Cruising the Canals of Amsterdam

I was really sleepy, so I took a nap. When I woke up I was determined to get my granddaughter a canal cruise as that is the most iconic way to see Amsterdam. There is a canal cruise company that we can see out of our window. But it is too far for me to walk. So we took the scooter down (my granddaughter got it out of the room by herself), and I borrowed a wheelchair from the hotel. I paid the hotel 26 euros (all but one euro of the money I had changed yesterday) and they printed tickets for me

Ticket

and we set off with me in the wheelchair. It wasn't a very good wheelchair. One of the foot rests was wonky.

When we left the hotel, the sidewalk slanted to the street and I almost ended up there, but we pushed around to the canal boat place and then I went down the stairs and someone carried the wheelchair down for my granddaughter. I knew there was a ramp but did not feel we were up to doing that. Just as well as the wheelchair has no brakes

The first boat place they said, well that the tickets were for a one hour tour and this was the 90 minute tour place. We should be on the other side of the bridge (?) but I should go to the man in the orange shirt and he could fit us in. So we went through crowds of East Indian tourists and found the man in the orange shirt. He said I could go on the next boat. The boat that came in there was a wheelchair man and he sort of crawled off the boat and they brought his wheelchair to him so that answered the question of what to do with the wheelchair.

They took the wheelchair and helped me on the boat and the captain said if I wanted I could sit in the open air in the back so I did. We sat on the left and plugged in our earphones which and left the language to English.

Then a whole boatload of the East Indians got on. The WC was in the back where we were so a lot of them came to use it, and a lot of the men were standing back there so that those of us who were sitting on the left could not see what was on the right. But on the whole it was a good canal boat tour.

Starting off

Welcome to Lovers Canal Cruise

go under the bridge

1 Hour Canal cruise

Canal Museum Tours

boat under the bridge

Chinese restaurant

Nemo

no anchoring

Bridge traffic light

Montelbaanstoren tower

restaurant

market stalls from the back

Looking down the canal

fancy lights

bridge and boat

Bridge stop light

Girl in the window

No alcohol zone

bikes by the canal

Swan escort

We got the wheelchair back. Now to get back to the hotel. I searched for the ramp which proved to be a bike path. My granddaughter pushed and I pulled on the railing and pushed with my feet (I had decided the foot rests were useless) and we got up the less steep part, but at the top it was too steep. Two ladies asked if we needed help and they helped my granddaughter push me to the top.

We got back to the hotel and retrieved the scooter. In backing out of where I had put it, it was faster than I wanted it to be and I almost destroyed one of the box things they had in the lobby. (There was no real reception desk - just a bunch of kind of small standing desks.) The guys at reception explained that the restaurant is not open from 12 to 4 and then it opens for dinner. It isn't open for lunch.

My granddaughter got a pizza

pizza

and I got chicken salad, iced tea and Dutch apple pie. My granddaughter ate 3 pieces of pizza. The iced tea was carbonated.

Sparkling tea (carbonated)

Dutch apple pie

She went and refilled the water bottles from where we had breakfast. I ordered grilled cheese to go, and they gave my granddaughter the 3 pieces of pizza that she didn't eat.

Again I had trouble getting into the elevator. If I am not absolutely straight, the back wheels hit the door and when I am in there, there, having hit the back wall each time as the scooter does not stop quickly, I have about 4" clearance behind me and it takes someone little to be able to get in beside me.

When we got up to the room, I decided not to put the scooter in the room but to leave it in the hall. I was still showing fully charged and we hadn't really been anywhere.

I edited photos and then took a nap. My granddaughter was sneezing quite a bit but she says she's OK. She asked if my son (her uncle) saw a kill when he was in Kenya with my mother, and I did not remember.

We are being picked up tomorrow by the scooter people at 10 for the tour of the outside villages.