After some very restful and needed sleep following our long day yesterday, we went to eat breakfast at the hotel around 8 and prepared for our journey back to Amsterdam Centraal Station for our canal tour.
Once there and in our boat for the canal tour, we started out on our tour starting with some historical knowledge regarding some of the bridges here in Amsterdam that connect the city over either side of canals. We saw the iconic Reguliersgracht, or seven bridge view down the canal of the same name.
Eventually we were out on nearly open water, free of canals. We saw many of the beautiful historical buildings, as well as some of the modern architectural buildings including the Amsterdam Public Library which is the largest library in the Netherlands.
After our tour, we headed out for a bit of lunch where we had a great experience at an Amsterdam grocery store. We noticed initially how inexpensive a lot of the baked goods were, and I certainly took advantage of that. Checking out it was almost entirely self check out, which I specifically noted because they also had some constantly on hand to help in case you didn’t know the name of a non-barcoded product you had to ring in.
After a quick lunch, we walked over where our group split in two and we went off with our tour guide Ian to see some Amsterdam in a much more personal light. I have to say, although it is only the second day, Ian’s tour gave me some of the best and most interesting information I’ve gotten so far. Something I found particularly interesting that he pointed out was the hooks that are above nearly every house on every street.
He told us that because the width of your house is more expensive the wider it is, tax wise, that those who did get these narrower homes had such tight stairwells that furniture could not really fit up to the higher floors. The solution was created to have these hooks installed and they would hoist the furniture up into the homes through the windows. I can only imagine how funny that must have looked at the time with furniture being hoisted through windows, but it is also an ingenious solution to such a unique problem.
After we wrapped up our tour with Ian, we were at his wife’s chocolate store named Cacao and Spice which focuses on sustainability and the ethical sourcing of chocolate from around the world. Talking with the owner, Salomé, we realized some of the major reason why a shop like hers is important for educating people on the issues in sustainability regarding the chocolate industry. She gave us a few very interesting statistics but what I thought was especially interesting was her statement chocolate from Africa specifically where it produces nearly 70% of the world’s cacao but only 1% of the chocolate in the world is manufactured in Africa.
We tried a lot of delicious chocolate and also were able to buy some chocolate from many different parts of the world with entirely different tastes, some I had never had before.
We finished out our day with shopping around some of the local Netherlands stores, and then headed off to find some dinner. We ended up grabbing some dinner at Casa Del Toro a few blocks from the Amsterdam Centraal Station and then took the tram back to the hotel to close out a very eventful and educational day in Amsterdam.