A man wearing sailor undies and a yellow duck around his hips? Seriously?! What IS this?
The man in the red and white striped underwear and the yellow duck around his hips is probably getting married soon, hence the stag party on this boat. He and his friends seemed to have a lot of fun.
Well, folks, that’s a soon-to-be-groom and thus key player in a stag party on a boat. One of the many entertaining, surprising, beautiful and fun things you can encounter while doing some canal cruising in Amsterdam.
There are several organizations and places where you can book your canal tour in Amsterdam. Also see the url at the end of this post.
Remember how I told you about our recent blogger meetup? After our crazy fashionista dress-up morning, the four of us went canal cruising in Amsterdam. Greetje’s husband Ron generously offered to take us on his boat and explore Amsterdam from the water. By chance we had glorious weather! It turned out to be one of the highlights of our week together and we enjoyed Amsterdam as seen from the water tremendously.
On the right we see skipper Ron and ‘our’ boat for the day. Cool, right?
Let me take you along. Please come aboard. Did you take your motion sickness pills? Hahaha… no, don’t worry, the water is calm. You’ll be fine.
Amsterdam has lots of canals as well as the larger water Het IJ. The canals come in many variations. Wide and long, narrow, short, open or lined with trees.
Here the canal is very wide and open.
Isn’t this gorgeous and special? In this canal, the houses are directly at the water. No road or quay. This really reminds me of Venice.
Ron’s dog Charlie is not a fan of boating at all. She finds it very scary, actually. So she likes to find shelter between Ron’s legs, a safe place. Unless… there are others on board to hang on to;-).
I am a huge animal lover, in particular cats and dogs. So Charlie, Ron’s dog, seeking shelter on me and in my arms is no punishment for me at all.
Charlie sat ‘on’ some of the others too, but most of the time I was holding and caressing her. Nice for both of us. She is very sweet and soft.
Charlie in my arms did not do much good for my photography. I felt like a one-armed-camera-bandit, hahaha. I also had a sir neck the next day, from sitting in weird positions. But it all meant nothing compared to the joy of this day.
Charlie is a wirehaired pointing Griffon.
So what does one do, while cruising the canals of Amsterdam?
You eat and drink a little….
Greetje providing us with small snacks and drinks.
Being a fashionista, after snacking it’s time to repaint your lips …and check your smartphone at the same time…
Then you might do some singing and try to make the others sing along…
…and of course bloggers wouldn’t be bloggers if they would not be taking pictures all the time. Camera here, iPad there, click, click, click.
Ha, free hands for a second. Quickly, let me take some pictures!
Watch your heads, ladies!
Some bridges are REALLY low!
So basically you can do a lot of things on your boat. But just sitting, smiling and enjoying the moment is nice enough, most of the time.
Greetje and Ron wore matching nautical blue and white stripes.
While canal cruising in Amsterdam there actually never is a dull moment, since there is so much to see. Like other boats, houseboats, bridges, historical warehouses, people and architecture old and new.
Historic warehouses, now residential apartments.
An XXL wooden clog for a boat. Funny!
Half sunken boat and girl on quay feeding bread to the duck.
A tour boat like a Heineken beer can (design wise that is).
Terraces along the canals. Many people were enjoying Amsterdam on this sunny day.
Normally Holland is a very indoorsy country, due to the weather. Days on which everybody is outside are rare and precious.
At one point Ron dropped us of at the famous Noordermarkt, where we looked around and shopped for groceries. Suzanne saw her very first street organ. Typical Amsterdam folklore.
Before returning to the boat, we had coffee and ‘appeltaart’ (apple pie) at Winkel, very popular because of it’s apple pie. It was sooooo busy there!
To get back on the boat, we had to step and climb over three other boats that were ‘parked’ along the quay. While doing so somewhere along the way we lost or forgot half of the groceries we just got. Ah well, the supermarket was still open;-).
That’s all for today, folks. The rest is for another post that will appear in a couple of days.
But you have to admit: looking at these pictures it is not hard to shout out: ‘Yes, I do!’ to this slogan on the wall (on the right):
‘Love Me’. I sure do. I love Amsterdam and I love cruising it’s canals on a sunny day.
Do you want to explore the canals of Amsterdam yourself? Good idea!
There are different ways to do so. The easiest, cheapest and most obvious way is to just hop on one of the tour boats. Be sure to check how their route is, because during peak season, they tend to avoid the inner circle of Amsterdam. That way you miss the most interesting part. Another point of attention is the weather. The view from the tour boats when it’s raining can be very limited, making the tour not worth your while.
You can also consider renting a boat with skipper, especially when you are with a group. A bit more pricey, but very cool! And you can even rent and ‘sail’ your own boat. Traffic on the canals is busy though.
For more information check out the following links:
- Canal cruising - iAmsterdam
- iAmsterdam is a very handy portal to Amsterdam in general
Have you done your own canal cruising in Amsterdam? How was it? Did you have nice weather? Do you like boat tours to explore a city?
Note: pictures that have me in them, are taken by the other three ladies;-).
Oh what a lovely day this was. In spite of Charlie being on your lap, your photos are great.
Lovely post Anja. I will change the links in my post to this post of yours.
Greetje
Thanks, Greetje, and Charlie is a bit heavy for a lapdog, yet oh so sweet and soft!
Looks like a fun day out and not bad scenery to look at either! 😉
Not bad at all!! Hahaha….
What a great recap of the day…which was perfect in every way : )
BTW…I managed to get some photos in a folder…later today I might be able to get some of our day together in Haarlem.
bisous
Suzanne
Tx, Suzanne! Also for the pics.
Hi! I found your website from Suzanne. I have to tell you that I love your house and your whimsical style. I love this post, as well. What a beautiful country you have. My son loved looking through the pictures with me. If we lived closer, Charlie would be in danger of being dognapped.
Jenni
Hey there, welcome to my world;-). Thanks for finding me!
No, no, I would dognap Charlie first then…hahaha…
Am in Singapore since a couple of days, my second home. Also a lovely place to live.
Where do you live? And what’s your first name, if I may ask?