The trip is about an hour and gives a good commentary of what you can see. At nighttime the bridges are all lit up, and as it was winter, we could see more than usual, as there were not yet any leaves on the trees. The canal boat trip was interesting but not as pleasant as a trip down the Seine in Paris. If you have time to do it, then fine, but if not, don't worry!

There are a slew of canal boat tours available in Amsterdam as you walk along the Damrak. They all offer similar 1 hour tours of the canals on glass-topped boats. Most also offer dinner cruises and other longer tours. Lovers is the line we chose. Their website in Dutch gives details on the Rondvaart (roundtrip) overrdag cruise that we took.

The first thing to understand is that the boat will not leave until it is full. We were greatly misled by this and got to spend 30 minutes sitting in a boat that was not air-conditioned (read: sauna), waiting for it to fill up. It was not exceedingly warm out the day we cruised, so if you are doing this tour in summer, plan ahead. The boat heads out first to the harbor and you will spend a good 20 minutes floating out there, rather than in the canals. This was fine with me, but was a disappointment to others. The loudspeakers will announce key highlights in 4 languages: Dutch, German, English and French. Because of this, the detail given to each is slim. If you plan on taking pictures, sit in a row that has a window that opens, otherwise you will be taking pictures through the window, as you will see in my shots for this entry.

After leaving the harbor, you will be taken through the locks to the Kaisergracht, Prinsengracht, and Herrengracht. You will see the Anne Frank House, Westerkerk and other major sites of Amsterdam as you are traveling. One of the most famous parts of the canal tour, the 7 bridges, was skipped on our tour due to canal congestion, I assume. We started to turn to see it and then turned back around, with no announcement as to reason. This is the part of the canals where you can see 7 bridges in a row and I wish we had been able to catch it.

While a canal tour is a staple of Amsterdam tourism, I can't really recommend this line. Not having tried others, I don't know if they offer better tours. Given the cost, 9 euro, I would hope for more time in the canals or at least a live guide. Our captain didn't say a word to us until the end, when he asked for tips. A better way to get the same experience would be to rent a boat or a canal bike and make the tour yourself. Just watch out for all the canal tour boats. They're everywhere!

The dawning of our last day found us both a bit green around the gills and rather sorry that all our new friends had moved on. We decided that the best antidote would be a boat trip -- which we’d meant to do on our first day to help get our bearings, but typically profligate, we’d gone straight to the Red Light District.

We bought tickets from a captainly-looking cove with an admirable white beard. He seemed rather amused: had we misunderstood and been sold passage on a slave ship bound for Istanbul or bought ourselves seven years before the mast on a Dutch whaling ship?

It was all right though, the boat just chugged gently round the canals, with a recorded multilingual commentary pointing out unusual houses, sites and views (including one of seven bridges all in a row). I prefer a real live guide, because they often have more amusing and irreverent stories.

There were one or two scenes that I recognised from the Van Gogh pictures. I pointed these out smugly to Paul V, but he was lying back in his seat, eyes closed. The weather was incredible for the first days of March -- the air was golden with sunlight, absolutely still, but cool enough to feel clean. Just breathing seemed to be repairing the ravages of the night before.