The tour boat we climbed into was moored in a canal called the Rokin. The Rokin canal is the now-underwhelming last stretch of the River Amstel. At one time it extended to the dam located at Dam Square, but the last part was filled in and turned into a street (also called Rokin) in 1936.


The tour featured a pre-recorded multilingual narration, and began by turning into the Amstel proper and passing some notable buildings. There were low bridges on the river and on canals feeding into the river, but the boat was even lower, easily passing under the bridges that were encountered along the route.




Before reaching the Magere Brug, or "Skinny Bridge", the boat took a right turn into one of the main canals, the Herengracht. The Herengracht is one of the concentric canals surrounding the city center, and as we traversed most of its length we passed several intersecting canals. At the end of the Herengracht we cut over to one of the other main canals, the Singel, which feeds directly into the IJ. On the Singel there is a lock called the Nieuwe Haarlemmersluis, dating from the 17th Century, which is used to maintain the water level of the canal while providing a means for boats to pass through to the IJ. We passed right through, as the canal level and the tidally-influenced IJ level were apparently the same.


After passing through the lock, we passed under a couple of bridges that carried trains (on tracks leading to the main train station) and auto traffic (on a major road called De Ruijterkade), and then emerged into the IJ. On the IJ we could see some of the usual activities one sees at a major harbor, plus some buildings of note. Among these buildings were the EYE Film Institute, the A'DAM Tower (a 22-story building mostly used by "creative" businesses), the train station and the Muziekgebouw concert hall. There was a passenger terminal for cruise ships next to the Muziekgebouw.



We entered a small channel next to the Muziekgebouw which took us into a small body of water called the Oosterdok, separated by an island from the IJ. Located on the Oosterdok is a distinctive science center called NEMO, as well as a picturesque floating Chinese restaurant called the Sea Palace. Moored past NEMO we noticed a two-masted brigantine ship called the Wytske Eelkje (apparently available for charter).


Beyond the Wytske Eelkje we entered a canal called the Oudeschans, which took us back into the Amsterdam canal system. We made our way back to the Amstel and returned to the Rokin landing, where we disembarked back to solid ground.


By this time it was early evening, and it had been a busy day. We found dinner and walked back to the hotel. The following day would be our last full day in Amsterdam (and Europe) for this trip, and we had some plans. First, we would look at some of the local churches.