting any furniture in there - let alone having space either side of furniture to walk around in!

Photo's:

Fourth from the bottom: The stairs up to our apartment. They are even steeper than they look.

Third from the bottom (and not much wider than the lamp post in front of it): The skinniest house in Amsterdam.

Third from the top: Look what I picked up! This photo is from the bottom of the Red Light District (in the early morning).

Fourth from the top: The "Dancing Houses" of Amsterdam. I don't know if there are any buildings here that don't "dance"... Everything's leaning!