Amersfoort; Saturday, 08 July, 2017

A relatively early start and after a good breakfast I headed out into town, with my first stop being the offices of the volunteer group that run canal tours round the city. I booked onto the two tours that they offer – a regular tour round the Western parts of the canal network and a less regular tour round the eastern parts. The second tour was booked for later in the day, but the first tour was due to start about 20 minutes later so I went for a little wander round the neighbouring Hof market place before heading back to the boarding point.

The West tour was very interesting – taking in lots of the key sights in the city and some impressive bits of architecture. Tour completed and back at the boarding point I had about 90 minutes to spare before my second tour of the day so I went for a wander around some of the streets of the city – taking in some more of the defensive gates of the city before finding myself back at the Hof by the spectacular Saint Joris church.

I visited the church which has an interesting architectural history – the original and oldest part of the building being the current tower which was originally a watchtower for the city, before being adapted by having a chapel built onto the end of it. The original chapel is long since gone, but the second larger church that was built on the site was in significant parts still kept, but opened out when the much larger current church was built around it – in places it does look very much like the skeleton of an old building within the existing church structure.

Having looked round the church it was time to head back to the boarding point and pick up the East tour round the canal network. Whilst the canal itself forms a complete ring around the city at one point on the Eastern part of the network one building has been built so low as to prevent access underneath it by boats so the tour gets up to that point, moors up and we continued on foot around the obstruction – and through some more pretty parts of the city – to the opposite side where a second boat was waiting (two East tours set off at the same time going in opposite directions with the other party meeting us just as we moored up to take our boat back – we used theirs.)

I headed back over to the square by the Onze Lieve Vrouwetoren for a quick spot of lunch before joining the land train tour of the city – run by the same group of volunteers who run the canal tours.

The train took in a much wider part of the city – including some of the former city walls, before returning back into the centre. I stayed on for the final tour of the day as that one finished close back to the hotel.

I freshened up in the hotel before heading back out into town a little later for a very pleasant dinner.