Katie
Established Member
- Joined
- Sep 21, 2009
- Posts
- 2,031
Monday 4 August, cont.
L plate tram driver - wonder if they have to do 100 supervised hours like kids in Queensland??
After checking out of the DT and leaving our luggage with the bell desk, we made our way to the Beursplein for a walking tour, boked through what appears to be a Spanish company (Guias y Tours), but luckily our tour was in English. The Beursplein was full of Pride dance party antics this weekend, but it was all clear on Monday morning.
Random doorway
The tour guide was informative, I learned a lot as I hadn't learned much in my prior visits to AMS. I noted, similar to the walking tour in Brussels, there was more of a nod to the colonial riches the Netherlands accumulated, rather than just describing that era as a time of prosperity. We learned about the 3 Xs (though Google is now suggesting to me that fire, flood, and plague is incorrect). I enjoyed being able to ask the guide questions, such as why tours don't go in the red light district (it's a working zone and tramping groups of tourists through it interrupts the people working there) and some idea I had about Amsterdam having a curtain tax or something during the war.
We saw this invention to prevent wildplassen:
(because the pee will shoot back onto you if you pee there)
Protestant church, signified by the cough on the top. Catholic churches have crosses.
These relatively newly built buildings are in the former Jewish area of Amsterdam; the Frank family lived in this general area. In Anne Frank House, there was a map of Jewish residents of Amsterdam with dots representing the population density, and this area was heavily dotted. When there was a food and I think firewood shortage in Amsterdam around 1944-45, many of these empty Jewish houses were ransacked for their wood, etc.
Jewish citizen memorial on the Amstel
Some famous painter painted this view in some famous painting
The tour guide asked what was wrong with this sculpture. I had the answer.
Cool lantern
We ended near the Homomonument and Anne Frank House. Mumma Katie and I had poffertjes for lunch! Hoped to get a free wee in that restaurant, but needed a coin to wee, and all coins were donated to some worthy cause.
L plate tram driver - wonder if they have to do 100 supervised hours like kids in Queensland??
After checking out of the DT and leaving our luggage with the bell desk, we made our way to the Beursplein for a walking tour, boked through what appears to be a Spanish company (Guias y Tours), but luckily our tour was in English. The Beursplein was full of Pride dance party antics this weekend, but it was all clear on Monday morning.
Random doorway
The tour guide was informative, I learned a lot as I hadn't learned much in my prior visits to AMS. I noted, similar to the walking tour in Brussels, there was more of a nod to the colonial riches the Netherlands accumulated, rather than just describing that era as a time of prosperity. We learned about the 3 Xs (though Google is now suggesting to me that fire, flood, and plague is incorrect). I enjoyed being able to ask the guide questions, such as why tours don't go in the red light district (it's a working zone and tramping groups of tourists through it interrupts the people working there) and some idea I had about Amsterdam having a curtain tax or something during the war.
We saw this invention to prevent wildplassen:
(because the pee will shoot back onto you if you pee there)
Protestant church, signified by the cough on the top. Catholic churches have crosses.
These relatively newly built buildings are in the former Jewish area of Amsterdam; the Frank family lived in this general area. In Anne Frank House, there was a map of Jewish residents of Amsterdam with dots representing the population density, and this area was heavily dotted. When there was a food and I think firewood shortage in Amsterdam around 1944-45, many of these empty Jewish houses were ransacked for their wood, etc.
Jewish citizen memorial on the Amstel
Some famous painter painted this view in some famous painting
The tour guide asked what was wrong with this sculpture. I had the answer.
Cool lantern
We ended near the Homomonument and Anne Frank House. Mumma Katie and I had poffertjes for lunch! Hoped to get a free wee in that restaurant, but needed a coin to wee, and all coins were donated to some worthy cause.
