October 23 Amsterdam

We are staying in number 21 Herengracht Canal. The house is about eighteen feet wide, maybe forty or more feet deep and four stories tall, plus an additional little attic. It abuts right up to the houses on either side. Our beautiful third floor room has high ceilings with wooden rafters, and windows all across that overlook the canal. We climb twenty-eight very narrow spiral stairs to get up here.

Outside, each house has curlicues on a sort of false front high up on the roof. A fisherman built this house in 1643, so he decorated the very top gable face with a plaster fish. An Amsterdam house leans slightly towards the canal and has a large arm and hook apparatus on the top floor. Because the tiny stairways are less than a yard wide, furniture had to be moved into the house with a cable and pulley system so the large items could then go in through the windows. It’s the same in 2019 as in 1643.

Today I visited a grander house that Rembrandt lived in for twenty years. I was in awe looking up close at some of his engravings but was also charmed by his house with its narrow spiral stairways, big kitchen, living/bedroom, and library of full of plaster busts, natural objects and albums of prints. On the upper floors were studios where he did his work and taught about five students at a time.

Later in the day, our landlord Tony took us on a cruise in his little six seater “notary boat.” We cruised through the canals and the Amstel River admiring the bridges, houses and houseboats. Tony, a lifelong Amsterdammer and kind of an eccentric, commented that every single house is different. I noticed that every boat moored along our way was different too. (The ladder to get on and off the boat was a lot scarier than any stairway!)

The day we arrived here, I twisted my ankle on the spiral stairs and refused to go down even for dinner. Now, I’m not nimble on the stairs but I take them with confidence, grateful to live for a few days in this lovely Amsterdam home.