Canal Cruising
- art58koen
- May 20
- 2 min read
Another reason I went to Amsterdam was to meet Bert, an old primary school friend.
After a decent enough career as a teacher, Bert had retired and recently found a part-time job as a canal cruise skipper there!
Therefore, after safely parking my Brompton in my friend Hendrik’s room (*), we departed for a walk through the old city.
Pleasant as it was, our destination was clear: the meeting & departure place of Bert’s vessel, which we were supposed to reach before 13.30.
Despite many photo stops and chats, we reached it easily enough and with time to spare.
As usual, my imagination had been working overtime and I expected to see 17th century VOC (**) style boats from competing companies battling their way through the canals…
Of course, with blazing cannons, pirate flags flying, and plenty of sword fights between tourists and crews!
After arrival, I had to adjust my expectations quite a bit...
Bert was (& still is!) a nice enough guy, but he ain’t no Jack Sparrow (***) or Piet Hein (****).
While Bert was busy chatting with potential clients, we had a closer look at his boat's interior; small, but really nice with pillowed benches and plenty of booze!
Once he finished talking, we were permitted to board his boat and make ourselves comfortable.
After 20 minutes or so, all passengers were on board and Bert gave his welcome speech.
His assistant host made himself useful by offering welcome shots, which we politely refused and changed into beers ;-)
More and more of the boats used for these purposes are electric which makes for pleasantly quiet cruises.
Therefore, the occasional commentary of either Bert or host were easy to follow; these being short and usually funny helped as well.
Most interesting for us, though, were the very different viewpoints on the streets and houses of Amsterdam, very refreshing in fact!
Not to mention photogenic!
After one hour cruising the canals and surviving bottlenecks with other cruise boats, we were back at our starting point.
We thanked Bert profusely, tipped him generously, and slowly walked back to Hendrik’s apartment for a break…
This is the company Bert works for: https://friendshipamsterdam.com/
(*) Amsterdam has become a kind of black hole for bicycles; the number of stolen ones must be astronomically high nowadays… For sure, there are more bicycles than inhabitants!
Fantastic! I remember skating on the canals in 1987!