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Did you know, Amsterdam was built on reclaimed farmland, its built around 3 main canals with the rest intertwining and separating them, princes canal, emperors canal, gentleman canal. The emperors led to several large houses and sorts youd see royals back in the day living in, most houses built are thin but tall because back then you were taxed on the width of your house, so people would build 4/5 story houses and pay minimal tax by keeping them as thin as they possibly could. All the tallest houses are found along Gentlemen’s canal, this is because back then these were houses for the richest traders, businessmen that were around then.
The thinnest house in Amsterdam is something like 3 metres in width, if that. So to be honest i think thats pretty cool but for housing market value back then was great, now doesn’t matter so much.
A main attraction you see on ALL the canals are the houseboats, some are old big ships and boats converted to live in, some are floating bits of land built to live in specifically & some are half boat, half built house but can still be used as a boat. There are some spectacular examples of ingenuity on these boats, using space in the most intelligent way possible to create enough life & space to live in happily.
You will see on most of the houses at the very top near the roof, near the front is a large hook, this was used to hoist large cargo up off of boats in the nearby canal and into the storage rooms usually at the top of shops and buildings. Another interesting thing is that all the houses are not built straight up like i am used to seeing, they are built on a tilted axis right or left some even forwards. For several reasons, some to compliment the waves of the canal and keep the aesthetics on point. Others for a more useful reason; when the delivery men would hoist this cargo off the boats it often hit into the front of the building, causing damage & injury to passers by and workers, they tilted warehouses and continued to build them tilted forwards to stop this occurring.
There was so much interesting stuff happening in Amsterdam during my stay but some of the Architecture was so cool. The Science and Technology museum called NEMO is an inverted representation of the tunnel underneath the canal, the architect built it purposely as a reflection of underneath. Truly an awesome idea & beautifully done i might add.
Oh yeh, and the whole water level & tide in Amsterdam can be controlled, so basically they have control over the South Sea & i believe North sea around it and can control what comes and goes, how much, when and where in the city. Pretty cool right?!
Definitely a cool place to visit! Next time i am bringing A LOT more money so i can see and do A LOT more.