Amsterdam's canal system is one of the most ambitious feats of urban engineering in history — a 17th-century network of 165 waterways dug by hand during the Dutch Golden Age, when this city was the wealthiest trading hub on earth. A canal cruise doesn't just put you on the water; it reorients your understanding of how Amsterdam actually works. The narrow gabled merchant houses lean conspicuously forward (deliberately, to hoist goods by pulley to upper-floor storerooms), the bridges stack up in picturesque rows, and the whole thing suddenly makes sense as a city built around commerce, not aesthetics — though it ended up being both.
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