Several people have asked me, both in writing and in person, how did I manage to take pictures of Amsterdam with almost no people at sight. Especially because I’ve been saying that there are too many tourists.
Indeed, the city seems to be very crowded in the middle of summer. And in spite of the whole army of garbage tracks and janitors on the streets every morning, the city center only remains relatively clean for a couple of hours.
Yes, I could take tons of pictures of the garbage everywhere on the streets, of thousands and thousands of people in the city center, who make the said streets very difficult to walk on. But I didn’t see any point in it.
When we were walking down the streets of Amsterdam, I was trying to imagine how they looked at the time when young Peter the Great was visiting the city. For a person born in Saint Petersburg, visiting Amsterdam is like visiting living far-away grandparents and searching for your roots. You can’t stop from metally comparing the sights, the bridges, the overall feeling of the city. You can’t stop recalling the “new Holland” island in Saint Petersburg, and canals around it, which look exactly like in Amsterdam.
So yes, I was trying to capture even the most touristy places in a non- tourist mode.
We’ve started our Day Three in Amsterdam with the Canal Cruise. It was included in the Holland Pass, and we’ve checked the day before to make sure we know which of the several dozen tours is “our’s” and what are the starting times.
Our vehicle was a covered boat so that you could enjoy a tour regardless of the weather:
Each tourist grabbed a pair of earphones and plugged them into the plugs in the wall, where they could select a desired language of the recorded tour. Also, there were live comments from the boat captain in English, which were even more entertaining.
We were looking for the places where we could face in the direction of the travel because I am getting dizzy otherwise. The boat was almost full by the time we were boarding, and the only place where we could sit together and still face the front of the boat was in the very rear end. A senior Japanese gentleman did not seem happy to acquire a company, but we pretended we did not notice :).
The weather was beautiful, and lot’s of people assembled on the stern to take better pictures and enjoy unobscured views. This way one would inevitably lose half of the information, but I decided that Boris will be listening for both of us, and I will be looking and taking pictures for both of us.
And since I’ve missed the narration, enjoy the pictures, same as I’ve enjoyed the sights 🙂
Hettie's Reflections 