The Singel Canal and Others

The Singel Canal, viewed from the Torensluis Bridge with the Mint Tower in the background, was the original moat running around the old walled city. This bridge is so wide because it was the road that led to one of the original city gates where the Mint Tower stood. The area still looks much as it might have during the Dutch Golden Age of the 1600s. This was when Amsterdam's sea-going merchants ruled the waves, establishing trading colonies as far away as modern Indonesia.

Fueled with this wealth, the city quickly became a major urban center, lined with impressive homes. Each proud merchant tried to outdo his neighbor and the buildings are varied. Crowded together, shoulder-to-shoulder, the houses are built on top of thousands of logs hammered vertically into the marshy soil to provide a foundation. Over the years, they've shifted with the tides, leaving some leaning this way and that.

The Singel canal is just one of Amsterdam's many canals. There are nearly 100, most about ten feet deep and covering roughly 50 miles. Why so many? In this marshy river delta, its citizens needed to keep the water at bay. So they built a dike, near where Central Station stands today, to keep out the sea tide surge and then they dammed the Amstel River. The excess water was channeled safely away into canals, creating pockets of dry land on which to build. Windmills, of course, were used to harness wind power and pump excess water into the canals. Locks near Central Station are opened periodically to flush out the system and control the flow.

Today, the city has about 100 canals, most of which are about ten feet deep. They're crossed by some 1,200 bridges, fringed with 100,000 Dutch elm and lime trees, and bedecked with 2,500 houseboats.

Some of the boats in the canals look pretty funky. That's because Amsterdam is an unpretentious, anti-status city. When the sun goes down and the lights come on, people cruise the sparkling canals with an on-board hibachi and a bottle of wine, and even scows can become chick-magnets.