Amsterdam is a beautiful city - the Venice of the North with a myriad of tree-lined canals crossed by spectacular curved bridges, dykes, cycle 
tracks, windmills, wooden houses, quaint villages, old industrial buildings, open landscape, home to the great artists Van Gogh and Rembrandt. It is famous for its cheeses, clogs, chocolate, diamond manufacturing and bulbs especially tulips. The precious bulbs were once bought and sold on the stock market like gold is to day. Exorbitant prices were paid for the precious bulbs and just like the property market to day the trade became over heated and collapsed.
Amsterdam was a fishing village at the mouth of the Amster River. In about 1200 and a dam was built across the river hence the name Amsterdam. Rich merchants built their magnificent homes on wooden piles with stone steps leading up to their decorated doorways, high narrow windows and ornamental gables along the canal waters
in the 17th and 18th centuries. Some of the houses have two entrances one for the family and one for the servants in by gone days. The houses have great character and grandeur, tall and narrow as in former days people were taxed according to their width. The narrowest is just 1 meter wide. There are huge iron furniture hooks over the top window of the houses as the inside stairs is too narrow to bring furniture to the upper rooms. Furniture is hauled in through the windows. We took a trip along the canals to enjoy this splendour of the ancient buildings. Unlike Venice the canal waters are pumped and circulated every day to prevent pollution, there are no foul smells.
The main mode of transport is the bicycle. The whole population seems to be on wheels so we had to be careful not to get knocked down by a bicycle. We passed a bicycle park that held thousands of bicycles. The city has introduced a ‘Park and Ride’ system – giving the car owner a free ticket for the metro and tram. This policy has greatly reduced the traffic in the city.
We visited Bagiunhof nunnery – a secluded hideaway in the busy city. It once housed nuns who did not ta
ke the vows of poverty and chastity but devoted their lives working among the poor. In their magnificent chapel we viewed a picture depicting “The Miracle of Amsterdam”. In 1345 a ma
n in Kalverstraat who was very ill received the host. But, as he was not feeling well, he vomited. As a mark of respect, everything was gathered up and thrown into the fire.
The next day this Host was found undamaged in the ashes. The priest took the Host to the ‘Old Church’ in those days the only church in Amsterdam. Single women live in the peaceful surroundings to day.
We visited the Anne Frank Museum.
“I’ll make my voice heard
I’ll go out into the world
And work for mankind”
Anne wrote those lines 11th April 1944. Anne Frank’s diary, written between 1942 and 1944 in hi
ding in Amsterdam (now her Museum), is the most widely read document about the Nazi crimes, and it has made Anne Frank one of the best know figures of the 20th century. She was four when she left her native Germany, thirteen when she went into hiding, and not yet sixteen when she died in a concentration camp, one of the 6million Jewish victims of Hitler’s racial madness. When you walk through her hiding place in the attic an eerie silence prevails among the people visiting the museum as they are struck by the sheer horror of what befell those innocent victims.
Otto Frank, her father said in 1970 “We cannot change what has happened anymore, the only thing we can do is to learn from the past and realize what discrimination and persecution of innocent people means. I believe that it is everyones responsibility to fight prejudice”
There are numerous restaurants all along the canals serving delicious food from different countries, We strolled around the city visiting a diamond cutting factory, Dam Square, the flower and flea markets, passed the Royal Palace, the War Memorial, Rembrandt House, The Mint Tower and the ‘Solas Dearg’ area. Did we visit any of the establishments there? Did we look? Well there were a number of very respectable ladies from Oughterard and fellow teachers with me on this trip so I am not at liberty to divulge the secrets of the trip!!
Mary Kyne